the figures which belonged to it appeared, as it were, in a vision; but he nevertheless complained of the splendour in which his fancy invested them, and declared that he could not paint up to his imagination. In comparing those splendid fictions with living nature, he was struck, he often said, with the lamentable deficiencies of the latter; yet conscious that by nature he must be tried and judged, he was heard to exclaim, in a fit of peevishness, "Damn Nature! she always puts me out." He had sometimes the curiosity to walk into the Milton Gallery after it was opened to the public, and as it was never very crowded, he could look at his works without much fear of interruption. One day a visiter accosted him, mistaking him for the keeper. "Those paintings, sir, are from Paradise Lost, I hear, and Paradise Lost was written by Milton-I have never read the poem, but I shall read it now." "I would not advise you, sir," said the sarcastic artist, "you will find it an exceedingly tough job." In the original sketch of the guardian angels forsaking our first parents after the fall, they were represented rising on wings. He looked earnestly at his sketch, and exclaimed-for he generally thought aloud--" They shall rise without wings." He tried and succeeded.

During his labours in the Milton Gallery, he obtained the friendship of the poet Cowper. Homer we have already said, was one of the gods whom Fuseli worshipped, while on our English poets, with the exception of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton, he looked with indifference or contempt. But when the author of the Task laid his hand on Homer, he rose suddenly in the estimation of Fuseli. To offer incense to his chief idol was a proof at once of belief and taste, and the learned artist volunteered to correct some passages where the translator, as he imagined, had erred in the sense, and to lend him light in other parts which the commentators had left obscure. That he was equal to all this

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there can be little doubt, since Cowper says so. am very sensibly obliged"--he thus writes to his bookseller-" by the remarks of Mr. Fuseli, and I beg that you will tell him so: they afford me opportunities of improvement which I shall not neglect. When he shall see the press copy he will be convinced of this, and will be convinced, likewise, that smart as he sometimes is, he spares me often when I have no mercy on myself."

In another letter the poet bestows higher praise on his critic. "My translation," he says, "fast as it proceeds, passes under the observation of a most accurate discerner of all blemishes. I know not whether I told you before or now tell you for the first time, that I am in the hands of a most extraordinary person. He is intimate with my bookseller and voluntarily offered his service. I was at first doubtful whether to accept it or not; but finding that my friends were not to be satisfied on any other terms, though myself a perfect stranger to the man and his qualifications, except as he was recommended by Johnson, I at length consented, and have since found reason to rejoice that I did. I called him an extraordinary person, and such he is; for he is not only correct in Homer and accurate in his knowledge of the Greek to a degree that entitles him to that appellation, but though a foreigner, is a perfect master of our language and has exquisite taste in English poetry." Praise from a man so wise and conscientious as Cowper is entitled to every respect.

Examples of his critical sagacity and specimens of his nice perception of the meaning of Homer, might readily be quoted, for Cowper has affixed his initials to all the emendations which he adopted. There is strong poetic sensibility in many of his corrections; and the learned are agreed that sound scholarship pervades them all. "By his assistance," says Cowper, with his customary openness,“ I have

improved many passages, supplied many oversights, and corrected many mistakes-such as will of course escape the most diligent and attentive labourer in such a work. I ought to add, because it is the best assurance of his zeal and fidelity, that he does not toil for hire, nor will accept of any premium, but has entered upon the business merely for his amusement." In literature as well as in art, Fuseli was a thorough enthusiast-the love of mere amusement had no charms for him any more than the desire of gain-he was a slave to his love of fame, and a slave to nothing else. His voluntary labours on Homer extended over a space of five years.

