Fuseli knew not well how to begin with quiet beauty and serene grace: the hurrying measures, the crowding epithets, and startling imagery of the northern poetry suited his intoxicated fancy. His "Thor battering the Serpent" was such a favorite that he presented it to the Academy as his admission gift. Such was his love of terrific subjects, that he was known among his brethren by the name of _Painter in ordinary to the Devil_, and he smiled when some one officiously told him this, and said, "Aye! he has sat to me many times." Once, at Johnson the bookseller's table, one of the guests said, "Mr. Fuseli, I have purchased a picture of yours." "Have you, sir; what is the subject?" "Subject? really I don't know." "That's odd; you must be a strange fellow to buy a picture without knowing the subject." "I bought it, sir, that's enough--I don't know what the _devil_ it is." "Perhaps it is the devil," replied Fuseli, "I have often painted him." Upon this, one of the company, to arrest a conversation which was growing warm, said, "Fuseli, there is a member of your Academy who has strange looks--and he chooses as strange subjects as you do." "Sir," exclaimed the Professor, "he paints nothing but thieves and murderers, and when he wants a model, he looks in the glass." FUSELI'S AND LAWRENCE'S PICTURES FROM THE "TEMPEST." Cunningham says, "Fuseli had sketched a picture of Miranda and Prospero 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 blasted simplicity in showing my sketches--never mind--I'll 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, I have heard, exhibited a poetic subject." FUSELI'S ESTIMATE OF REYNOLDS' ABILITIES IN HISTORICAL PAINTING. Fuseli mentions Reynolds in his Lectures, as a great portrait painter, and no more. One evening in company, Sir Thomas Lawrence was discoursing on what he called the "historic grandeur" of Sir Joshua, and contrasting him with Titian and Raffaelle. Fuseli kindled up--"Blastation! you will drive me mad--Reynolds and Raffaelle!--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. FUSELI AND LAWRENCE.