Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/888

 852 F U S F U S Linn., is found on heaths and commons in western Europe from Denmark to Italy, and in the Canaries and Azores, and is abundant in nearly all parts of the British Isles. It grows to a height of 2-6 feet ; it has hairy stems, and the smaller branches end each in a spine ; the leaves, some times lanceolate on the lowermost branches, are mostly represented by spines from 2 to 6 lines long, and branching at their base; and the flowers, about f-inch in length, have a shaggy, yellowish-olive calyx, with two small ovate bracts at its base, and appear in early spring and late autumn. This species comprises the varieties U. vulgaris, or U. ctirojxeus proper, which has spreading branches, and strong, many-ridged spines, and U. strictus (Irish furze), with erect branches, and slender 4-edged spines. Its seeds, according to Babington (Man. -Brit. Bot., p. 80, 6th ed., 1867), pro duce either U. europceus or U. strictus. The other British species of furze is U. names, Forst, an inmate of Belgium, Spain, and the west of France ; it is a procumbent plant, less hairy than U. europceus, with smaller and more orange- coloured flowers, which spring from the primary spines, and have a nearly smooth calyx, with minute basal bracts. From U. nanus have been formed the subspecies U. eu- nanus (Dwarf Furze), common in the south of England, and U. Gcdli, of Planchon, confined in Britain to the western counties, with the exception of Northumberland. During the winter of 1837-38 the furze perished wholly above ground, not only around London, but even in South Wales, Cornwall, and Devonshire ; the double U. europceus was observed to be more hardy than the wild species, and U. strictus suffered more than either. (See Trans. Ilort, Soc. Loud., 2d ser., ii. p. 225.) Furze, or gorse, is sometimes employed for fences. On its use as a forage-plant see AGRICULTURE, vol. i. p. 378. In various parts of England it is cut for fuel. The ashes contain a large proportion of alkali, and are a good manure, especially for peaty land. See Morton, Cyclopaedia of Agriculture, 1855; J. T. Boswell Syme, Sou-crby s English Botany, vol. iii. pp. 3-7, 1864; Bentham, Handbook of British Flora, vol. i., 18G5; J. I). Hooker, The Stu dent s Flora. FUSELI, HENRY (1741-1825), an eminent painter and writer on art, was bora at Zurich in Switzerland on the 7th February 1741 ; he himself asserted, in 1745, but this appears to have been a mere whim. He was the second child in a family of eighteen. His father was John Caspar Fitssli, of some note as a painter of portraits and landscapes, and author of Lives of the Helvetic Painters. This parent destined his son ^ for the church, and with this view sent him to the Caroline college of his native town, where he re ceived an excellent classical education. One of his school mates there was Lavater, with whom he formed an intimate friendship. After taking orders in 1761, Fuseli was obliged to leave his country for a while in consequence of having aided Lavater to expose an unjust magistrate, whose family was still powerful enough to make its ven geance felt. He first travelled through Germany, and then, in 1763, visited England, where he supported him self for some time by miscellaneous writing; there was a sort of project of promoting through his means a regular literary communication between England and Germany. He became in course of time acquainted with Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom he showed his drawings. By Sir Joshua s advice he then devoted himself wholly to art. In 1 ?7i ( V 1 - e o made an ^Piterimage to Italy, where he remained all 1778, changing his name from Fiissli to Fuseli, as more Italian-sounding. Early in 1779 he returned to England, taking Zurich on his way. He found a commission await- 3 him from Alderman Boydell, who was then or*anizin&amp;lt;r is celebrated Shakespeare gallery. Fuseli painted a nunf- W of pieces for this patron, and about this time published English edition of Lavater s work on physiognomy He likewise gave Cowper some valuable assistance in preparing the translation of Homer. In 1788 Fuseli married Miss Sophia Kawlins (who it appears was originally one of his models, and who proved an affectionate wife), and he soon after became an Associate of the Royal Academy. Two years later he was promoted to the grade of Academician. In 1799 he exhibited a series of paintings from subjects furnished by the works of Milton, with a view to forming a Milton gallery corresponding to Boydell s Shakespeare gallery. The number of the Milton paintings was forty- seven, many of them very large ; they were executed at in tervals within nine years. This exhibition, which closed in 1800, proved a failure as regards profit. In 1799 also he was appointed professor of painting to the Academy. Four years afterwards he was chosen keeper, and resigned his professorship; but he resumed it in 1810, and continued to hold both offices till his death. In 1805 he brought out an edition of Pilkington s Lives of the Painters, which how ever, did not add much to his reputation. Canova, when on his visit to England, was much taken with Fuseli s works, and on returning to Rome in 1817 caused him to be elected a member of the first class in the Academy of St Luke. Fuseli, after a life of uninterrupted good health, died at Putney Hill, 16th April 1825, at the advanced age of eighty-four, and was buried in the crypt of St Paul s Cathedral. He was comparatively rich at his death, though his professional gains had always appeared to be meagre. As a painter, Fuseli had a daring invention, was original, fertile in resource, and ever aspiring after the highest forms of excellence. His mind was capable of grasping and real izing the loftiest conceptions, which, however, he often spoiled on the canvas by exaggerating the due proportions of the parts, and throwing his figures into attitudes of fan tastic and over-strained contortion. He delighted to select from the region of the supernatural, and pitched everything upon an ideal scale, believing a certain amount of exag geration necessary in the higher branches of historical painting. &quot; Damn Nature ! she always puts me out,&quot; was his characteristic exclamation. In this theory he was confirmed by the study of Michelangelo s works and the marble statues of the Monte Cavallo, which, when at Rome, he used often to contemplate in the evening, relieved against a murky sky or illuminated by lightning. But this idea was by him carried out to an excess, not only in the forms, but also in the attitudes of his figures ; and the vio lent and intemperate action which he often displays de stroys the grand effect which many of his pieces would other wise produce. A striking illustration of this occurs in his famous picture of Hamlet breaking from his Attendants to follow the Ghost : Hamlet, it has been said, looks as though he would burst his clothes with convulsive cramps in all his muscles. This intemperance is the grand defect of nearly all Fuseli s compositions. On the other hand, his paintings are never either languid or cold. His figures are full of life and earnestness, and seem to have an object in view which they follow with rigid intensity. Like Rubens he excelled in the art of setting his figures in motion. Though the lofty and terrible was his proper sphere, Fuseli had a fine perception of the ludicrous. The grotesque humour of his fairy scenes, especially those taken from the Midsummer Night s Dream, is in its way not less remarkable than the poetic power of his more ambitious works. As a colourist Fuseli has but small claims to dis tinction. He scorned to set a palette as most artists do; he merely dashed his tints recklessly over it. Not unfre- quently he used his paints in the form of a dry powder, which he rubbed up with his pencil with oil, or turpentine, or gold size, regardless of the quantity, and depending for accident on the general effect. This recklessness may per haps be explained by the fact that he did not paint iu