"When I returned from France, I visited you, Sir, but finding myself, after my late journey, in a very different situation, I vainly imagined you would have called upon me. I simply tell you what I thought, yet I write not, at present, to comment on your conduct, or expostulate. I have long ceased to expect kindness or affection from any human creature, and would fain tear from my heart its treacherous sympathies. I am alone. The injustice, without alluding to hope blasted in the bud, which I have endured, wounding my bosom, have set my thoughts adrift into an ocean of painful conjectures. I ask impatiently what-and where is truth? I have been treated brutally; but I daily labour to remember that I have still the duty of a mother to fulfil. "I have written more than I intended, for I only meant to request you to return my letters: I wish to have them, and it must be the same to you. Adieu ! "Monday Morning,-To Mr. Fuseli." "MARY." All communication then ceased between the parties until after Mrs. Wollstonecroft's marriage with Mr. Godwin, the author of Caleb Williams: upon which event Fuseli wrote to a friend, "You have not, perhaps, heard that the assertrix of female rights has given her hand to the balancier of political justice. Fuseli saw Mrs. Godwin but seldom: she died in 1797, after having given birth to a female child (Mrs. Bysshe Shelley). Fuseli could not but feel much regret on the occasion; but 66 as grief does not give utterance to words," so he hardly noticed the catastrophe in the postscript of a letter to Mr. Roscoe, in these terms-"Poor Mary!" ILL-ASSORTED COMPANY. Shortly after Mrs. Godwin's marriage, she invited Fuseli to dinner, to meet Horne Tooke, Curran, and Grattan, and two or three other men of that stamp: he had no objection to their political opinions, but as they engrossed the whole conversation, and that chiefly on politics, he suddenly retired, and joining Mrs. Godwin in the drawing-room, petulantly said to her, "I wonder you invited me to meet such wretched company." * Alluding to Godwin's Treatise on Political Justice, by which he is chiefly known as a writer. FUSELI AND DR. JOHNSON. Of Johnson, whom Fuseli met at Sir Joshua Reynolds's table, he said: "Johnson had, to a physiognomist, a good face, but he was singular in all his movements; he was not so uncouth in appearance as has been represented by some; he sat at table in a large bushy wig and brown coat, and behaved decently enough." On one occasion the conversation turned upon ghosts and witches, in the existence of which he believed, and his only argument was, that great and good men in all times had believed in them. Fuseli's fingers itched to be at Johnson, but he knew, if he got the better of the argument, that his celebrity was so great, it would not be credited. "You know," he said, "that I hate superstition. When I was in Switzerland, speaking with Lavater upon the appearance of the spirit after death, it was agreed between us, that if it were allowed by the Deity to visit earth, the first who died should appear to the other; my friend was the most scrupulous man in existence, with regard to his word; he is dead, and I have not seen him.” Fuseli used to say: "I always think in the language in which I write, and it is a matter of indifference to me whether it be in English, French, or Italian; I know each equally well; but if I wish to express myself with power, it must be in German." For the pleasure of reading Sepp's work on Insects, he gained late in life a competent knowledge of Dutch indeed, he had a peculiar facility of acquiring languages. He told Mr. Knowles, that, with his knowledge of general grammar, and with his memory, six weeks of hard study was sufficient time to acquire any language with which he was previously unacquainted. "THE NIGHTMARE." In 1781, Fuseli painted his most popular picture, The Nightmare, the drawing for which has the words, "St. Martin's-lane, 1781," written by him in the margin; it is chiefly in black chalk, and is composed without the head of the mare, which was an afterthought. The picture was sent to the Exhibition in 1782: it was sold for 20 guineas; it was engraved by Burke, and published by J. R. Smith, who acknowledged to have gained upwards of 5007. by the sale of the prints, though sold at a low price. Dr. Darwin thus described the subject : So on his Nightmare, through the evening fog, Was marked by Fuseli's poetic eye; Whose daring tints, with Shakspeare's happiest grace, Her interrupted heart-pulse swims in death. Fuseli painted, at different times, several variations of this extraordinary picture. Notwithstanding the apathy of the public, latterly towards his works, Fuseli (says Haydon, his pupil,) had had his day. His Nightmare was decidedly popular all over Europe. Fuseli was paid 307. for the picture, and the engraver cleared 6007. by the print.