The life and writings of Henry Fuseli Volume I Part 14

The Friar's Lanthorn.

In the possession of Watts Russell, Esq.

PICTURE x.x.xII.

The Lubbar Fiend.

With stories told of many a feat, How faery Mab the junkets eat, She was pinch'd, and pull'd she said, And he by friar's lanthorn led Tells how the drudging Goblin swet, To earn his cream-bowl duly set, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn, That ten day-lab'rers could not end; Then lies him down the lubbar fiend, And stretch'd out all the chimney's length, Basks at the fire his hairy strength. V. 101.

Picture x.x.xI. receives still better light from the following lines in Paradise Lost, Book IX. v. 634, &c.

----as when a wand'ring fire, Which oft, they say, some evil Sp'rit attends, Hovering and blazing with delusive light, Misleads th' amaz'd night-wand'rer from his way To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool, There swallow'd up and lost, from succour far.

IL PENSIEROSO.

PICTURE x.x.xIII.

Silence.

Some still removed place---- Where glowing embers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom. V. 78.

In the possession of the Countess of Guilford.

PICTURE x.x.xIV.

CHREMHILD meditating revenge over the Sword of SIGFRID.

Or call up him that left half told The story of Cambuscan bold---- And if _aught else_ great bards beside In sage and solemn tunes have sung---- V. 109, 116.

COMUS.

PICTURE x.x.xV.

The Palace and the Rout of COMUS; the LADY set in the enchanted Chair, to whom he offered his Gla.s.s; the Brothers rus.h.i.+ng in with Swords drawn, wrest the Gla.s.s out of his hand; his Rout flying.

PICTURE x.x.xVI.

Orgies of COTYTTO. BAPTae preparing a Philtrum. See the Vth Epode of Horace.

Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.

Come let us our rites begin---- Hail G.o.ddess of nocturnal sport, Dark-veil'd Cotytto---- Stay thy cloudy ebon chair, Wherein thou rid'st with Hecat', and befriend Us thy vow'd priests, till utmost end Of all thy dues be done.---- V. 124, 128, 134.

LYCIDAS.

PICTURE x.x.xVII.

Solitude. Twilight.

Under the opening eyelids of the morn, What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn.

V. 26-8.

In the possession of the Countess of Guilford.

PICTURE x.x.xVIII.

MILTON, as a Boy with his Mother.

In the possession of Sir Francis Burdett, Bart.

PICTURE x.x.xIX.

MILTON, when a Youth.

PICTURE XL.

MILTON, dictating to his Daughter.

In the possession of the Marquis of Bute.

The Vision of the Lazar-house was justly considered by the best judges in the art, to be the _chef-d'uvre_ of the Gallery. It is a composition of seventeen figures, and parts of figures, in which the painter creates both terror and pity in the spectator, by judiciously excluding most of those objects represented by the poet as suffering under bodily diseases calculated to create disgust, and confining himself chiefly to the representation of the maladies of the mind, which are so forcibly described by the pa.s.sage,

"Demoniac Phrensy, moping Melancholy, "And moon-struck Madness----"

It would be a vain attempt, by words, to describe this Gallery, so as to do justice to the grandeur of the ideas and of the drawing, more particularly in the pictures of 'Satan calling up his Legions;' 'Satan encountering Death, and Sin interposing;' 'Satan surprised at the ear of Eve;' 'Death and Sin bridging of Chaos,' or, in that of 'Sin pursued by Death;'--they must be seen to be appreciated. But Fuseli shone not only in the grand, the sublime, and pathetic scenes, but also in the playful ones. How rare a quality it is for the same mind to direct its efforts to the _Pensieroso_, and, at command, to divert its attention to the _Allegro_, and succeed in both!--But such were the powers of the painter in question, as well as of the poet.