Though Fuseli was accustomed to express sovereign contempt for all that artists know by the name of commissions, he was prevailed upon by an offer of two hundred and fifty pounds to make drawings for a large edition of Shakspeare. Of this backsliding he never failed to speak with sorrow and scorn; he conceived commissions to be injurious to art, and to take away much of the inspiration which must or should be felt in the creation of works of true genius. His illustrations of Shakspeare, however, are not less clever than strange. They are full of poetical feeling and more than poetical wildness. The observance of nature and the barbarism of dress were constantly in his way, and in his attempts to escape from the fetters of costume he cuts very curious capers. Orlando in the Forest is a striking example-he is demanding food for his famishing companion, his posture is ludicrously extravagant, and his dress fits so close, that were it not for the projecting selvages of his pantaloons, he

*To give a single example-the second line in the following passage, describing Hector and his warriors, in the thirteenth Book of the Iliad, was supplied by Fuseli.

-"Spear crowded spear,

Shield, helmet, man, pressed helmet, man, and shield:
The hairy crests of their resplendent casques

Kiss'd close at every nod."

would not appear to live in a land of civilization and tailors.

Nor was Fuseli much more sedate in the action of his designs, when a graver work demanded his pencil-he furnished sketches for the Bible, published in sixpenny numbers, and joined Westall in illustrating a splendid edition of the New Testament. This too was a commission; and whatever resembled trade hurt the sensitive nature of Fuseli: for the excellence of the work take his own words. "We made pictures for the New Testament-there was only one good one among them all, and I suspect I painted it; but Westall may have the merit if he likes, for it was not much." The ci-devant friend of Miss Wolstonecraft was no scoffer at revelation, nor would he suffer any one in his presence to call it in question; he was, in fact, too full of feeling not to reverence his Bible, and he was at all times difficult to please with modern attempts to imbody Scripture. When Northcote exhibited his Judgment of Solomon, Fuseli looked at it with a sarcastic smirk on his face. "How do you like my picture?" inquired Northcote. "Much," was the answer-"the action suits the word-Solomon holds out his fingers like a pair of open scissors at the child, and says,' Cut it.'-I like it much!" Northcote remembered this when Fuseli exhibited a picture representing Hercules drawing his arrow at Pluto. "How do you like my picture?" inquired Fuseli. "Much!" said Northcote-" it is clever, very clever, but he 'll never hit him." "He shall hit him," exclaimed the other, "and that speedily." Away ran Fuseli with his brush, and as he laboured to give the arrow the true direction, was heard to mutter, “Hit him !—by Jupiter, but he shall hit him!"

His reverence for Homer and regard for Cowper induced him, on the appearance of the Iliad in 1793, to write a criticism upon it in the Analytical Review, a work which was favoured with many contribu

tions from his pen-on natural history, classical learning, and the fine arts. It was not easy indeed to translate up to Fuseli's notion of Homer; and Cowper comprehended him fully when he read his critique. "I am happy," said that modest and devout poet, "to have fallen into the hands of a critic rigorous enough indeed, but a scholar and a man of sense, and who does not deliberately intend me mischief. I am better pleased indeed that he censures some things, than I should have been to be treated with unmixed commendation; for his censure, to use the new diplomatic term, will accredit his praise. In his particular remarks he is for the most part right, and I shall be the better for them, but in his general ones I think he asserts too largely and more than he could prove." The observations in this criticism were sometimes profound, often sagacious, and occasionally sarcastic.

It pleased Fuseli to be thought one of those erudite -gentlemen whom the poet describes

Far seen in Greek-deep men of letters;

and he loved to annoy certain of his companions with the display of his antique lore. He sometimes composed Greek verses in the emergency of the moment, and affected to forget the name of the author. He once repeated half-a-dozen sonorous and wellsounding lines to Porson, and said, "With all your learning now you cannot tell me who wrote that." The professor, "much renowned for Greek," confessed his ignorance, and said "I do n't know him." "How the devil could you know him?" chuckled Fuseli-"I made them this moment." When thwarted in the Academy, and that was not seldom, his wrath aired itself in a polyglott. "It is a pleasant thing and an advantageous," said the painter, on one of those occasions," to be learned. I can speak Greek, Latin, French, English, German, Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, and Spanish, and so let my folly or my fury get vent through nine different avenues."