FUSELI'S SUGGESTION OF AN EMBLEM OF ETERNITY
Looking upon a serpent with its tail in its mouth, carved upon an exhibited monument as an emblem of Eternity, and a very commonplace one, he said to the sculptor, "It won't do, I tell you; you must have something new." The something new startled a man whose imagination was none of the brightest, and he said, "How shall I find something new?" "O, nothing so easy," said Fuseli, "I'll help you to it. When I went away to Rome I left two fat men cutting fat bacon in St. Martin's Lane; in ten years' time I returned, and found the two fat men cutting fat bacon still; twenty years more have passed, and there the two fat fellows cut the fat flitches the same as ever. Carve them! if they look not like an image of eternity, I wot not what does."
FUSELI'S REPORT IN MR. COUTTS' BANKING HOUSE.
During the exhibition of his Milton pictures, he called at the banking house of Mr. Coutts, saying he was going out of town for a few days, and wished to have some money in his pocket. "How much?" said one of the firm. "How much!" said Fuseli, "why, as much as twenty pounds; and as it is a large sum, and I don't wish to take your establishment by surprise, I have called to give you a day's notice of it!" "I thank you, sir," said the cashier, imitating Fuseli's own tone of irony, "we shall be ready for you—but as the town is thin and money scarce with us, you will oblige me greatly by giving us a few orders to see your Milton Gallery—it will keep cash in our drawers, and hinder your exhibition from being empty." Fuseli shook him heartily by the hand, and cried, "Blastation! you shall have the tickets with all my heart; I have had the opinion of the virtuosi, the dilettanti, the cognoscenti, and the nobles and gentry on my pictures, and I want now the opinion of the blackguards. I shall send you and your friends a score of tickets, and thank you too for taking them."
FUSELI'S GENERAL SARCASMS ON LANDSCAPE AND PORTRAIT PAINTERS.
During the delivery of one of his lectures, in which he calls landscape painters the topographers of art, Beechey admonished Turner with his elbow of the severity of the sarcasm; presently, when Fuseli described the patrons of portrait painting as men who would give a few guineas to have their own senseless heads painted, and then assume the air and use the language of patrons, Turner administered a similar hint to Beechey. When the lecture was over, Beechey walked up to Fuseli, and said, "How sharply you have been cutting up us poor laborers in portraiture!" "Not you, Sir William," exclaimed the professor, "I only spoke of the blasted fools who employ you!"