But let us return for a moment to our historian, whose work we cannot dismiss without adding our feeble vote to the unbounded applause which it has obtained from the best part of the public. Mr. R., in our opinion, possesses a high rank among the historians of his country. Notwithstanding the modesty of the title, the life of Lorenzo de' Medici unites the general history of the times, and the political system of the most memorable country in Europe, with the characters of the most celebrated men, and the rise and progress of science and arts. The greatest praise of the historian and biographer, impartiality, might be called its most prominent feature, were it not excelled by the humanity of the writer, who touches with a hand often too gentle, those blemishes which he scorns to disguise. It is impossible to read any part of his performance without discovering that an ardent love for the true interests of society, and a fervid attachment to virtue and real liberty, have furnished his motives of choice, and every where directed his pen. The diligence and correctness of judgment by which the matter is selected and distributed, notwithstanding the scantiness, obscurity, or partiality of the documents that were to be consulted, are equalled only by the amenity with which he has varied his subjects, and the surprising extent of his information. Simplicity, perspicuity, and copiousness, are the leading features of his style, often sententious without being abrupt, and decided without an air of dogma; that it should have been sometimes verbose, sometimes lax or minute, is less to be wondered at, than that it should never be disgraced by affectation or pretence of elegance. If we be not always led by the

nearest road, our path is always strewn with flowers; and, if it be the highest praise of writing to have made delight the effectual vehicle of instruction, our author has attained it.

The Appendix, of upwards of forty documents relative to the text, many highly interesting, is preceded by some original poems of Lorenzo, copied by Mr. Clarke, from the MSS. preserved in the Laurentian library, and now published for the first time.

CHAPTER VII.

Fuseli's Marriage.-His inducements to associate himself with the Royal Academy. He translates Lavater's "Aphorisms on Man."-Remarks on his own “Aphorisms on Art."-Particulars of Fuseli's acquaintance with Mrs. Woolstonecraft.

On the 30th June, 1788, Fuseli married Miss Sophia Rawlins, of Bath Easton, near Bath, a young lady of reputable parentage and of per

sonal attractions. She had been for some time on a visit to an aunt who resided in London. In Mrs. Fuseli he found an excellent wife, and with her he lived happily for thirty-five years. She now survives him. On his marriage he removed from St. Martin's lane, and took a house, No. 72, Queen Anne Street, East, now called Foley Street: where he painted most of the pictures which subsequently composed "The Milton Gallery."

This alteration in his condition effected, from prudential motives, some change in his mode of acting, if not of thinking. Hitherto, he had a distaste to all associated bodies for teaching the fine arts; and, in consequence, refused to belong to some foreign academies during his residence in Italy; nor would he attend to the repeated recommendations of his friends (particularly of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mr. Alderman Boydell) to become a candidate for the Royal Academy. But being now a married man, and far from opulent, the consideration of the pension usually granted by the Royal Academy, under such circumstances, to the widows of their members, overcame his reluctance; and having put down his name, and forced himself to undergo the penance of solicitation, which the members of this as well as several other self-elective bodies expect from candidates as a right, he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy on the 3d November, 1788.

In the beginning of the year (1789), Fuseli published, in a small duodecimo volume, a translation of Lavater's " Aphorisms on Man ;" which work, written in German, was dedicated to him by this early and esteemed friend. The dedication is dated October, 1787. When Fuseli gave this book in an English dress,

it was with a promise, that a corresponding volume of "aphorisms on art," (not, indeed, by the same author,) "should appear in the course of the year." In conformity to this intention, one sheet was worked off and corrected by him; but an accidental fire having taken place in the premises of the printer, the whole impression was destroyed, and Fuseli could never bring himself to undergo the task of another revision. It is, however, so far fortunate, that the aphorisms now appear not only in a more concise, correct, and, in point of number, extended form, but they are also accompanied by many corollaries; for adding the latter, he gave to me this reason," that an aphorism may be discussed, but ought not to contain its own explication." These aphorisms, which are not entirely confined to art, but embrace also life and character, are certainly the master-work of Fuseli in literature: many of them, it is true, he has used by amplification in his lectures, and in the notes to " Pilkington's Dictionary of the Painters;" but what he himself wrote as an advertisement to Lavater's Aphorisms, may be fairly said of the work as a whole, that it "will be found to contain what gives their value to maxims,-verdicts of wisdom on the reports of experience. If some are truisms, let it be con