Fuseli esteemed the English character more highly than that of any other country, and was much pleased with their amusements. The theatre was a constant source of gratification, and his criticisms on plays and players were usually severe, but generally acute and just. Meeting Macklin at Johnson's table, he shewed such deep knowledge in the art in which that celebrated man was so successful, not only as a writer, but as an actor, that when Fuseli took his leave, Macklin exclaimed, "I could sit all night to discourse with that learned Theban." Of Miss O'Neill he always spoke favourably, and considered that her merits as an actress, however highly they were esteemed, had been undervalued rather than overrated. Of Mr. Betty, in 1822, he said, "If his face, on the whole, do not sanction a prophecy of unrivalled excellence, it does not exclude him from attaining eminence. Mrs. Pritchard was the allowed Lady Macbeth of her day, without one tragic feature, or one elegant limb. It is indeed a little provoking, that he who in Dublin inthralled the general female eye, when his golden locks inundated his neck,—he whose kerchief the ladies at Bath of late cut out into a thousand amulets of love, should be less than the theatric sun of London;—but still
'Principibus placuisse Feminis
Non ultima laus est.'—
If I have murdered Horace's verse, I have improved the sense. As to former actors, the pupils of Betterton and Booth would probably have turned up their noses at Barry and Garrick—'But to praise the past,' has always been a characteristic of age." He was an admirer of Kean in some characters which he played, particularly in his Shylock. But he considered that this actor took too wide a range. In writing to a friend, he says, "I have seen Kean and Mrs. West in Orestes and Hermione, and desire to see them no more. What could excite the public rapture at his first appearance in this part, I am at a loss to guess: if his figure is not absolutely irreconcileable with the character, his action and expression are balanced between the declamation of Talma, the ravings of a bedlamite, and sometimes the barking of a dog. Mrs. West is something of a slender Grecian figure, tall, not ungraceful, and a face something like Mrs. Madyn's: she was well dressed, and has a good voice, but no rule of it, and tore her part to tatters in one uninterrupted fit of raving." In the Italian opera, and in operas in general, he did not take much delight; for in music his ear was certainly imperfect; but notwithstanding this, some few simple airs affected him strongly. In speaking of music, he said, "All your complicated harmonies of Haydn and Beethoven are fine, I know; because they are esteemed to be so by the best judges; but I am ignorant, and they say nothing to me. They give to me no more pleasure than a fine anatomical foreshortened drawing by Michael Angelo would to an unpractised eye. But the song, 'How imperfect is expression,' is the key to my heart. How could a Frenchman write it? Lady Guilford once sang it to me so exquisitely, that I only wished to hear it over and over again, and to die when it ceased." He always held an opinion, that the English and French, as nations, possessed no genius or taste for music, and that their apparent attachment to this science was assumed, and not natural. Of masquerades, he considered that Englishmen neither possess the animal spirits nor quickness of repartee requisite for this amusement, but are apt to drop the fictitious character they assume, and take up their real one. He instanced this by the following anecdote:—"At the request of young Lavater, when he was in England, I went to a masquerade at the Opera House: we were accompanied by my wife, Mrs. Wollstonecraft, and some others, and were endeavouring to be amused by the masks, when a devil came howling about us, and tormented some of the party to such a degree, that I exclaimed in a loud voice, 'Go to hell!' but the dull devil, instead of answering in character, 'Then I will drag you down with me,' or making some bitter retort, put himself into a real passion, and began to abuse me roundly. So I, to avoid him, retired from the place, and left the others of the party to battle it out."
As a critic, Fuseli's powers can be best estimated by his writings. In art—his "Lectures," "Notes to Pilkington's Dictionary," his "Aphorisms," and "The Fragment of a History of Art," may be instanced. In the classics—but more particularly in Greek,—by the written opinions of Cowper, and the oral testimony given in society, by Porson, Parr, Burney, Symmons, and others. In consequence of his extensive knowledge in the dead languages, the situation of "Professor of Ancient Literature" to the Royal Academy became nearly a sinecure, as he afforded information upon all classical subjects, and furnished the mottoes for the annual catalogues of the exhibition, which were usually in Greek, but sometimes in Latin. He, however, kept up the most friendly intercourse with the Professor of the time, and frequently corresponded with him, particularly so with Dr. Charles Burney, upon disputed points or doubtful passages. I am favoured by Dr. Charles Parr Burney with the following letter, which Fuseli wrote to his father:—
"Somerset House, July 7, 1805.
"my dear sir,
"You have so often answered my questions, whether pertinent or idle, that I hope you will do the same now.
"At what period of Greek literature did the word Ῥεεθρον, 'fluentum,' change its gender, and from a neuter become a masculine? In Homer, I believe, it is uniformly neuter, καλα, ἐρατεινα ῥεεθρα: what then do you say to the following metamorphosis?