In the summer of 1813, Fuseli was attacked with a considerable degree of fever on the nerves, attended with great depression of spirits: this he considered a similar disease, but much milder in its effects than that with which he had been afflicted in 1772, at Rome. This indisposition he felt the more, from having enjoyed for the last forty-three years, an uninterrupted state of good health. His medical friends advised change of air, and more particularly for that of the sea-side. He accordingly determined to pass a month at Hastings, and prevailed upon the writer of this memoir to accompany him thither. The frequenters of this salubrious bathing-place, called by some the Montpelier of England, will hardly recognise, from its present improved state, the description given of it by Fuseli in a letter to a friend; but it was a true picture of the town at that time. "Hastings appears to me to have been constructed by a conspiracy of bone-setters, surgeons, and dissectors, as the most commodious theatre of all possible accidents in contusions, falls, dislocations, sprains, and fractures. The houses of one side of the High-street, i.e. the most inhabited part of the town, are built on what they misname a terrace; but, in fact, it is a mass of stony fragments gathered from the shore, without any other polish than what the wave had left behind; raised four or five feet above the road, unguarded on the edge, and consequently, without the perpetual interference of miracles, fatal to every stranger who approaches them at night, in winter thaws, when spangled with ice, or flooded from the tremendous ridge that beetles o'er the house-tops."
To form an adequate and correct opinion of the extent of Fuseli's talents and information, and a proper notion of his feelings, it was necessary to be an inmate of the same house: from the experience of this and a subsequent opportunity, I can, with truth, assert, that he was not only a most intellectual, but a pleasant and accommodating companion. After a month had been spent at this pleasant watering-place, I had the satisfaction of returning to London with him, he being restored to perfect health.
This year (1813) he painted a picture for Mr. Joseph Johnson, of Liverpool, "Marcus Curius preparing his frugal repast." When Mr. Johnson gave the commission, he said, "I wish the subject to be some mentally heroic action, taken either from the English or Roman History." When this picture was finished, Fuseli addressed the following letter to his friend:—
"London, Oct. 8, 1813.
"dear sir,
"I have not been unmindful of what you so kindly commissioned me to undertake for you, and the picture which I have painted now only waits your commands. The subject, though not English, is congenial with your own mind, and selected from the most virtuous period of Rome. If I remember rightly, you approved of it when we discussed the subjects here; but as you may not perhaps have since had leisure to reconsider it, you will permit me to repeat it as concisely to you as I can, and nearly in the words of Valerius Maximus. 'Marcus Curius, who had repeatedly smitten the Samnites, seated in his rustic chair, preparing his simple meal in a wooden bowl, exhibited to the admiring Legates of the Samnites at once, with the proof of the most rigid frugality, his own superiority. Commissioned by the state, they spread before him treasure, and humbly solicited his acceptance. With a smile of disdain, scarcely deigning to look at it, Curius replied—Take back these baubles to those who sent you, and tell them that Marcus Curius prefers subduing the rich to being rich himself, and that you found him as impregnable by bribes as irresistible in arms.'
"Such is the subject, my dear Sir, which I have endeavoured to compose and execute for you, as well as my capacity and practice permitted; I wish they had been greater. I remain, with my wife's and my own warmest wishes for your own, dear Mrs. Johnson's, and son's health and happiness, dear Sir,
"Your obliged and sincere friend,
"Henry Fuseli."
"Joseph Johnson, Esq."
Fuseli kept up a constant intercourse with his friends at Liverpool, and particularly with Mr. Roscoe. The correspondence which passed between this gentleman and him sometimes had relation to literature, but more frequently to the fine arts; the following is a specimen of the latter:—