1825.] 
the age: the high opinion. entertained of 
him.eyen ia his youth, by his celebrated 
townsman Lavater, was shown by his put- 
ting into his hand, at parting, a small piece 
of paper, beautifully framed and glazed, on 
which he found written in German, “ Do 
but the third part of what you can do.”’— 
“* Hang that up in your bed-room, my dear 
friend,” said Layater, ‘‘ and I know what 
will be the result.” The result did not 
disappoint him ; their friendship only ended 
with life, and on the part of the artist was 
continued to Lavater’s son with unabated 
fervour. Mr.. Fuseli enjoyed excellent: 
health, probably the result of his habitual 
temperance. He was a very early riser, 
and whether in the country or in town, in 
summer or in winter, he was seldom in bed 
after five o'clock. He enjoyed the most 
perfect domestic felicity, and was, per- 
haps, one of the most affectionately at- 
tached husbands that ever breathed: a 
character which even the seductive love- 
letters of Mary Wolstanecroft could not 
tempt him to violate. His lady survives 
him. He has made a will, leaving her 
everything he possessed. 
The body was brought to town on 
the Sunday night, and received at. the 
Royal Academy by his executors Messrs. 
Knowles and Balmanno. He had, for 
upwards of twenty years, held the offices 
of Professor of Painting, and Keeper of the 
Royal Academy ; the president and, princi- 
pal members of which testified their respect, 
by paying the last honours to his remains 
at the funeral, which took place on Monday, 
April 25, in the Cathedral of St. Paul’s— 
in a private vault, close to that of his great 
friend and admirer, Sir J. Reynolds. The 
hearse was drawn from Somerset-house, 
by six horses, attended by eight pages with 
truncheons, and followed by eight mourn- 
ing coaches, containing the executors: Sir 
T. Lawrence, President; H. Howard, esq. 
Secretary, R-a.;_ R. Smirke, jun. esq., 
Treasurer, R.A.; W. Mulready, esq. R.A. ; 
G. Jones, esq. R.A. ; R. R. Reinagle, esq. 
R.A.; J. Wyatville, esq. R.a.; the Rev. 
Dr. C. Symmons; S. Cartwright, esq. ; 
Lord J. Stuart, M.p.; Admiral Sir G. 
Moore, k.c.8.; Hon. Col. Howard, M.-P. ; 
Sir E. Antrobus, bart. ; W. Locke, esq. ; S. 
Rogers, esq.; W. Y- Ottley, esq.; H. 
Rogers, esq. ; W. Roscoe, esq.; R. Roscoe, 
esq. ; B. R, Haydon, esq. ; H. Roscoe, esq. ; 
T. G. Wainwright, esq.; M. Houghton, esq. 
The procession was closed by the carriages 
(mostly drawn by four horses, with ser- 
vants in state liveries) of the Marquis of 
Bute; the Countess of Guildford; Lord 
Rivers ; Lord J. Stuart ; Hon. Col. 
Howard; Mrs. Coutts; Sir E. Antrobus; 
Sir T. Lawrence; Dr. Symmons; Mr. 
Locke; Mr. Cartwright; Mr. Smirke ; 
Mr. Wyatville, &c. &e. 
: M. GIRODET. 
This celebrated artist, after a short. but 
Obituary of the Month. 
381 
severe illness, died, at Paris, on the 9th 
of December 1824. His paintings were 
chiefly historical ; and his estimation 
was high in the Parisian school. He was 
born of poor parents, in the middle station 
of society, and was originally intended for ° 
the military profession ; but his inclination 
to the arts was so urgent, that his parents, 
at. the age of fifteen, consented to his ad- 
mission into the school of David, where, in 
the estimation of many, he became equal, 
or even superior, to his master. But David 
felt pride only in the reputation of his pupil, 
and gloried in the prizes which were award- 
ed tohim. Among his principal works are 
the “ Funeral Rites of Atala,’’ and the 
* Scene of the Deluge.” For the latter of 
these Napoleon refused to bestow the prize, 
awarded by the academy : a refusal which, 
however arbitrary in principle, was not 
equally disreputable to his imperial ¢éaste ; 
for, whatever may be said in fayour of the 
mechanism of artist-like execution, the con- 
ception of this “scene”’ (the subject. con- 
sidered), is any thing rather than sublime ; 
and the idea of the old miser (borne on the 
shoulders of his clambering son, in unayail- 
ing flight from the pursuing waters) grasp- 
ing, with emaciate hand, his little bag of 
money, is outré, eyen to the ludicrous of 
caricature and farce: fitter for the boorish 
groupings of Teniers, the broad and satiric 
humour of Hogarth, or the familiar rusti- 
city of Wilkie, than for the awful grandeur, 
of sacri-historic picture. It is worse even 
than the howling dog ,in our Hogarth’s Paul 
before Festus. 
The coloured statuary of Girodet -(for 
such, in effect, the naked figures of French 
historic painting—particularly of the school 
of David, are), is undoubtedly very highly 
finished ; and we are disposed to give that 
school full credit, for not considering the 
splashy daubing of a bas-relief surface as 
effect. His drawing, also, to something of 
that plastic grandeur, derived from. the 
study of ancient statuary, unites, in the in- 
stance, especially, before us, even an osten- 
tatious display of anatomical detail; muscles, 
yeins and arteries are sufliciently desig- 
nated, in relief and colouring; but even 
that detail reminds us of marble, not of 
flesh and blood. And as for that imagina- 
tive sublime which takes the passions and 
organs of nature for its material, and gene- 
ralizes and works upon them by. suggested 
circumstance, till the picture in the eye be- 
comes. a vital: reality, identified, in passion 
and in consequence, with the situation con- 
ceived—of this,. the essential soul and 
poetry of the art, we saw nothing in the 
*< Scene of the Deluge.”’ In short, we must 
be much more Frenehified, in our taste for 
virth, than we yet are (though we profess 
not an absolute John Bullism in these mat- 
ters), before we can join in the eulogies of 
his compatriots on the vigour, the judg- 
ment, the poctical interest, and admirable 
elevation of Girodet. 
An 
