troduce him, that he announced himself with an expression which the inimitable Liston has since rendered proverbial, "I hope I don't intrude.""You do intrude," said Fuseli, in a surly tone, "Do I?" said the visitor; "then, Sir, I will come to-morrow, if you please. "No, Sir," replied he, "don't come to-morrow, for then you will intrude a second time: tell me your business now.

Fuseli spared no one: on Nollekens he was often very merciless; he disliked him for his close and parsimonious nature, and rarely failed to hit him under the fifth rib. Once at the table of Mr. Coutts the banker, Mrs. Coutts, dressed like Morgiana, came dancing in presenting her dagger at every breast: as she confronted the sculptor, Fuseli called out, "Strike-strike-there's no fear; Nolly was never known to bleed."

When

Blake, a man infinitely more wild in conception than Fuseli himself, showed him one of his strange productions, he said, "Now some one has told

you this is very fine. “Yes,” said Blake, “ the

Virgin Mary appeared to me, and told me it was very fine: what can you say to that?". Say?" exclaimed Fuseli, "why nothing-only her ladyship has not an immaculate taste.

From 1817 to 1825, Fuseli exhibited at the Academy a dozen of pictures, and neither the fervour of his fancy nor his skill of hand had failed him in the least. Of his twelve last pictures, six were received with much approbation--Perseus starting from the cave of the Gorgons-the Lady and the Infernal Knight in Theodore and Honorio

Dante descending into Hell discovers in a whirlwind the forms of Paolo and Francesca-an In

cantation from Theocritus-Theseus, Ariadne, and the Minotaur and Comus from Milton. These works attest his love of poetic art, and his resolution to die as he had lived-in the service of the loftier Muses.

Fuseli was wise in calling in the graver to the aid of his fame. His exquisite outline was preserved, his wild colouring, which startled thousands, concealed, and the ruling sentiment exhibited in all its perfection. This was performed for him by the hand of Moses Haughton-an artist skilful alike with graver and pencil, and as the engravings were all made under the eye of Fuseli himself they are much in request with collectors, and rarer than I could wish them to be. Of these the Lazar House-Satan aroused from the ear of Eve Hamlet's Ghost-the Midsummer Night's Dream-and that fine one the

"Goddess fair and free,

In heaven ycleped Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth".

are the best specimens, and those who have the good fortune to possess them are enabled to see Fuseli in some of his highest moods.

He had the art of acquiring friends and the rarer art of retaining them. To the names of Cadell and Boydell and Armstrong, his first and intimate companions, he added many more as he increased in years; and in naming those who purchased his works, we name the chief patrons of the poetic style of painting. Roscoe, the elegant author of the life of Leo the Tenth, bought eleven

Wood Mason purchased four-― Sir Robert

Smythe became proprietor of several-six went to
the gallery of Mr. Locke of Newbury Park-two
were purchased by Sir Brooke Boothby-as many
by the late Lord de Tabley-Graham Moore and
Carrick Moore, brothers of Sir John Moore, com-
missioned several. Mr. Knowles increased his
collection to a dozen, and the Earl of Guildford,
a kind and constant friend, became proprietor of
forty. He exhibited in all some seventy pictures
-but he painted several hundreds, and those are
scattered through many collections.
collections. One of great
merit-Paulo and Francesco-is honourably placed
in the gallery of Sir Thomas Lawrence; and
another singularly wild and beautiful piece is in
the keeping of one who feels its worth, Mr. Waine-
wright.

The wit of Fuseli was ever ready, and flowed freely out for the pleasure or the annoyance of all who visited him, whether friends or strangers. So much did it abound that the man who was in his company but once was sure to hear something worthy of being remembered for the rest of his life. I have already given specimens not a fewone who studied under him in the Academy has enabled me to relate a few more-I shall set them down at random, for the periods at which some of them were uttered are uncertain.

One day, during varnishing time in the exhibition, an eminent portrait painter was at work on the hand of one of his pictures; he turned to the Keeper, who was near him, and said, "FuseliMichael Angelo never painted such a hand.""No, by Pluto," replied the other, "but you have, He had an inherent dislike to Opie; and

many.'

1

some one, to please Fuseli, said, in allusion to the low characters in the historical pictures of the Death of James the First of Scotland and the murder of David Rizzio, that Opie could paint nothing but vulgarity and dirt. "If he paints nothing but dirt," said Fuseli," he paints it like an angel." He was probably pleased to see the head of his enemy Wolcot figuring away on the shoulders of an assassin in the Death of the Royal Poet. One day a painter, who had been a student during the keepership of Wilton, called and said, "The students, Sir, don't draw so well now as they did under Joe Wilton." "Very true," replied Fuseli, any body may draw here, let them draw ever so bad-you may draw here if you please!"

During the delivery of one of his lectures, wherein he calls landscape painters the topographers of art, Beechey admonished Turner with his elbow of the severity of the sarcasm; presently when Fuseli described the patrons of portrait painting as men who would give a few guineas to have their own senseless heads painted, and then assume the air and use the language of patrons, Turner administered a similar hint to Beechey. When the lecture was over Beechey walked up to Fuseli, and said, "How sharply you have been cutting up us poor labourers in portraiture!" "Not you, Sir William," exclaimed the professor, "I only spoke of the blasted fools who employ you!" A man of some station in society, and who considered himself a powerful patron in art, said at a public dinner where he was charmed with Fuseli's conversation, "If ever you come my way, Fuseli, I shall be happy to see you." "I thank you," replied

the painter, "but I never go your way-I never even go down your street, though I often pass by the end of it.” He looked on a time at a serpent with its tail in its mouth, a common-place emblem of eternity, which was carved upon an exhibited monument. "It wont do, I tell you," said Fuseli to the sculptor, you must have something new." The something new startled a man whose imagination was none of the brightest, and he said, "How shall I find something new?" “O, nothing so easy," said Fuseli, "I'll help you to it. When I went away to Rome I left two fat men cutting fat bacon in St. Martin's Lane; in ten years time I returned, and found the two fat men cutting fat bacon still: twenty years more have passed, and there the two fat fellows cut the fat Alitches the same as ever. Carve them! if they look not like an image of eternity I wot not what does."

During the exhibition of his Milton Pictures he called at the banking-house of Mr. Coutts, saying he was going out of town for a few days, and wished to have some money in his pocket. "How much?" said one of the members of the firm. "How much !" said Fuseli, " why as much as twenty pounds; and as it is a large sum, and I don't wish to take your establishment by surprise, I have called to give you a day's notice of it!", "I thank you, Sir," said the cashier, imitating Fuseli's own tone of irony, we shall be ready for you-but as the town is thin and money scarce with us, you will oblige me greatly by giving us a few orders to see your Milton Gallery-it will keep cash in our drawers and hinder your exhibi

VOL. II.

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