William Blake (1757–1827), British poet, painter, engraver. Palamabron, in Milton, bk. 1 (c. 1810), repr. In Complete Writings, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (1957).
The saying has earlier proverbial antecedents in several languages: Queen Elizabeth I, quoted in J.E. Neale, Elizabeth I and Her Parliament ch. 4 (1957), said: "There is an Italian proverb which saith, 'From my enemy let me defend myself; but from a pretensed friend, good Lord deliver me.'..."
