Michael Angelo the next evening replied in the following lines: Grato m'é il fonno, & piu l'effer di sasso, To me how pleafant is this death-like fleep, Michael was in love with the celebrated Mar chionefs of Pefcara, yet he never fuffered his pleafures to interfere materially with his more ferious pursuits. He was one day preffed to marriage by a friend of his, who, amongst other topics, told him that he might then have children, to whom he might leave his great works in art. "I have already," replied he, "a Wife that harraffes me; that is, my Art, and my works << are my Children." Michael Angelo faid one day to his Biographer Giorgio Vafari, "Giorgio, thank God that "Duke Cofmo has reared thee to be the fervant 66 of his whims, his architect and painter; Florence at that time was distracted with civil diffenfions. "whilst "whilft many of thofe whofe lives thou haft "written, are doomed to pine in obfcurity for "want of fimilar opportunities." Angelo being one day afked, whether the copy of the Laocoon, by Bacio Bandinelli, the celebrated fculptor of Florence, was equal to the original, coolly replied, "He who fubmits to "follow is not made to go before." He faid too on a fimilar occafion, "The man who cannot do "well from himself, can never make a good use of "what others have done before him." He used to fay, "that oil painting was an art fit for "women only, or for the rich and idle ;" yet he acknowledged that Titian was the only painter. On being advifed by fome of his friends to take notice of the infolence of fome obfcure artist who wished to attract notice by declaring himself his rival, he magnanimoufly replied, "He who contefts with the mean, gains no "victory over any one." Being once told of an artist who painted with his fingers: "Why does not the blockhead "make ufe of his pencils?" was his reply. When this great artist first saw the Pantheon at Rome, "I will erect fuch a building," faid he, "but I will hang it up in the air." With what truth D 2 truth he spoke this the dome of St. Peter's will evince, but which, unhappily for him, was not executed whilst he was living, and to which his original design was to append a most magnificent portico. Michael Angelo was faid to have been fo confummate a mafter of the art of fculpture, that he could make a whole-length ftatue without fetting his points, like all other ftatuaries. Vigereres thus prefaces his account of Michael Angelo's very forcible and active manner of working in marble: "That Sculpture is a more difficult and dangerous art than Painting, appears amongst other ❝reafons by the bufts of Michael Angelo, the "most accomplished of all the moderns, both "in one and in the other; for though he excelled "in both equally, and though he equally divided "his time amongst them, he has for one statue "of marble made a hundred figures in painting, "and well coloured them, as may be feen in the "Laft Judgment of the Chapel of Sixtus at "Rome, where St. Peter and the Prophets that "are in the ceiling, larger than the life, are more "efteemed by the good masters in art than the 66 Judgment itfelf, which is without relief. The "marble marble befides gives more trouble (than clay or wood, and fuch fort of tender matters, " and more eafy to work) because of its mafs, "that weighs several pounds, and the point "of the tool, that must be fharpened inceffantly "at the forge. Alfo the artifice and the dexterity "there is in knowing the grain of the marble, "and in what direction it fhould be taken. In "this refpect I have feen this divine old man, at the age of fixty, chip off more scales "from a hard piece of marble in less than a "quarter of an hour, than three young ftone"cutters could do in three or four hours; a "thing impoffible to be conceived, unless by "one who had seen it. He worked with fo "much fury and impetuofity, that I really "thought he would have broken the block of "marble to pieces; knocking off at one stroke "great pieces of marble of three or four fingers "thick, fo near the points that he had fixed, that "if he had paffed eyer fo little over them, he "would have been in danger of ruining his work, "because that cannot be replaced in stone, as it may in ftucco and in clay *," "La Defcription de Philoft rate de quelquez Statues "Antiques dans les Images des Dieux, faits par des "Artistes Grecs, mis en François par Blaife de "Vigeneres." Paris, Folio, 1625. The objections that fome perfons have made to Michael Angelo's anxiety to do better than well in his art, feem to have nearly the fame weight as those which a cafuift might make to the afpirations of a virtuous man after a greater degree of virtue. A great artist, no more than a man of great virtue, is ever fatisfied with the degree of merit which he poffeffes. He is always the laft to be pleased with himself, as knowing how much farther he both could and ought to proceed. It is to the wifh of producing fomething fuperior to the good, that we are indebted for the Excellent of every kind. Were cold and pedantic critics to prescribe to men of genius, "So far fhall "ye go and no farther," and were it poffible that men of genius would comply with their rules, we fhould foon become ancient Egyptians in art,' and modern Chinese in politics. Every fource of invention and of novelty would be ftopped up; the Dome of St. Peter's, and The Spirit of Laws of Montefquieu, would not have exifted. One of the greatest tefts, perhaps, of Michael Angelo's excellence in his art is, that Raphael himself deigned to copy him; and that on feeing the pictures of the Chapel of Sixtus, by Michael Angelo, he changed his ftyle. Quintilian, in defcribing the Difcobolos of Myron, appears |