mention this, because, if you think the plan likely to answer, the work should be done some time before, that it may be sufficiently dry. Perhaps all this may be unnecessary, and you have already decided on a better plan; but I know you will attribute it to its proper motive. "My wife has been unwell for some time past, owing, I believe, to nursing too long. Apropos--I have just translated a poem on this subject, in two capitoli from the Italian of Luigi Tansillo, in which he endeavours to prevail on the ladies to undertake that important duty to their children. Tansillo was contemporary with Ariosto, &c., and for purity of style is excelled by few of his countrymen. I have sent my version to Shepherd, to revise, &c.; but am yet undecided whether I should publish it.[46]--Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me very truly and affectionately yours, "W. Roscoe." "Liverpool, 12th Dec. 1797." The assistance afforded by these friends enabled Fuseli to carry on steadily the grand work on which he was engaged, and to this, most probably, the public owe many of the pictures of which the Milton Gallery was composed. After acknowledging his gratitude to one of them (Mr. Roscoe), he thus expresses himself, "I shall now endeavour to carry through a work which I consider a monument of myself; whatever I may be, _magnis tamen excido ausis_, if I do not succeed to give it excellence." In 1795, Fuseli assisted his friend Mr. Seward by contributing several articles to an amusing and instructive work known by the appellation of "Seward's Anecdotes." In 1796, he painted a picture for Macklin's Gallery, "The Vision of the Candlesticks," from the Revelations of St. John. For this he chose what may be considered the most sublime moment, the sudden appearance of the apparition and the trance of the saint; but he always regretted that he was limited to size, and tied too much to biblical precision by Mr. Macklin, instead of being allowed to exercise the full range of his fancy on a canvass of larger dimensions.