seli received only twenty
guineas for the picture, the publisher made five hundred by his
speculation." This was a subject suitable to the unbridled fancy of the
painter, and perhaps to no other imagination has the Fiend which murders
our sleep ever appeared in a more poetical shape.

FUSELI'S "OEDIPUS AND HIS DAUGHTERS."

This picture was a work of far higher order than his "Nightmare,"
although the latter caught the public fancy most. It is distinguished
by singular power, full of feeling and terror. The desolate old man is
seated on the ground, and his whole frame seems inspired with a
presentiment of the coming vengeance of heaven. His daughters are
clasping him wildly, and the sky seems mustering the thunder and fire in
which the tragic bard has made him disappear. "Pray, sir, what is that
old man afraid of?" said some one to Fuseli, when the picture was
exhibited. "Afraid, sir," exclaimed the painter, "why, afraid of going
to hell!"

FUSELI AND THE SHAKSPEARE GALLERY.

His rising fame, his poetic feeling, his great knowledge, and his
greater confidence, now induced Fuseli to commence an undertaking worthy
of the highest genius--the Shakspeare Gallery. An accidental
conversation at the table of the nephew of Alderman Boydell, started, as
it is said, the idea; and West, Romney, and Hayley shared with Fuseli in
the honor. But to the mind of the latter, such a scheme had been long
present; it dawned on his fancy in Rome, even as he lay on his back
marveling in the Sistine, and he saw in imagination a long and shadowy
succession of pictures. He figured to himself a magnificent temple, and
filled it, as the illustrious artists of Italy did the Sistine, with
pictures from his favorite poet. All was arranged according to
character. In the panels and accessories were the figures of the chief
heroes and heroines--on the extensive walls were delineated the changes
of many-colored life, the ludicrous and the sad--the pathetic and the
humorous--domestic happiness and heroic aspirations--while the dome
which crowned the whole exhibited scenes of higher emotion--the joys of
heaven--the agonies of hell--all that was supernatural and all that was
terrible. This splendid piece of imagination was cut down to working
dimensions by the practiced hands of Boydell, who supported the scheme
anxiously and effectually. On receiving L500 Reynolds entered, though
with reluctance, into an undertaking which consumed time and required