Similmente la tua gran beltade

Che esempio è di quel ben che il ciel fa adorno
Mostroci in terra dall' artista eterno.

Venendo men col tempo e coll' etade

Tanto avrà più nel mio desir soggiorno,

Pensando al bel che età non cangia, o verno.

And, indeed, is not beauty the virtue of the body, as virtue is the beauty of the soul? And are they not parts of one idea modified, as it were, by difference of substance? Are they not both formed and ordered by the same universal harmony? Whence, ravished by this, as by its own external image, the virtuous soul desires to transfuse itself into the object beloved, and arms itself with pure and honourable deeds, by which it may make itself a way to the heart. And from these efforts and stirrings of the spirit, arise more fervent desires and more refined jealousies for the possession of the soul, than vulgar lovers can feel for that of the body. For, in proportion to the loftiness of the spirit, does the force of the passions increase; and so it happens, that the admiration, the esteem, and the desire of the virtuous lover towards his mistress, exceed all imagination, and go beyond nature; since nature gives not to the object beloved so large a share of beauty, and of virtue, as the opinion of the lover adorns her with, who, by his lofty imaginings, raises her near to the confines of divinity. So that at her approach his limbs tremble, his hair stands on end, he is hot and cold in a moment, no otherwise than he, who, beholding some divinity, is seized and agitated by sacred frenzy, till at last returning into himself, with his inmost thought he adores her, with his spirit he bows before her, and, as it were, confessing the present Deity, he lays himself as a victim and a sacrifice upon her altar.

Un nume, in una donna, anzi uno dio

Per la sua lingua parla,

Ond' io per ascoltarla

Sì mi trasformo ch' io non son più mio.

Such then was the art of love, as understood and professed by the early and great Italian poets, whose thoughts and desires, which fed not on outward things, hold all their commerce with the soul, and with that quality of the body which partakes the most of the incorporeal nature, that is, extreme harmony, which, when governed by a pure and noble spirit, burns like a bright beacon, and leads to chaste, noble, and generous wishes; not indeed without dangers, nor wholly free from the assaults of the senses, but continually and successfully resisting them by the help of reason. For this cause,

in the Vita Nuova of Dante, in the Canzoniere of Petrarch, in the Rime of Michel Angelo, and also in the sublime lyrics of Tasso, upon whose ashes will fall the tears of all ages, we observe so many struggles, so many sighs, and griefs, and repentances, so many variations or even contrarieties of motions, combating one with another, which they set forth in so lively a manner, that they seem to sculpture thoughts and render visible the incorporeal nature; and in this are so much more admirable than the Latins, that they, wholly taken up with vulgar love, had either no knowledge of such affections, or thought of the Platonic discourses merely as philosophical fable.

These short remarks will, perhaps, suffice to open the way, for whomsoever may wish to enter therein, to the golden volume of Michel Angelo, which contains, perhaps, more learning and more profound thought, than the herd of readers may think. As a sort of compendium or essence of all we have said, and as a specimen of his style, we insert the following sonnet.

"Non vider gli occhi miei cosa mortale

Quando rifulse in me la prima face
De' tuoi sereni, e in lor ritrovar pace
L'alma sperò, che sempre al suo fin sale.
Spiegando, ond' ella scese, in alto l'ale

Non pure intende al bel che agli occhi piace;
Ma perche è troppo debile e fallace
Trascende in ver la forma universale.
Yo dico che all' uom saggio quel che muore
Porger quiete non può nè par s'aspetti
Amar ciò, che fa il tempo cangiar pelo.
Voglia sfrenata è il senso, e non amore
Che l'alma uccide; amor può far perfetti
Gli animi quì, ma più perfetti in cielo."

which has thus worthily been rendered into English by the one of all our living poets the most capable of understanding the mysteries and feeling the beauties of the doctrines which gave birth to the original.

"No mortal object did these eyes behold
When first they met the placid light of thine,

And my soul felt her destiny divine;

And hope of endless peace in me grew bold:

Heaven-born the soul a heaven-ward course must hold;

Beyond the visible world she soars, to seek

(For what delights the sense is false and weak)

Ideal form, the universal mould.

The wise man, I affirm, can find no rest
In that which perishes; nor will he lend
His heart to ought which doth on time depend,
'Tis sense, unbridled will, and not true love,
Which kills the soul: love betters what is best

Even here below, but more in heaven above."-Wordsworth. From this sonnet, any one who is able rightly to understand it, may judge how truly Michel Angelo, besides the three noble arts which he so divinely exercised, equalling the ancients in the one and surpassing them in the others, was excellent and even most rare in poetry and in the true science of love, which is like a vast and perplexed forest, so that whoever enters therein, without the conduct of great learning and wisdom, must, after many windings, lose his way. This then is an art not less beautiful than the others, and yet more necessary. Wherefore, as all the evils which prevail in the world arise from guilty and inordinate love, thus all the blessings have their source from the pure and well ordered, so that, as those who possess the true and perfect knowledge of love are most happy, those who hold the contrary are miserable. For the mind of man, which is immortal, cannot rest in anything which is not like to itself; wherefore, those beauties which appear without and please the eye, being mortal and fading, may indeed excite and awaken the mind, but cannot satisfy it. And hence all those who stop in these, without passing on to the universal idea of all beauty, which is eternal, may be called unskilful and ignorant of the art, suffering themselves to be led by two senses, not like men, but beasts; whence they fall into torments and despair, and add greatly to the misery of mankind. But those few, who, having looked on material beauty, can soar in thought to the diviner beauty, and can feed themselves with that food, since that they have gained somewhat of the godlike nature, these men may be called wise and skilful in their art.

