young dramatist; she seems exhausted by her maternal indulgence, and the child-his lips moist with milk and his eyes beaming with inspiration. and health-appears anxious to quit her bosom for that of Comedy-a more youthful and gladsome lady, who with loose looks and looser attire-with laughing eyes and feet made to do nothing but dance, has begun to toy and talk with him. Around this group the painter has summoned the various characters which the poet afterwards created. Lady Constance is there with her settled sorrow-Lady Macbeth exhibits herself in that sleeping scene to which a Siddons has added terrors all her own; the three weird sisters--those black and midnight hags-appear dim but well defined. Falstaff too is there, a hogshead of a man with a tun of wit: and Caliban, a strange creation -a connecting link between man and brute

-comes

grovelling forward to look at his creator. Over the whole glares Hamlet's Ghost, throwing a sort of supernatural halo upon all around. The mask of Othello lies in the robe of Tragedy, and Queen Mab and one of her merriest comrades are sporting in Shakespeare's cradle.

The Titania is more exclusively comic, and can be compared to nothing more aptly than to the Strolling Actresses of Hogarth-it overflows with elvish fun and imaginative drollery. It professes to embody that portion of the first scene in the fourth act where the spell-blinded queen caresses Bottom the weaver, on whose shoulders Oberon's tranforming wand has placed an ass's head. Titania, a gay and alluring being, attended by her

troop of fairies, is endeavouring to seem as lovely as possible in the sight of her lover, who holds down his head and assumes the air of the most stupid of all creatures. One almost imagines that her ripe round lips are uttering the well known words,

"Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,

While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,

And stick musk roses in thy sleek smooth head,
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy."

The rout and revelry which the fancy of the painter has poured around this spell-bound pair baffles all description. All is mirthful, tricksy, and fantastic. Sprites of all looks and all hues-of all "dimensions, shapes, and mettles," the dwarfish elf and the elegant fay-Cobweb commissioned to kill a red-hipped humble bee on the top of a thistle, that Bottom might have the honey-bag-Pease-Blossom, who had the less agreeable employment of scratching the weaver's head-and that individual fairy who could find the hoard of the squirrel and carry away his nuts-with a score of equally merry companions are swarming everywhere and in full employment. Pease-Blossom, a fairy of dwarfish stature, stands on tiptoe in the hollow of Bottom's hand, endeavouring to reach his nose-his fingers almost touch, he is within a quarter of an inch of scratching, but it is evident he can do no more, and his new master is too much of an ass to raise

him up.

The paintings which composed the Shakespeare Gallery were supplied by various hands;

the plan was new, and novelty seldom fails to attract the multitude; but the multitude cannot be supposed to have much sympathy with works of a purely poetic order. There must be a strong infusion of the grosser realities of life to secure extensive popularity: any rustic can feel the merits of John Gilpin, but what can such a person comprehend of the Penseroso? Much as the Shakespeare Gallery was praised, its excellence therefore was not felt by the people at large. The superiority of Fuseli in poetic conception over all his compeers was however appreciated by the few, on whose approbation alone he placed any value.

Those pictures were followed by others, all of a poetic order-Dante's Inferno suggested the Fransesca and Paolo-Virgil supplied him with Dido, from Sophocles he took Edipus devoting his son, and from Boccaccio the Theodore and Honorio. Concerning this latter picture Fuseli used to say, "Look at it-it is connected with the first patron I had." He then proceeded to relate how Cipriani had undertaken to paint for Horace Walpole a scene from Boccaccio's Theodore and Honorio, familiar to all in the splendid translation of Dryden, and, after several attempts, finding the subject too heavy for his handling, he said to Walpole, "I cannot please myself with a sketch from this most imaginative of Gothic fictions; but I know one who can do the story justice—a man of "Let me great powers, of the name of Fuseli."

see this painter of your's," said the other. Fuseli was sent for, and soon satisfied Walpole that his imagination was equal to the task by painting a splendid picture. He entertained till the hour of

his death a regard for Cipriani. Those works were
all marked by poetic freedom of thought and by
more than poetic extravagance of action. They
astonished many whom they could not please, and
the name of Fuseli was spread over the island and
heard of in foreign lands. He was elected an As-
sociate of the Academy in 1788, and early in 1790
became an Academician-honours won by talent
without the slightest co-operation of intrigue.
His election was nevertheless unpleasant to Rey-
nolds, who desired to introduce Bonomi the archi-
tect. Fuseli, to soothe the President, waited on
him and said, "I wish to be elected an academi-
cian. I have been disappointed hitherto by the
deceit of pretended friends-shall I offend
shall I offend you if
I offer myself next election. "Oh, no," said Sir
Joshua with a kindly air, no offence to me; but
you cannot be elected this time-we must have
an architect in." "Well, well," said Fuseli, who
could not conceive how an architect could be a
greater acquisition to the Academy than himself

“Well, well, you say I shall not offend you by offering myself, so I must make a trial." The result has been related in the life of Reynolds.

In the year 1788, he had taken a house in Queen Ann Street East, with a suitable gallery and studio, and married Sophia Rawlins. She proved a kind and faithful wife, who soothed him in moments of irritation, loved him warmly, and worshipped his genius. Higher birth and more delicate breeding might not have done more for him. She was handsome in youth, nor was she much faded when Opie painted her portrait. She was a woman of discretion too as well as of kindly

feelings, and had what ladies call "trials." These must be described, as they are interwoven closely with the character of her husband.

At the table of Johnson, the bookseller, Fuseli was a frequent guest, and in all conversations that passed there was lord of the ascendant. There he met his friend Armstrong, who praised him in the journals, Wolcot, whom he hated, and Mary Wolstonecraft, who at the first interview conferred upon him the honour of her love. The French Revolution was at that time giving hopes to the young and fears to the old. Fuseli was slightly smitten: but the cap of liberty itself seemed to have fallen on the heart as well as the head of the lady; who conducted herself as if it were absurd to doubt that the new order of things had loosened all the old moral obligations, and that marriage was but one of those idle ceremonies now disposed of for ever by the new dispensation of Lepaux and his brethren. With such notions Mary Wolstonecraft cast bold eyes upon the Shakespeare of canvass. And he, instead of repelling, as they deserved, those ridiculous advances, forthwith, it seems, imagined himself possest with the pure spirit of Platonic love-assumed the languid air of a sentimental Corydon-exhibited artificial raptures, and revived in imagination the fading fires of his youth. Yet Mrs. Fuseli appears to have had little serious cause for jealousy in this mutual

attachment.

"Between the celebrated painter and herself, (says the able writer who afterwards married Mary Wolstonecraft,) there existed sentiments of genuine affection and friendship. She saw Mr. Fuseli fre