“Felpham Cottage: of Cottages the prettiest”

The early months of 1800 in Lambeth weren’t Blake’s most cheerful, as he found himself at
the bottom of a “Deep pit of Melancholy, Melancholy without any reason for it”. A change of
air was imperative and William Hayley came in handy. A poet and biographer who enjoyed
some popularity in his times, Hayley was a gentleman from Sussex and a patron of the Arts.
Compelled by the talents of the London visionary, he invited his new friend to spend a few
days in Felpham, a small country village with a population of 500 inhabitants in the scenic
Sussex coast, to complete a few commissioned works, hoping that the sea breeze would to
uplift Blake’s downhearted soul.

Blake’s first visit to Felpham in the pleasant summer of 1800 made such an impression that
Hayley’s idea of becoming his major patron seemed the most opportune. In letters to friends
at the time, his enthusiasm was contagious. Blake judged that Felpham was “the sweetest
spot on Earth”, a true “dwelling of immortals” where “Men are the mildest of the human
race” and even “handsomer than the people about London”. Most importantly, as a place
“propitious to the Arts”, Blake hoped that his own visionary projects would progress “with
God speed”:

Felpham is a sweet place for Study. because it is more Spiritual than London
Heaven opens here on all sides her golden Gates her windows are not
obstructed by vapours. voices of Celestial inhabitants are more distinctly
heard & their forms more distinctly seen.

Convinced that Felpham would raise his spirits and stimulate his imagination, Blake found a
seventeenth century cottage that looked like a perfect dwelling for his genius. He wrote to
his friend George Cumberland: “I fell in love with my Cottage. I have now better prospects
than ever (…) I can be Poet, Painter & Musician as the Inspiration comes”.

Rented for twenty pounds a year, the two-storeyed Cottage was composed of three rooms and
a kitchen on the ground floor, and three bedrooms on the upper floor where Blake could
contemplate the sea and see his visions taking form in the unobstructed horizon. Nonetheless,
it was its dweller who provided the most accurate (and poetic) account of his new residence:

We are safe arrived at our Cottage which is more beautiful than I thought it. &
more convenient. It is a perfect Model for Cottages & I think for Palaces of
Magnificence only Enlarging not altering its proportions & adding ornaments
& not principals. Nothing can be more Grand than its Simplicity &
Usefulness. Simple without Intricacy it seems to be the Spontaneous Effusion
of Humanity congenial to the wants of Man. No other formed House can ever
please me so well nor shall I ever be perswaded I believe that it can be
improved either in Beauty or Use.

Blake and his wife Catherine were also enamoured with their flintstone-walled garden, where
they grew vegetables and flowers and their kitten could prowl unbothered. It was the same
garden where his altered eye saw trilling larks taking the form of Angels, and where he was
visited by unheralded sublime creatures of his prophetic mythology, like Ololon, a “Virgin of
Twelve years”, and Los, who appeared to him as a “terrible flaming Sun”. Eventually, he also
saw the great poet Milton “clothed in black, severe & silent”, descending into his garden
through a staircase “paved with precious stones”.

In the course of three years, Blake concentrated his time working strenuously on a number of
commissioned works for Hayley, most notably, a series of 18 paintings to decorate his
patron’s library, known as Heads of the Poets, the designing and engraving to the broadsheet
ballad Little Tom the Sailor, the mock-epic poem The Triumphs of Temper and the
three-volume biography of William Cowper. At the time Blake was also busy producing
miniature portraits, for which he became particularly well-known in the village.

