The censure of the liberal critic as to the defects of this performance,
will be changed into astonishment, when I tell him, that a work of this
inestimable moment, was begun, carried on, and finished in the state in
which it now appears, in a period of no more than six weeks.

It is necessary here that I should resume the subject of the friendship
that subsisted between Mary and Mr. Fuseli, which proved the source of
the most memorable events in her subsequent history. He is a native of
the republic of Switzerland, but has spent the principal part of his
life in the island of Great-Britain. The eminence of his genius can
scarcely be disputed; it has indeed received the testimony which is the
least to be suspected, that of some of the most considerable of his
contemporary artists. He has one of the most striking characteristics of
genius, a daring, as well as persevering, spirit of adventure. The work
in which he is at present engaged, a series of pictures for the
illustration of Milton, upon a very large scale, and produced solely
upon the incitement of his own mind, is a proof of this, if indeed his
whole life had not sufficiently proved it.

Mr. Fuseli is one of Mr. Johnson's oldest friends, and was at this time
in the habit of visiting him two or three times a week. Mary, one of
whose strongest characteristics was the exquisite sensations of pleasure
she felt from the associations of visible objects, had hitherto never
been acquainted, or never intimately acquainted, with an eminent
painter. The being thus introduced therefore to the society of Mr.
Fuseli, was a high gratification to her; while he found in Mary, a
person perhaps more susceptible of the emotions painting is calculated
to excite, than any other with whom he ever conversed. Painting, and
subjects closely connected with painting, were their almost constant
topics of conversation; and they found them inexhaustible. It cannot be