And this is the art which (following not Ovid, who wrote vulgarly for the vulgar, but Plato in his most divine Banquet,) the wise and tender poet, in his beautiful compositions, full of the divine conceptions of Plato and Socrates, wished to teach us; so that what Berni, a poet most ingenious in jest and trifling, says of him, is true;

Ho visto qualche sua composizione

Sono ignorante, e pur direi d' avelle
Lette tutte nel messo di Platone
Sicchè gli è nuovo Apollo e nuovo Apelle
Tacete unquanco, pallide viole
E liquidi cristalli, e fiere snelle;
Ei dice cose, e voi dite parole.

In every one of Michel Angelo's compositions we perceive traces of his exceeding love and admiration for Dante. It is asserted, that he knew by heart the whole of the Divina Commedia, so greatly had he laboured at the study of its profound thoughts and its inimitable style. And whoever has meditated upon the productions of these two extraordinary minds, will be constrained to confess, that never did two souls agree with so perfect a harmony; whether we look at the awful and terrible nature of their imaginings, or at the loftiness of their sentiments, or at the perfectness of their representations. The thirst for renown, the consciousness of their own worth, the scorn of the blind vulgar, a constant dissatisfaction with things appertaining to this world, and an incessant panting, and, as it were, striving after the mysterious beatitudes of heaven, may be seen a thousand times in the writings and in the lives of both these illustrious Italians. Dante, in his Parudiso, foretells his own renown, and draws from it the hope that this may perhaps overcome the cruelty of his enemies, who forbade his return to his much desired paternal roof. And in the Inferno, he puts

into the mouth of a famous shade these words

"If thou through this blind prison goest,

Led by thy lofty genius," &c.*

And, in like manner, Buonarroti, trying to soften the severity of his lady, clearly promises to her, and to himself, that immortality which he, above any other man, had it in his power to bestow. Forse ad amendue noi dar lunga vita

Posso, o vuoi nei colori o vuoi nei sassi
Rassembrando di noi l'affetto e il volto

Sicchè mill' anni dopo la partita

Quanto tu bella fosti ed io t'amassi

Si veggia, e come a amarti io non fui stolto.

And in another place,

Vidi umil nel tuo volto ogni mia altezza
Rara ti scelsi e me tolsi dal volgo

E fia con l'opre eterno anche il mio amore.

The deep contempt in which the lofty mind of Alighieri held the vulgar, is apparent in every part of the Convito, of the Commedia, and of his Canzoni. By the vulgar, he meant not the simple inhabitants of lowly streets or humble cottages, but that abject and sordid crowd of all classes and all places, who

"Se per questo cieco

Carcere vai per altezza d' ingegno."

obscure, as much as in them lies, every beam of beauty in the universe. The vulgar of kings, of popes-to whom he allotted punishment not so much for their crimes as for the baseness of their minds, and the meanness of their desires-of priests, of nobles, of plebeians, of learned men, of knaves,-the vulgar, in short, of every kind and degree, whether they esteem themselves the highest or the lowest*" in this petty area o'er the which we stride so fiercely." -And Buonarroti, whose mind was tempered of the same elements as that of his sublime master, shews that this infamous vulgar always was, and always will be, the scourge of generous minds, and in many places reproaches it, particularly there where he pours, from his disdainful breast, what was also often repeated by the pure and holy lover of Laura.

Nè temo invidia o pregio onore o lode
Del mondo cieco, che, rompendo fede,
Più giova a chi più scarso esser ne suole;
E vo per vie men calpestate e sole.

And, truly, lofty spirits have never known how to support either the scoffs or the restraints of the malignant and ceremonious multitude, who, offended by their greatness, try to fetter and to deride them, calling those actions which their grovelling minds cannot only not admire, but cannot even understand,-madness. Wherefore, to preserve their independence, they fly, as much as possible, to the stillness of solitude, where they may freely nourish that instinct from above which constitutes genius. Petrarch wished+ "that his tears should flow alone;"-and Buonarroti coveted "untrodden and lonely ways:" and in a letter to Vasari he writes thus: "I have had great fatigue and yet great pleasure in visiting those hermits in the mountains of Spoleti, so that but half of me is returned to Rome; since, truly, peace is only to be found in the woods." But for what cause is it that the most rare and lofty spirits cannot accustom themselves to the tedious business of life, and that it seems as if the sentence of infelicity was always impressed upon their existence? Is it that, feeling within themselves a more active spark of the divine nature, they have an irresistible desire after a more serene abode, and cannot breathe in the thick air of this nether world. Torquato Tasso, after living forty-seven years in the midst of the railleries of courtiers, the tediousness of pedants, and the haughtiness of princes, now imprisoned, now a wanderer, and always melancholy, and sick, and indigent, lying at length on his

* L' aiola che ci fa tanto feroci.

+Che le lagrime sue si spargessero sole.