doubted, but that this was a species of exercise very conducive to the
improvement of Mary's mind.

Nothing human however is unmixed. If Mary derived improvement from Mr.
Fuseli, she may also be suspected of having caught the infection of some
of his faults. In early life Mr. Fuseli was ardently attached to
literature; but the demands of his profession have prevented him from
keeping up that extensive and indiscriminate acquaintance with it, that
belles-lettres scholars frequently possess. Of consequence, the
favourites of his boyish years remain his only favourites. Homer is with
Mr. Fuseli the abstract and deposit of every human perfection. Milton,
Shakespear, and Richardson, have also engaged much of his attention. The
nearest rival of Homer, I believe, if Homer can have a rival, is Jean
Jacques Rousseau. A young man embraces entire the opinions of a
favourite writer, and Mr. Fuseli has not had leisure to bring the
opinions of his youth to a revision. Smitten with Rousseau's conception
of the perfectness of the savage state, and the essential abortiveness
of all civilization, Mr. Fuseli looks at all our little attempts at
improvement, with a spirit that borders perhaps too much upon contempt
and indifference. One of his favourite positions is the divinity of
genius. This is a power that comes complete at once from the hands of
the Creator of all things, and the first essays of a man of real genius
are such, in all their grand and most important features, as no
subsequent assiduity can amend. Add to this, that Mr. Fuseli is somewhat
of a caustic turn of mind, with much wit, and a disposition to search,
in every thing new or modern, for occasions of censure. I believe Mary
came something more a cynic out of the school of Mr. Fuseli, than she
went into it.

But the principal circumstance that relates to the intercourse of Mary,