One summer when I was a student I had a building job in south London, and I would go and sit to eat my lunch under the tree where Blake as a boy saw
visions of angels.
Poor William didn't get to rest much -
poverty dogged him all his life, and the need to earn a living must have severely reduced his output
Peter Ackroyd wrote an excellent biography of Blake, which I heartily recommend. He really places Blake in the
London of his time,
pieshops, pubs and
Jacobin clubs.