location: Fulham
weather: overcast, some rain forecast for the evening, 13 degrees
mood: musing
food: fruit!!!!
time on public transport: none today... yet - estimated 2h20
artefacts seen: British Museum - last week - where to begin?!
impressions: Sorry Mr Buble, but the British Museum has all the charm in the world - if only the British Library had staff like that! I can quite easily extol the virtues of the British Museum Prints and Drawings Department all day. With the largest collection of Blake artworks, that is easily understood. But its more the help, the interest, and the happiness to let you look at whatever you want to with expert advice on hand which makes me a fan.
I got to touch, and read the only complete copy of Milton in the UK (the other 3 are in the US) - the proof prints and Copy A of Jerusalem - Visions of the Daughters of Albion, um, America, Europe, sketches, watercolours, annotated proofs. All there, all painstaking corrected with a fine watercolour brush, or fine (or hastily scrawled) copperplate writing... wow. Just... wow. I'll be back there as often as I can afford the time. Still waiting on the British Library to get back to me on the application to see the manuscript.
And it's the Fitzwilliam Museum tomorrow, Thursday and Friday. More on Cambridge later... I have to catch a train there now!
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