* His great works were from Milton. His conception of Adam and Eve for pathos, and Uriel contemplating Satan for sublimity, have never been excelled by the greatest painters of the greatest period of art either in Greece or Italy. With a fancy bordering on frenzy, as he used to say, the patience, humility, and calmness necessary for embodying great conceptions in an art, the language of which, in spite of all the sophistry about style and gusto, is undeniably grounded on a just selection and imitation of beautiful nature, angered and irritated him. His great delight was conception, not embodying his conceptions, and as soon as he rendered a conception intelligible to himself and others, by any means, he flew off to a fresh one, too impatient to endure the meditation required fully to develope it. His Edipus and his Daughters is, however, a work of far higher order. The desolate old man is seated on the ground in dread of the coming vengeance of heaven, and his daughters are clasping him wildly. "Pray, sir, what is that old man afraid of?" said some one to Fuseli, when the picture was exhibited. Afraid, sir," exclaimed the painter, "why, afraid of going to hell!" 66 "THE SHAKSPEARE GALLERY." This magnificent idea was started at the table of the nephew of Alderman Boydell. Fuseli had long imagined a temple * The smaller sums named on the preceding page, are correct. filled with pictures from our great dramatic poet. Boydell cut the design down to working dimensions. Reynolds, on receiving 500l., entered, though reluctantly, into the undertaking; but Fuseli, with his heart in the subject, made no preliminary stipulations, but prepared his palettes and began, choosing the wildest passages from the most imaginative plays. The Tempest, the Midsummer Night's Dream, King Lear, and Hamlet, suggested the best of the eight Shakspearian pictures which he painted; and of these that from Hamlet is the noblest. An eminent metaphysician, when he saw this picture (Hamlet's Ghost), exclaimed, "Lord preserve me!" He declared that it haunted him round the room. The paintings which composed the Shakspeare Gallery were supplied by various hands. The design was novel, and was much praised, but its excellence was not felt by the people at large. The superiority of Fuseli in poetic composition over all his compeers was, however, appreciated by the judicious few. "THE MILTON GALLERY." This undertaking was meditated by Fuseli, while at Ramsgate, in 1790, and originated from a commission of Johnson to the artist to paint thirty pictures, of the sublime, the pathetic, and the playful scenes, in Milton, for Cowper's projected edition of the poet's works. This did not appear; but Fuseli transferred the progress he had made to a scheme of his own, which he thus broached to his friend Roscoe, who, in a previous letter, had made a comparison between his own pursuits and those of Fuseli, who thus writes: "No doubt, I make the most advantageous figure on paper, I am on a road of glory; you are only crawling about from the white to the brown bed. I should not, however, be very uneasy if I could, without a total situation of change, obtain a little of that 'elbow-room' for my mind, which it seems you get by moving from a larger house to a smaller one. Notwithstanding the success of my election at the Academy, and of the pictures which I have painted for the Shakspeare Gallery, my situation continues to be extremely precarious. I have been and am contributing to make the public drop their gold into purses not my own; and though I am, and probably shall be, fully employed for some time to come, the scheme is hastening with rapidity towards its conclusion. 'There are,' says Mr. West, 'but two ways of working suc cessfully, that is, lastingly, in this country, for an artist. The one is to paint for the King; the other, to meditate a scheme of your own.' The first he has monopolised; in the second he is not idle; witness the prints from English history, and the late advertisement of allegorical prints to be published from his designs by Bartolozzi. In imitation of so great a man, I am determined to lay, hatch, and crack a egg for myself too, if I can. What it shall be, I am not yet ready to tell with certainty; but the sum of it is, a series of pictures for exhibition, such as Boydell's and Macklin's. To obtain this, it will be necessary that I should have it in my power to work without commission, or any kind of intermediate gain, for at least three years; in which time I am certain of producing at least twenty pictures of different dimensions. The question is, what will enable me to live in the meantime? With less than three hundred a-year certain, I cannot do. My idea is to get a set of men (twenty, perhaps,-less, if possible, but not more,) to subscribe towards it. Suppose twenty pounds each annually, to be repaid either by small pictures or drawings, or the profits of the exhibition, should it succeed, of which there can be no very great doubt." In 1797, six of Fuseli's intimate friends agreed to advance him 3007. per annum, until the task was completed. These generous patrons were Messrs. Coutts, Lock, Roscoe, G. Steevens, Seward and Johnson; and Mr. Coutts, in addition, presented Fuseli with 1007., under the injunction that his name should not appear in the transaction. Roscoe also bought pictures by the artist to a considerable amount, and induced his friends and connexions at Liverpool to make purchases. On May 20, 1799, the rooms in Pall Mall, formerly occupied by the Royal Academy,* were opened for the exhibition of the Milton Gallery: Fuseli renting the premises at 2107. per annum. The exhibition consisted of forty pictures of different sizes; the following being the dimensions of some of the principal ones: Satan starting from the touch of Ithuriel's spear, and Satan calling up his Legions, each 13 feet by 12. Satan encountering Death, Sin interposing; Adam and Eve first discovered by Satan; Satan flying up from Sin and Death in his enterprise; and The Vision of Noah; each 13 feet by 10. Death and Sin bridging the waste of Chaos, and *This house stood in Pall Mall, opposite Market-lane, 'leading to St. James's Market, at the south west end of Norris-street. |