Blake and a 'curious hypothesis'

Alexander Gi;christ, in his Life of William Blake, relates how an unnamed friend of Blake's reported to him the artist's - curious hypothesis 'that the Bonaparte of Italy was killed, and that another was somehow substituted from the exigent want of the name, who was the Bonaparte of the Empire! He referred to the different physiognomies (as he thought) in the earlier and later portraits. But stranger still, he gave me the (forgotten) name of some public man - ambassador, or something of the sort - who assured him such was the case. And a very plausible story he made of it,' says the same friend.