“Dear Sir,—I am sorry to say that my recollections of Mr Fuseli are very imperfect. You knew much more of him in his latter years, and therefore, I doubt not, can recollect much more. I seldom saw him but in company, and consequently know much less of his systems of thinking and his habits. . . . The most remarkable thing that comes to my mind I had from my first wife, whom, by the way, I should wish, if you please, to be very slightly mentioned, or not at all. She told me that when he first came to England, his two deities were Homer and Rousseau. No other authors were worthy to be named with them. Homer retained his place to the last, but Rousseau, who was once placed on an equal column, was obliged, I suspect, afterwards to descend to a lower pedestal.
“You know, no doubt, his strange book on the character and writings of Rousseau, wild, scarcely English, and scarcely common-sense, yet with some striking things interspersed.
“He was the most frankly ingenuous and conceited man I ever knew. He could not bear to be eclipsed or put in the back-ground for a moment. He scorned to be less than highest. He was an excellent hater; he hated a dull fellow, as men of wit and talents naturally do; and he hated a brilliant man, because he could not bear a brother near the throne. He once dined at my house with Curran, Grattan, and two or three men of that stamp; and retiring suddenly to the drawing-room, told Mrs Godwin that he could not think why he was invited to meet such wretched company.” . . .