Because of the overwhelming demand of commissions, Blake struggled to find some time for
his own projects. Nevertheless, the magical atmosphere of Felpham provided him with the
most singular visions which would later appear profusely in his last prophetic books. Blake
himself thought the whole enterprise of moving to Felpham was predetermined by
Providence (or more accurately, Los), and believed that his last prophetic works were “the
Grand Reason” for the sojourn:

For when Los joind with me he took me in his firy whirlwind

My Vegetated portion was hurried from Lambeths shades
 He set me down in Felphams Vale & prepard a beautiful
Cottage for me that in three years I might write all these Visions
To display Natures cruel holiness: the deceits of Natural Religion

But none can know the Spiritual Acts of my three years Slumber on the banks
of the Ocean unless he has seen them in the Spirit or unless he should read My
long Poem descriptive of those Acts for I have in these three years composed
an immense number of verses on One Grand Theme Similar to Homers Iliad
or Miltons Paradise Lost the Person & Machinery intirely new to the
Inhabitants of Earth (some of the Persons Excepted) I have written this Poem
from immediate Dictation twelve or sometimes twenty or thirty lines at a time
without Premeditation & even against my Will. the Time it has taken in writing
was thus renderd Non Existent. & an immense Poem Exists which seems to be
the Labour of a long Life all producd without Labour or Study. I mention this
to shew you what I think the Grand Reason of my being brought down here

Blake dedicated his (scanty) spare time to the revision of Vala, or The Four Zoas considered
by Northrop Frye “the greatest abortive masterpiece in English literature”. Started in 1797,
Vala was the basis for the preliminary drafts of Milton and Jerusalem the Emanation of the
Giant Albion, both conceived in his Cottage. In addition, most of the poems found in the
Pickering Manuscript, including his aphoristic gem Auguries of Innocence are believed to be
a product of those times. Assuredly, the Cottage did not only inspire William but also his
devoted companion Catherine. In a letter addressed to Mrs Flaxman, she laid down a few
lines to persuade her friend and her husband to pay them a visit:

This Song to the flower of Flaxmans joy

To the blossom of hope for a sweet decoy
Do all that you can or all that you may
To entice him to Felpham & far away

Away to Sweet Felpham for Heaven is there

The Ladder of Angels descends thro the air
On the Turret its spiral does softly descend
Thro' the village then winds at My Cot does end

You stand in the village & look up to heaven

The precious stones glitter on flights seventy seven
And My Brother is there & My Friend & Thine
 Descend & Ascend with the Bread & the Wine

The Bread of sweet Thought & the Wine of Delight

Feeds the Village of Felpham by day & by night
And at his own door the blessd Hermit does stand
Dispensing Unceasing to all the whole Land

As time went by, the sweet airs of Felpham grew tense and oppressive for the Blakes.
Hayley’s endless demands distracted William from his creative pursuits and their friendship
was gradually poisoned by resentment. Clearly, Blake was not the “Passive & Polite &
Virtuous Ass: & obedient to Noblemens Opinions in Art & Science” type. On top of that,
Catherine’s health was rapidly deteriorating with the ‘ague’ and rheumatism caused by the
dampness of the Cottage:

Misery builds over our cottage roofs, and Discontent runs like a brook (…)
When I came down here I was more sanguine than I am at present but it was
because I was ignorant of many things which have since occurred & chiefly
the unhealthiness of the place Yet I do not repent of coming, on a thousand
accounts.

In the summer of 1803, an altercation with a soldier found drunk in his garden culminated in
an accusation of sedition which could have put him in jail for many years. That was the last
straw, and before the trial was over, in which he was tried and acquitted, he had already
decided to return to London. The incident was indeed very traumatic and had a profound
impact on his writing, especially on his late prophecies. The soldier himself, John Schofield,
and many of those involved in the trial gave their names to the dreadful and vile Sons of
Albion presented in Milton and Jerusalem:

The manner in which I have routed out the nest of villains will be seen in a
Poem concern [in] my Three years <Herculean> Labours at Felpham which I
will soon Publish.

At the end of that bitter summer, the Blakes moved out of their so beloved Cottage, where
they believed their “spirits seem still to hover round”. They left Felpham on 18 September
1803, exactly three years after they arrived. Many years after returning to London, Blake still
thought of the Cottage with tender kindness. Of all houses he lived, it was surely the one
which in physical and spiritual shape mirrored his idiosyncratic inner world with the most
perfection.

O that I could but bring Felpham to me or go to her in this World as easy as I

can in that of Affection & Remembrance.