By indefatigable industry, Fuseli had now made considerable progress in the pictures which were to compose the "Milton Gallery," and those friends, as well as many of the artists who had been allowed to see them as he proceeded, felt confident of the ultimate success of the exhibition. With such feelings his intimate friend Sir Thomas Lawrence offered to contribute a picture gratuitously, and Mr. Opie tendered his services, not only to paint some pictures, but to manage the concern; under the condition, however, that he was to be a sharer in the profits. These offers Fuseli politely but prudently declined, being determined not to have any assistance whatever in a work, which he wished should be a monument of himself, and feeling, perhaps, that contrarieties of style would not be beneficial to the exhibition as a whole; for his aim was more to give the sublime, quiescent, and playful imagery of the poet in his own powerful manner, than to engage attention by colour or a brilliant execution of the pictures. These observations are not however intended to depreciate the merits of the splendid picture painted from Milton by Sir Thomas Lawrence, of "Satan calling up his Legions," which for a long period was a prominent feature in the collection of his Grace the late Duke of Norfolk, at his house in St. James's Square, and which, by the style of drawing as well as its tone of colour, abundantly prove, that this artist would have been equally distinguished for his powers in treating epic subjects as in portraits, if he had employed his pencil exclusively thereon. As soon as the intended exhibition was announced by the daily prints, but before the doors of the "Milton Gallery" were opened, the public mind was attempted to be biassed very unfairly by paragraphs in the newspapers calumniating the subjects as well as the execution of the pictures. These critics considered that he had attempted to represent on canvass scenes adapted only to poetic imagery, and thus transgressed the limits of the imitative art, and that his figures were distorted, and his colouring wanting both in force and brilliancy. As it was evident that these observations could have proceeded only from some persons who had seen the pictures through the kindness of the painter, Fuseli considered his confidence betrayed and interests injured by those who came under the mask of friendship; and he always held the opinion that the paragraphs in question were written by or at the instance of one or more of the then members of the Royal Academy.