Fuseli knew not well how to begin with quiet beauty and serene grace:
the hurrying measures, the crowding epithets, and startling imagery of
the northern poetry suited his intoxicated fancy. His "Thor battering
the Serpent" was such a favorite that he presented it to the Academy as
his admission gift. Such was his love of terrific subjects, that he was
known among his brethren by the name of _Painter in ordinary to the
Devil_, and he smiled when some one officiously told him this, and said,
"Aye! he has sat to me many times." Once, at Johnson the bookseller's
table, one of the guests said, "Mr. Fuseli, I have purchased a picture
of yours." "Have you, sir; what is the subject?" "Subject? really I
don't know." "That's odd; you must be a strange fellow to buy a picture
without knowing the subject." "I bought it, sir, that's enough--I don't
know what the _devil_ it is." "Perhaps it is the devil," replied Fuseli,
"I have often painted him." Upon this, one of the company, to arrest a
conversation which was growing warm, said, "Fuseli, there is a member of
your Academy who has strange looks--and he chooses as strange subjects
as you do." "Sir," exclaimed the Professor, "he paints nothing but
thieves and murderers, and when he wants a model, he looks in the
glass."