followed, diminishing the demand for them at home, his means were so crippled, that he was unable to fulfil his patriotic wish.-Abridged from Leslie's Handbook for Young Painters.

PRESENTATION OF A CUP TO FUSELI.

Before the Academy closed, in 1807, a little matter occurred quite characteristic of the English students. Two or three of the body who wished to ingratiate themselves with the Keeper, Fuseli, proposed to present him with a vase. A subscription was opened, and a committee, without either plan or principle, formed itself, of which Wilkie and Haydon were members. They were perfectly ignorant of such matters, and after a good deal of discussion a plan was laid before the students. It was received with shouts of laughter and derision! After a good deal of altogethery speaking and discussion, and when everything was going against the proposition, Haydon made a telling speech, enlarging greatly upon the estimable qualities of Keeper Fuseli; and finally proposing that the self-elected committee should be dissolved and another formed. This was seconded by Wilkie, and carried unanimously. Haydon, Wilkie, and Denman, (a pupil of Flaxman,) hired a room at the Garrick's Head, opposite Covent Garden Theatre, for their future meetings. Wilkie was voted to the chair; a Scotchman, a friend of his, was made secretary; and Haydon treasurer. They raised fifty guineas, at 10s. 6d. each; and Haydon, remembering that Coutts' were Fuseli's bankers, called, and asked Sir Edward Antrobus, if he would allow the money to be paid in on account of the committee, explaining the object they had in view. Sir Edward drily replied: "Why, sir, we don't usually open an account with so small a sum !" "Small!" thought Haydon, "why there's no end to it!" However, he promised to take care of the money, and did so. Wilkie, Flaxman, and Haydon, were now deputed to arrange with a silversmith, and Rundell and Bridge agreed to execute a vase for fifty guineas, which should be worthy of Fuseli's acceptance.

The Committee was composed of a great many students, who, while regulating the business, had many pleasant meetings, so that they hoped it would not be a rapid performance on the part of Rundell and Bridge. Wilkie, at that time, was a capital fellow he had a little kit, on which he played Scotch airs with a gusto that a Scotchman only is capable of.

They got so fond of these committee-meetings, that Fuseli

grew fidgetty, and at last roared out: "Be Gode ye are like de Spaniards; all ceremony and noting done!" Haydon reported that the Keeper was getting sore, and so they agreed to settle at the next committee-meeting what the inscription should be. Among the students was a Scotch ornamental painter, called Callender, very like Wilkie in face and figure. Who he was nobody knew, but being an Edinburgh manwhere they never snuff candles at a meeting without addressing the chair, and appointing a sub-committee to take the propriety of the act into consideration-he was thoroughly versed in all the duties of chairman, deputy, secretary, and vice. The students swore that he was Wilkie's brother-he was so like him.

They soon settled the inscription; the vase was sent home, and the day approached upon which it was to be presented. Wilkie, however, was obliged to go to Scotland, and Haydon was chosen to present the gift in his place. The day came: the night before, Haydon rehearsed to himself the speech-action and expression. He imagined he was in Fuseli's presence; he took up a Latin dictionary for the cup, and concluded his speech exactly as he placed the supposed cup upon the table before Fuseli. Haydon's account of his rehearsing the speech before a broken looking-glass-for the effect-is a characteristic instance of his complacency and conceit.

The committee met in Fuseli's middle chamber, and then repaired to his gallery, with Haydon at their head. Fuseli came out, bowed, and looked agitated. The vase was on the table in front: Haydon advanced to the table, and said: "Mr. Fuseli-sir," in such a tremendously loud and decided tone that they all started, but he quickly modulated his voice, and as he concluded, placed the vase before the Keeper. Fuseli made a very neat reply, and Flaxman a long speech, which bored everybody. They then all retired to a cold collation, drank Fuseli's health with three times three, and separated; the committee privately inquiring of each other whether all the business was concluded, or rather, if no possible affair could be invented for another committee-supper. Flaxman said, as they came down to lunch, "The students hit upon the right man in young Haydon," and afterwards complimented him on his able speech. "Really," says Haydon, "I have often thought that this little affair, of which I was the head and front, first sowed the seeds of enmity against me in the minds of many of the Academicians."

Hoppner was in a fury, and on the first opportunity, gave Wilkie a tremendous rowing, called the students a set of impudent puppies, and declared that had he been in the Council, he would have turned them all into the streets! While they were discussing the thing in its early stages, the Council used to listen at the door, and say, "Now they are talking about it; shall we do anything?" Northcote was on the Council, and told this to Haydon.

