fruits of their ftudies to the genius of this great man, with this infcription: Tu pater, & rerum inventor, tu patria nobis Parent and monarch of thy art, The late Prefident of the Royal Academy carried his veneration for this great man fo far, that he used to feal his letters with his head; and in the picture which he painted of himself for the Royal Academy, has reprefented himself standing near a buft of Michael Angelo. So impreffed was Sir Joshua Reynolds with the tranfcendant powers of Michael Angelo, that in the laft fpeech which, unfortunately for the lovers of Art, he delivered as Prefident of the Royal Academy, he thus concludes: Gentlemen, I "reflect not without vanity, that these Discourses "bear teftimony of my admiration of this truly "divine man; and I fhould defire, that the last words which I fhould pronounce in this "Academy, and from this place, might be the "name of Michael Angelo, Michael Angelo!" One One of the great ornaments of the prefent English School of Painting, who has ftudied the works of this fublime artift with the greatest attention, and who has imitated them with the greatest fuccefs, favours the COMPILER of thefe volumes with the following character of his mafter and his model (it seems almost unneceflary, upon this occafion, to add the name of Mr. FUSELI); "Sublimity of conception, grandeur of form, "and breadth of manner, are the elements of "Michael Angelo's ftyle. By these principles he "felected or rejected the objects of imitation. "As painter, as fculptor, as architect, he attempted, and above any other man fucceeded, "to unite magnificence of plan and endless "variety of fubordinate parts with the utmost "fimplicity and breadth. His line is uniformly "grand. Character and beauty were admitted only as far as they could be made fubfervient to (6 grandeur. The child, the female, meannefs, « deformity, were by him indifcriminately "ftamped with grandeur. A beggar rofe from "his hand the patriarch of poverty; the hump of "his dwarf is impreffed with dignity; his women are moulds of generation; his infants "teem with the man; his men are a race of << giants. This is the terribil via' hinted at « by by Agostino Caracci, but perhaps as little un"derstood by him as by Vafari, his blind adorer. "To give the appearance of perfect eafe to the "most perplexing difficulty was the exclufive power of M. Angelo. He has embodied fenti"ment in the monuments of St. Lorenzo, and "in the Chapel of Sixtus traced the characteristic "line of every paffion that sways the human race, " without defcending to individual features, the face of Biagio Cefena only excepted. The "fabric of St. Peter, fcattered into an infinity "of jarring parts by Bramante and his followers, "he concentrated, fufpended the cupola, and to the moft complex gave the air of the most fimple "of all edifices. Though as a fculptor he ex"preffed the character of flesh more perfectly than "all that went before or came after him, yet he never fubmitted to copy an individual; whilst "in painting he contented himself with a negative "colour, and as the painter of mankind rejected "all meretricious ornament. Such was Michael "Angelo as an artist. Sometimes he no doubt "deviated from his principles, but it has been his "fate to have had beauties and faults afcribed to "him which belonged only to his fervile copyifts or unfkilful imitators." Michael Michael Angelo lived to a very great yet very healthy old age. In the beginning of the present Century the Senator Buonaroti caused the vault to be opened at Florence in which his body was depofited; it was found perfect; and the dress of green velvet, and even the cap and flippers in which he was buried were entire. He appeared to have been a fmall well-fet man, with a countenance of great severity. RAPHAEL D'URBINO. THE praise that Robert Bembo fo appropriately gives to this great painter, in his celebrated epitaph upon him, becomes abfurd when applied by Mr. Pope to Kneller. Leo the Tenth had deftined a Cardinal's hat for Raphael; but the ignorance of his phyfician deprived him of that honour, and the world of one of the moft excellent painters it had ever known, at the age of thirty-feven years. Raphael, in a difeafe occafioned by exhauftion, which was attended with a quick pulfe and some heat, heat, called in one of those scourges of mankind, who, by their want of fkill, and their confidence in their own powers, difgrace one of the most honourable profeffions. He, by repeated bleedings, deprived his patient of the very little ftrength he had left, and brought him to the grave. Raphael's manners were extremely elegant, and his converfation fo highly pleafing, that he was continually attended by many of the young men of rank in Rome. This gave occafion to his ftern rival Michael Angelo to tell him one day, when he met him in the street thus honourably followed: So, Sir, you are there, I fee, like a "Prince attended by his Courtiers?" "Yes," replied Raphael, and you, I fee, are like the "Hangman, attended by no one." Raphael, like all other perfons who were ever eminently distinguished, improved * progreffively, His own good tafte made him break through the hard and dry manner of his mafter; and when he had feen the Capella Seftina of Michael Angelo, he found out his own deficiencies, and added the grand and the fublime to the beautiful and the grace It was an obfervation of the celebrated Author of The Wealth of Nations," that, when he was a Profeffor at Glasgow, he had hardly ever feen a young man come to any eminence, who was foon fatisfied with his own compofitions. ful. |