Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/343

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latter occasion, to the great umbrage of Sir Joshua Reynolds. In 1790 Johnson, the publisher, issued proposals for an edition of Milton's poems, similar to Boydell's ‘Shakespeare;’ Cowper, the poet, was to edit the poems, and Fuseli to paint a series of pictures, to be engraved by Sharp, Bartolozzi, Blake, and other eminent engravers. Cowper's insanity and Boydell's hostility prevented the completion of the work, but Fuseli's mind was fired by the enterprise, and he conceived his ‘Milton Gallery.’ He devoted all his time to painting pictures for it, and on 20 May 1799 opened a gallery of forty pictures, taken from Milton's poems, at the rooms lately vacated by the Royal Academy in Pall Mall. It attracted considerable attention, but it was evident that the fantastic extravagance in which Fuseli's strength lay was unsuited to the stateliness of Milton's poems. The results grievously belied his expectations, and he closed the gallery after two months; in the following year he re-opened it with the addition of seven new pictures, but neither his own efforts nor those of his friends produced satisfactory results. Among the best known of these pictures were ‘The Lazar House’ (now in the possession of Lord North at Wroxton Abbey), ‘Satan calling up his Legions,’ ‘The Bridging of Chaos,’ ‘Satan, Sin, and Death,’ ‘The Night Hag’ (of which there is a large drawing in the print room at the British Museum), ‘The Deluge,’ ‘Lycidas’ (several versions of this exist), ‘Milton dictating to his daughters,’ &c. In 1799 Fuseli succeeded James Barry, R.A. [q. v.], as professor of painting at the Royal Academy, and in March 1801 delivered his first lectures. In December 1804 he succeeded Richard Wilson, R.A. [q. v.], as keeper, and moved from Berners Street, where he was then residing, to Somerset House. He thereby vacated his professorship, but in 1810, on Tresham's resignation, he volunteered to supply the vacancy until a suitable candidate could be found; the Academy then re-elected him to the post, and he continued to hold the joint offices during the remainder of his life. In 1802 he visited Paris in order to study the marvellous collection of works of art brought together by Napoleon, in which he found ample material for his future lectures. The rest of Fuseli's life was mainly occupied in his duties at the Royal Academy, in which he took an unfailing interest. In 1815, through the agency of Canova, a warm admirer, he received the diploma of the Academy of St. Luke at Rome. He remained in full possession of all his faculties up to the end; delivered his last course of lectures in 1825 in his eighty-fourth year; exhibited two pictures that year at the Royal Academy, and left another unfinished on his easel. On Sunday, 10 April 1825, while on a visit at Putney Hill to his friend the Countess of Guilford (daughter of Mr. Coutts), with whom and her daughters he was on terms of great intimacy, Fuseli was taken ill, and died on Saturday, 16 April. His body was removed to Somerset House, and on 25 April was buried in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, between the graves of Reynolds and Opie. His widow survived him for some years. He left no children.

Fuseli was below middle stature, but well proportioned. His forehead was high, his nose prominent and inclined to be aquiline, his eyes of a bright and penetrating blue; his hair was blanched at an early age by a fever in Italy, and his eyebrows were broad and bushy. He was always careful of his dress and person, and was an abstemious and frugal liver, as well as an early riser. He would often rise at dawn to go out into the country on some favourite entomological pursuit. Lavater, in his ‘Physiognomy’ (ed. 1789), inserts two portraits of Fuseli, one in early life and one from a drawing by Sir Thomas Lawrence; his reading of Fuseli's character from his features proved very accurate. Fuseli's countenance was remarkably expressive, and he showed in every feature and gesture the rapid and varying impressions of his mind, and the intensity of his emotions. Among other portraits of Fuseli are a profile done at Rome by J. Northcote, R.A. (in the possession of Mr. J. Carrick Moore); a portrait by Williamson done at Liverpool; a portrait by J. Opie, R.A. (who also painted Mrs. Fuseli), now in the National Portrait Gallery; a miniature by Moses Haughton, by some considered the best likeness of him; the well-known portrait by G. H. Harlowe, so familiar from engravings; a drawing by G. S. Newton, R.A.; a sketch by Sir George Hayter in January 1812, now in the print room at the British Museum; and a drawing by Sir Thomas Lawrence done shortly before his death. A bust was executed in Rome in 1778, another is at Wroxton Abbey, and two were done later by E. H. Baily, R.A., one taken after death.

As a painter Fuseli can only be judged by posterity from the wrecks of his great pictures. He suffered throughout from not having adopted the profession until late in life, and his industry and anatomical studies at Rome never compensated for his lack of early and methodical training. His