_Stars and Flowers_ (Vol. iv., p. 22.; Vol. vii., p. 151. 341.).--Passages illustrative of this similitude have been quoted from Cowley, Longfellow, Hood, and Moir. The metaphor is also made use of by Darwin, in his _Loves of the Plants_:
"Roll on, ye stars! exult in youthful prime, Mark with bright curves the printless steps of time; _Flowers of the sky!_ ye, too, to age must yield, Frail as your silken sisters of the field."
_The Painting by Fuseli_ (Vol. vii., p. 453.).--The picture by the late Henry Fuseli, R.A., inquired after by MR. SANSOM, is in the collection at Sir John Soane's Museum; it was purchased by him in 1802.
It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1780, and is thus entered in the Catalogue of that year:
"No. 77. Ezzelin Bracciaferro musing over Meduna, destroyed by him, for disloyalty, during his absence in the Holy Land. _Fuseli._"
There is an engraving of the picture in _Essays on Physiognomy_, by J. C. Lavater, translated from the French by Henry Hunter, D.D., 4to.: London, 1789. The _second_ volume, p. 294.
The inscription under that engraving, by Holloway, is as follows:
"Ezzelin, Count of Ravenna, surnamed Bracciaferro or Iron Arm, musing over the body of Meduna; slain by him, for infidelity, during his absence in the Holy Land."
The subject of your correspondent J. SANSOM'S inquiry is in the Soane Museum, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Search among the Italian story-tellers will not discover the origin of the picture of Count Ezzelin's remorse: it sprung from that fertile source of fearful images--Henry Fuseli's brain. The work might well have been left without a name, but for the requirements of the Royal Academy Catalogue, and, it must be added, Fuseli's desire to mystify the Italian as well as the other scholars of his day.
For confirmation of the correctness of these statements, I refer your correspondent to the _Life of Fuseli_ by Knowles, and to that by Cunningham in the _Lives of the British Painters_.
_"Navita Erythræum"_ (Vol. vii., p. 382.).--Since I requested a reference to these lines, I have possessed myself of a very elaborate Latin work on _Bells_, in two vols. 8vo., published at Rome, 1822, by Alexander Lazzarinus, _De Vario Tintinnabulorum usu apud veteres Hebræos et Ethnicos_: wherein, in a section on the effect of the sound of bells on different animals, he quotes those very lines from "Cornelius Kilianus Dufflæus in suis poematibus."