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"who are gone, and to have opened the eyes of all who are "to come."

What a lesson of sublime resignation he himself teaches in speaking of his misfortune :-" Alas! your dear friend "and servant, Galileo, has become totally and irreparably "blind: so that this heaven, this earth, this universe, which "with wonderful observation I had enlarged an hundred and "a thousand times beyond the belief of bygone ages, "henceforward for me is shrunk into the narrow space which "I myself fill in it. So it pleased God-it shall therefore What an example, and from what a

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please me also!"

man!

Milton was in Italy in the year 1638-" and there," says he, "I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, and

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a prisoner in the Inquisition." What a fine "Imaginary Conversation" might be formed between these two "foremost men of all the age❞—a conversation on which the stamp of reality might be fixed by the powerful impress of Mr. Landor!

Galileo was born on the day on which Michael Angelo died; and he died on the day in which Sir Isaac Newton was born: thus philosophy rose from her ruins on the ruin of the arts.

XLIX.

Happier than Angelo, whose dust lies near :

The establishment of four primitive schools embraces likewise the golden age of Painting. How brief was the reign of

lofty genius! The same individual might have lived with all the masters;-" he might have survived them all; be"holding the art in its infancy and in its manhood, he might "have witnessed also its decline, and yet have viewed all this "within the ordinary span of existence. The same brevity "in the duration of excellence existed also in the arts of "Greece. Is it, then, the fate of the human spirit, like hu"man institutions, to fall away immediately on attaining a

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degree of perfection? or rather, is not this evidence of "powers which shall hereafter expand, grow, and unfold their "activities-here on earth chilled, and cramped and broken?"

MEMES' HISTORY OF PAINTING.

It appeared more advisable to throw various anecdotes of Michael Angelo under one head, than to diffuse them in parts; nor do I think that the notices will be found lengthened; for, to whom they are familiar, their recollection will be pleasing; and surely they will be found interesting to those who have not met them before.

The first group done by Michael Angelo in bas relief is still to be seen at the house of the descendant of this illustrious man, who resides in the Via Ghibellina, Florence. The subject was suggested to him by Politian-the Battle of the Centaurs-and the whole position of the bodies is a contest with the sculptor against the most pronounced difficulties; but, among many incorrections, there are marks in it of admirable genius. Michael Angelo, when in his old age, observed to those around him, while looking at this his first essay, that he felt a mortal chagrin in not having devoted himself wholly to sculpture.

There are many anecdotes which mark in Michael Angelo that thorough knowledge of what he was, that high self-respect, and that uncompromising independence of character, all of which are the certain indications of the master mind. Pope Julius II. had ordered him to address himself directly to him, at all times when he needed money for the carrying on the work of his Mausoleum. The remains of the marbles left at Carrera were arrived at the quay of the Tiber; Buonarotti had them disembarked, transported them to the place of St. Peter, and then mounted to the Vatican to demand the silver required to pay the sailors. They told him that his Holiness was not to be seen; he did not press the interview, but went away. Some days afterwards he again returned to the palace. As he traversed the antechamber, a valet barred the passage, and told him that he could not pass. A bishop, who by chance stood by, hastened to reprove the man, and demanded of him if he knew to whom he spoke.

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It is precisely because I do know very well to whom I speak, that I do not allow him to pass," answered the valet— "I acquit myself only of my orders." "And you will tell the Pope mine also,” replied Michael Angelo, slowly retiring, "which are, if henceforth he desires to see me, he will send to find me." On that evening he left Rome, and slept at Poggibonzi, a village some few leagues from Florence; and it required all the efforts and entreaties of the Pope to recal him. Their first reconciliation is so singular, that I cannot resist one more extract from the work, which has so much of interest."* The scene occurred at Bologna. Julius II. was

* Histoire de la Peinture en Italie, 2 vols.

at table when his couriers conducted Buonarotti to his presence. On seeing him enter, he cried out in a transport of wrath—“ Thou oughtest to have come to us, but thou hast waited until we should come to search for thee!" Michael Angelo remained on his knees, and demanded pardon with at loud voice. My fault has not arisen from an evil nature, but from a sentiment of indignation: I have not been able to support the insults they offered me in the palace of your Holiness."

Julius remained pensive, without replying to him; his head bent down, and his whole appearance discomposed; when a bishop, sent by the Cardinal Soderini, brother of the Gonfalonier, in order to make up the misunderstanding, broke the silence by representing that Michael Angelo had erred through ignorance; that all artists, presuming too much on their genius, were always thus-on which the impetuous Julius, interrupting him with a sharp stroke of his cane, cried—“ Thou tellest him the injuries which we do not "tell him ourselves; it is thou who art ignorant; take thyself away from my sight!" and as the officious prelate, in his perplexity, did not hasten to obey the mandate, the valets of the place, by dint of pushing and fisty-cuffs, drove him from the presence. Julius, having exhaled his choler, gave his blessing to Michael Angelo; made him approach his couch, and commanded him never again to leave him, excepting with express orders from himself.

It was the enemies of Michael Angelo who urged Julius II. to make him paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in

the Vatican.

They knew that if he accepted not the office, he would alienate from him the Pope; and that if he attempted those immense frescos, he must necessarily fall beneath Raphael, which great painter was then employed on the Vatican chambers, hardly twenty paces from the Sistine Chapel. Buonarotti saw the snare, and at last dared it; he hired the best fresco painters from Florence; learned for the first time their art; buried himself for twenty months in the chapel; and left it, at the age of thirty-seven, an inimitable specimen of art, and in a line which he had never chosen.

There is a wonderful similarity between the minds of Buonarotti and of Dante. Had the sculptor written a poem, he would have created a Count Ugolino; had the poet been a sculptor, he would have created Moses. No man ever loved and reverenced Virgil more than Dante; few have less copied him. No sculptor reverenced the antique more than Michael Angelo; no one has less imitated it in his works. Like Dante, the sculptor gives no feeling of pleasure; the imagination is too much strained to embrace his Titanic creations. On turning from "the Moses," or from "the Day,” any softer object becomes grateful to repose on; it raises one from a sort of stupor. The force of our impressions has mounted to pain; their relaxation is a species of delight. The pride of the sculptor is as unbending and as inflexible as that which is represented so powerfully in the finest specimen of his genius-in the frowning Moses, when he seems to be exclaiming to the nations—“ Think of your own interests—

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