crowbars and break open the door." The porter -a sagacious old man, who knew the trim of the Keeper-whispered through the keyhole, "Feel in your pocket, Sir, for the key!" He did so, and unlocking the door, with a loud laugh exclaimed, "What a fool-never mind-I'll to the Council, and soon show them they are greater asses than myself."

With all these impediments in the way of popularity, Fuseli was generally liked, and by none more than by the students who were so often made the objects of his satire. They were sensible that he was assiduous in instruction-that he was very learned and very skilful, and that he allowed no one else to take liberties with their conduct or their pursuits. He had a tact like that of inspiration in singling out the most intellectual of the pupils he was the first to notice Lawrence, and at the very outset of Wilkie he predicted his future eminence. He was so near-sighted that he was obliged to retire from his easel to a distance and examine his labours by means of an opera glass, then return and retouch and retire again and look. This imperfection was seriously in his way to eminence, and helps to account for a certain hardness of anatomical detail visible even in his best works. His weakness of sight was well known, and one of the students in revenge for some satirical strictures, placed a bench in his way, over which he nearly fell. "Bless my soul," said the Keeper, "I must put spectacles upon my shins." This sally of wit saved him probably from falling into a passion.

Men interpreted Fuseli's frequent complaints of

want of encouragement in his art as tantamount to an acknowledgment of poverty. He became a member of the Academy at the urgent request of his wife, in order that she might be sure of forty pounds annually in case of his death; and the Royal Academy bestowed the Keepership upon him in order to avoid the reproach of permitting a man of his learning and genius to suffer from want in his old age. To the surprise of his executors and the astonishment of his brethren, he died comparatively rich. How he had contrived to hoard, no one could divine; the sums which he received for his paintings were not large; the earnings of his pen could be but moderate, and in his native land he inherited no patrimony. He lived at little expense it is true-but frugality cannot soon make six or seven thousand pounds out of a small income. I hesitate to mention, what I suspect is the truth, that opulent friends paid him more than he charged for his pictures, in the belief that such kindness was not unseasonable, and that Fuseli wanted the fortitude to confess that he had no real occasion for such benevolence.

As a painter, his merits are of no common order. He was no timid and creeping adventurer in the region of art, but a man peculiarly bold and daring-who rejoiced only in the vast, the wild, and the wonderful, and loved to measure himself with any subject, whether in the heaven above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth. The domestic and humble realities of life he considered unworthy of his pencil, and employed it only on those high or terrible themes where imagination may put forth all her strength, and fancy scatter all

her colours. He associated only with the demigods of verse, and roamed through Homer, and Dante, and Shakespeare, and Milton, in search of subjects worthy of his hand; he loved to grapple with whatever he thought too weighty for others; and assembling round him the dim shapes which imagination called readily forth, sat brooding over the chaos, and tried to bring the whole into order and beauty. He endeavoured anxiously to

"Produce those permanent and perfect forms,
Those characters of heroes and of gods,

Which from the crude materials of the world
His own high mind created.”

But poetry had invested them with a diviner pomp than Fuseli could command, and it was on these occasions that he complained of his inability to work up to the conceptions of his fancy. He had splendid dreams, but like those of Eve they were sometimes disturbed by a demon, and passed away for ever before he could embody them.

His main wish was to startle and astonish-it was his ambition to be called Fuseli the daring and the imaginative, the illustrator of Milton and Shakespeare, the rival of Michael Angelo. Out of the seventy exhibited paintings on which he reposed his hope of fame, not one can be called common-place-they are all poetical in their nature, and as poetically treated. Some twenty of these alarm, startle, and displease; twenty more may come within the limits of common comprehension; the third twenty are such as few men could produce, and deserve a place in the noblest collections; while the remaining ten are equal in con

ception to any thing that genius has hitherto produced, and second only in their execution to the true and recognised masterpieces of art. It cannot be denied, however, that a certain air of extravagance and a desire to stretch and strain is visible in most of his works. A common mind, having no sympathy with his soaring, perceives his defects at once, and ranks him with the wild and unsoberpoetic mind will not allow the want of serenity and composure to extinguish the splendour of the conception; but whilst it notes the blemish, will feel the grandeur of the work. The approbation of high minds fixes the degree of fame to which genius of all degrees is entitled, and the name of Fuseli is safe.

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His colouring is like his design, original; it has a kind of supernatural hue, which harmonizes with many of his subjects-the spirits of the other state and the hags of hell are steeped in a kind of kindred colour, which becomes their characters. His notion of colour suited the wildest of his subjects; and the hue of Satan and the lustre of Hamlet's Ghost are part of the imagination of those supernatural shapes. Yet original as his colouring is, and suitable to the scenes which it often embodies, it seems unnatural when applied to earthly flesh and blood, and communicates hues which belong to other worlds to the sons and daughters of Adam. It is to be praised rather than imitated, and would be out of harmony with subjects of common emotion and every-day life.

His sketches are very numerous, amounting to eight hundred, and show the varied knowledge and vigorous imagination of the man. He busied him

self during his hours of leisure with making sketches and drawings from scenes which had occurred in his reading, or had arisen on his fancy; in this manner he illustrated the whole range of poetry ancient and modern. Those who are only acquainted with Fuseli through his paintings know little of the extent of his genius; they should see him in his designs and drawings, to feel his powers and know him rightly. The variety of those productions is truly wonderful, and their poetic feeling and historic grandeur more wonderful still. It is surprising too how little of that extravagance of posture and action which offends in his large paintings is present here; they are for the most part uncommonly simple and serene performances.

Scattered amongst those sketches, we are sometimes startled by the appearance of a lady floating gracefully along in fashionable attire-her patches, paint, and jewels on-and armed for doing mischief amongst the sons of modern men. There is no attempt at caricature-they are fac-similes, and favourable ones, of existing life and fashion. Their presence amongst the works we have described jars upon our feelings-they are out of keeping with the poetic simplicity of their companions, and look as strange as court ladies would do taking the air with the Apollo and the dying Gladiator. They do, however, what the painter meant. They tell us how contemptible every thing is save natural elegance and simple grandeur, and that much which gives splendour to a ball or levee, will never mingle with what is lofty or lasting.

His love of the loose wit and free humour of the old writers of Italy and England was great; as