Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/341

 and Elisabetha, were noted for their skill in drawing birds and insects. This art-loving family was on intimate terms with the literary circle at Zurich, which claims to have started the romantic movement in general literature, represented by J. J. Bodmer, J. J. Breitinger, and the painter-poet, Salomon Gessner, who stood sponsor to the infant Heinrich. Fuessli was therefore nursed in an atmosphere of romanticism from his earliest days, and showed an early predilection for art. He received some instruction from his father and elder brother, but the father was discouraged by his own experience of an artist's career, and, distrustful of his son's mechanical powers, intended the boy for the clerical profession. Fuseli, however, secretly pursued his studies, and his habit of drawing with his left hand, while his father or tutor was reading aloud, caused him to be ‘ambidexter,’ a faculty which he retained through life. He studied eagerly his father's collection of prints after Michelangelo and other artists, and his childish productions all showed the love of weird fantasy characteristic of his later works. He made drawings to illustrate the old poem of ‘Howleglas,’ and subsequently etched them; and he studied with interest the works of Tobias Stimmer, Jost Amman, and other old Zurich artists. When about twelve his family removed into the country for his mother's health, and art for a time made way among the children for entomology. When he was about fifteen his father placed him at the Collegium Carolinum at Zurich, of which Bodmer and Breitinger were professors. Here he quickly attracted attention by his hot temper, his various extravagances in dress and behaviour, and his immense capacities for mental labour. He rapidly acquired a good knowledge of the English, French, and Italian languages, besides Greek and Latin, and was an ardent student of the works of Shakespeare, Richardson, Milton, Dante, and Rousseau, which, with the Bible, gave plenty of scope to his ever-active pencil. He made several essays in composition, both prose and verse, but never showed any aptitude for mathematics or other abstract sciences. He made many intimate friends, among them Johann Caspar Lavater, the physiognomist, the brothers Johann Jakob and Felix Hess, Leonard Usteri, and others who attained distinction in after life. In 1761 Lavater and Fuessli, whose kindred characters made them the closest of friends, entered into holy orders, and at once made their mark by their attempts to raise the style of pulpit oratory in Zurich. Before they could accomplish much they became involved in a cause which soon agitated the whole town. One Felix Grebel, bailiff of Gruningen, one of the bailiwicks of Zurich, was accused of gross oppression and extortion. The young friends, in August 1762, sent an anonymous letter to Grebel threatening exposure. They next published a pamphlet, entitled ‘The Under-Bailiff, or the Complaints of a Patriot,’ and sent copies to the various members of the government. The authors were summoned to appear; Lavater and Fuessli came forward accordingly and proved their charges. Grebel was disgraced, but, as he was son-in-law of the burgomaster, and had powerful family connections, it was thought advisable for the young patriots to absent themselves for a time from Zurich. J. G. Sulzer, the author of a ‘Theory of the Fine Arts,’ who was about to return to Berlin, where he was professor, offered to take them with him, and in March 1763 Lavater, Fuessli, and the brothers Hess left Zurich. They visited Augsburg, where Fuessli was especially struck with Reichel's colossal statue of St. Michael at the arsenal, proceeded to Leipzig, where they met Ernesti, Gellert, and other celebrities, and reached Berlin to find that their fame had preceded them. Fuessli was at once employed to assist Rode on a set of illustrations to Bodmer's ‘Noachide,’ but after a short stay in Berlin visited Professor Spalding, the theologian, at Barth in Pomerania. At this time there was a desire to establish a channel of literary communication between Germany and England, and through Sulzer's kind agency Fuessli was summoned to Berlin and presented to the British minister, Sir Andrew Mitchell, at whose house, among others, he met Dr. John Armstrong [q. v.], afterwards his intimate friend. Mitchell was impressed by the young man's literary and artistic compositions, and offered to take him to England. Lavater and his other friends accompanied him as far as Göttingen, where he left them, and reached England towards the end of 1763. Thus introduced, he easily obtained access to several persons of importance, notably Mr. Coutts, the banker (who remained his steadfast friend and patron throughout), Millar, the bookseller, and Cadell, his successor, and Joseph Johnson, the well-known radical publisher in St. Paul's Churchyard. At Johnson's dinner-table he met some of the most remarkable persons in art and literature of the day. At first he appears to have thought only of a literary life, and supported life by translating books, although his pencil was never idle. In 1765 Fusseli, as he now called himself, published a translation of Winckelmann's ‘Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks,’