He loved especially to exercise his wit upon Northcote. He looked on his
friend's painting of the Angel meeting Balaam and his Ass. "How do you
like it?" said the painter. "Vastly, Northcote," returned Fuseli, "you
are an angel at an ass--but an ass at an angel!"
When Northcote exhibited his Judgment of Solomon, Fuseli looked at it
with a sarcastic smirk on his face. "How do you like my picture?"
inquired Northcote. "Much" was the answer--"the action suits the
word--Solomon holds out his fingers like a pair of open scissors at the
child, and says, 'Cut it.'--I like it much!" Northcote remembered this
when Fuseli exhibited a picture representing Hercules drawing his arrow
at Pluto. "How do you like my picture?" inquired Fuseli. "Much!" said
Northcote--"it is clever, very clever, but he'll never hit him." "He
shall hit him," exclaimed the other, "and that speedily." Away ran
Fuseli with his brush, and as he labored to give the arrow the true
direction, was heard to mutter "Hit him!--by Jupiter, but he shall hit
him!"