Fuseli instantly answered, "It must be Mathias; for I recollect that particular conversation;" and stated the time, the place, and the occasion which drew it forth, although many years had elapsed. Fuseli's acquaintance with English poetry and literature was very extensive; few men recollected more of the text, or understood better the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton, and Dryden. In Shakspeare and Milton he was deeply read, and he had gained some knowledge of the merits of the former in early life from the translations into German of some of the plays of Shakspeare, by his tutor Bodmer, who was well read in English poetry, and who subsequently gave a translated "Paradise Lost." Notwithstanding the predilection which Fuseli had for the ancients, particularly Homer, yet he considered the three first acts of "Hamlet," and the second book of "Paradise Lost," to be the highest flights of human genius. Indeed, he had a decided preference for poetry and works of imagination. "England," he once said, "has produced only three genuine poets, Shakspeare, Milton, and Dryden." A friend asked, "What do you say of Pope?"--"Ay, ay," he interrupted, "with Broome, Cawthorne, Yalden, Churchill, Dyer, Sprat, and a long list of contemptibles. These are favourites, I know, and they may be poets to you; but, by Heaven, they are none to me." Another gentleman who was present, maintained the genius of Pope, and thought the "Dunciad" his best production. Fuseli denied this, and added, "Pope never shewed poetic genius but once, and that, in the 'Rape of the Lock.'--A poet is an inventor; and what has Pope invented, except the Sylphs? In the Dunciad, he flings dirt in your face every minute. Such a performance may be as witty as you please, but can never be esteemed a first-rate poem."--He then called his "Eloisa to Abelard," "hot ice." For Gray, however, he had a high admiration; and when his opinion was asked by one who imagined that he held him cheap, he said, "How! do you think I condemn myself so much as not to admire Gray? Although he has written but little, that little is done well." When Addison was mentioned, he exclaimed, "Addison translated the fourth Georgic of Virgil, except the story of Aristæus; you may thence know what his taste was. How can you ask me about a man who could translate that Georgic, and omit the most beautiful part?" Of the more modern poets, Lord Byron was his favourite; and he always read his writings as soon as they were published, with great avidity. When pressed to read the works of those writers in verse who are admired merely for the beauty of language and smoothness of versification, he exclaimed, "I cannot find time, for I do not yet know every word in Shakspeare and Milton."