Within a very short time, so jealous were the Council and the general meeting of this deserved honour to Fuseli, that they actually passed a law, forbidding the students ever again to exercise their judgment in such matters, as it belonged to the Academicians, and to the Academicians alone, to decide on the merits of their officers. As if, in such a case, the students, the persons really benefited by the Keeper, were not the best judges whether they were benefited or not! The malignant feeling that this simple mark of respect roused among Fuseli's brother Academicians excited every one's contempt.

However, Haydon (from whose Autobiography we abridge the above,) seems to rejoice in his martyrdom: he says"They never forgave me, and I never respected them afterwards."

FUSELI AND LAWRENCE.

The fierceness of the Keeper was a revengeful overmatch for the bland President. Fuseli had sketched a picture of Prospero and Miranda from the Tempest, and was considering of what dimensions he should make the finished painting, when he was told that Lawrence had sent in for exhibition a picture on the same subject and with the same figures. His wrath knew no bounds. "This comes," he cried, "of my simplicity in showing my sketches-never mind-I'l teach the face-painter to meddle with my Prospero and Miranda." He had no canvas prepared-he took a finished picture, and over the old performance dashed in hastily, in one laborious day, a wondrous scene from the Tempest-hung it in the Exhibition right opposite that of Lawrence, and called it "a sketch for a large picture." Sir Thomas said little, but thought much-he never afterwards exhibited a poetic subject.

One evening, in company, when Sir Thomas Lawrence was discoursing on "the historic grandeur" of Sir Joshua, and

contrasting him with Titian and with Raphael, Fuseli fired up: "Blastation! you will drive me mad-Reynolds and Raphael!—a dwarf and a giant!-why will you waste all your fine words!" He rose and left the room, muttering something about a tempest in a pint-pot. Lawrence followed, soothed him, and brought him back.

Yet, these two eminent men loved one another. They were often together; and Allan Cunningham heard Sir Thomas say, that he never had a dispute with Fuseli save once- -and that was concerning their pictures of Satan. Indeed, the Keeper, both with tongue and pen, took pleasure in pointing out the excellencies of his friend, nor was he blind to his defects. "This young man," thus he wrote in one of his early criticisms, "would do well to look at nature again; his flesh is too glassy." Lawrence followed the advice. When he had risen into reputation and had money at command, he said, laying his hand upon one of Fuseli's sketches, "Make me a painting of this fine subject, and I will give you the price of one of my best paintings.' "The fit is off me for this subject," said Fuseli; “I wish you would choose some other."

Sir Thomas Lawrence was at Putney Hill, and cheered the last moments of Fuseli, who seemed uneasy and restless when Lawrence was away from his side.

"SOMETHING NEW."

66

One day, Fuseli's attention was attracted by a serpent with its tail in its mouth, a common-place emblem of eternity, which was carved upon an exhibited monument. "It won't do, I tell you," said Fuseli to the sculptor, "you must have something new. The something new startled a man whose imagination was none of the brightest, and he said, "How shall I find something new?" Oh, nothing so easy," said Fuseli, "I'll help you to it. When I went away to Rome I left two fat men cutting fat bacon in St. Martin's-lane; in ten years time I returned, and found the two fat men cutting fat bacon still twenty years more have passed, and there the two fat fellows cut the fat flitches the same as ever. Carve them if they look not like an image of eternity I wot not what does."

This anecdote is related by Cunningham: it is told with a slight error, which does not, however, affect the point of its absurdity. The two fat men were the brothers who, for

many years, kept the ham and beef shop in St. Martin's court; where rounds of beef were often cooked for the royal table, and conveyed to Carlton House in the days of the Regency.

CONSTABLE AND FUSELI.

Fuseli, speaking of this excellent landscape-painter, said: "I like de landscapes of Constable: he is always picturesque, of a fine colour, and de lights always in de right places; but he makes me call for my great-coat and umbrella.”

WORKS OF FUSELI.

As Mr. Allan Cunningham was a contemporary of Fuseli, and was intimate with the Keeper, his estimate of his genius and works is entitled to special notice: it is written with great judgment, and in a spirit of fairness to the merits of Fuseli.*

Cunningham says: "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 conception to anything 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.

"His sketches amount to 800.

"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 :ncommonly simple and serene performances."

Sir Thomas Lawrence possessed a large number of Fusel. 3 serious drawings.

* Lives of British Artists, vol. ii.