Page:Nollekens and His Times, Volume 2.djvu/451

 Rh placed the English translation of that interesting book entirely under his direction.

Fuseli was short in stature, his eyes full, prominent, and, like the eagle's, piercingly find in them a degree of finishing almost over-curious, and which, for this reason, affords a singular contrast with the boldness of the whole. Any one may see, without my telling it, that this character is not destitute of ambition, and that the sense of his own merit escapes him not. It may also be suspected that he is subject to impetuous emotions; but will any one say that he loves with tenderness, with warmth, to excess? There is nothing, however, more true: though, on the other hand, his sensibility has occasion continually to be kept awake by the presence of the beloved object: absent, he forgets it, and troubles himself no more. The person to whom he is fondly attached, while near him, may lead him like a child; but, quit him, and the most perfect indifference will follow. He must be roused, be struck, in order to be carried along. Though capable of the greatest actions, to him the slightest complaisance is an effort. His imagination is ever aiming at the sublime, and delighting itself with prodigies.

"The sanctuary of the Graces is not shut against him, but he has no great skill in sacrificing to them, and gives himself very little concern about it. Though formed to feel it, he seldom reaches the sublime. Nature intended him for a great poet, a great painter, a great orator; but, to borrow his own words, 'inexorable fate does not always proportion the will to our powers; it sometimes assigns a copious proportion of will to ordinary minds, whose faculties are very contracted; and frequently associates with the greatest faculties, a will feeble and impotent.'"