Poems featuring a narrator's melancholy musings on the nature of mortality were very popular during the eighteenth century. A prominent example of the Graveyard genre, Blair's poem, although published in 1743, had never appeared in a special edition. As the inaugural project of R. H. Cromek, an engraver turned publisher, it became a disaster for Blake. Although he created the drawings, Cromek paid him poorly and hired Louis Schiavonetti to engrave them. The loss of the engraving fees and the book's poor reception deprived Blake of new work and initiated several years of penury.
Robert Blair (1699-1746), The Grave: A Poem, London, Plate 4 (of 12), PML 152319