NOTES OF AN ARTIST. FUSELI. 



Paradise is full of "melancholy grace" Eve pressing the head of " our 

 primitive great sire " to her bosom, is exquisitely sweet and delicately 

 treated : this subject forms a singular exception to the general cha- 

 racter of his inventions. Lycidas, though mannered in the drawing 

 of the figure, displays a high degree of feeling the composition is 

 grand. The Lazar House is awful. 



Nothing could be more absurd than the story which came out at 

 the time his Night Mare was exhibited, that Fuseli was accustomed 

 to excite his imagination by supping on raw tripe and sausages. If 

 the fact were not well known to be otherwise, and, that by his friends 

 he was distinguished as a delicate feeder, one might infer that the 

 tendency of his natural taste would supersede the necessity for any 

 such gross means to force horrors upon his mind. To his imagi- 

 nation chimeras dire were a delight " The Night Hag be- 

 striding the Blast" was more charming to his fancy than the fairest 

 of earth's daughters. The ghost of Denmark's buried majesty is 

 not to be ascribed to the rich effect of undigested pork it arose 

 out of the pure essence of an unclouded mind. Had such a painter 

 as Guido desired a terrible subject for his pencil, to shut out for a 

 time the vision of angelic faces ever present to his fancy, it would 

 have been more natural to resort to such a method ; but Fuseli's 

 brain teemed with all that his canvass has exhibited without the as- 

 sistance of the tripeman or the pig-butcher. 



In Allan Cunningham's Life of Sir Thomas Lawrence is a curious 

 passage relating to Fuseli. " When he first saw my Satan/' remarks 

 Laurence, " he was nettled, and said, ' you borrowed the idea from 

 me/ ' In truth I did take the idea from you/ I said ; < but it was 

 from your person, not from your paintings. When we were all together 

 at Stockport Court, in Pembrokeshire, you may remember how you 

 stood on yon high rock which overlooks the bay of Bristol, and gazed 

 down upon the sea which rolled so magnificently below. You were 

 in rapture ; and while you were crying e Grand ! grand 1 Jesus 

 Christ, how grand ! how terrific ! ' you put yourself in a wild pos- 

 ture. I thought on the devil looking into the abyss, and took a slight 

 sketch of you at the time : here it is my Satan's posture now, was 

 yours then.'" 





' ^ribiav; 



