naturally excited the utmost indignation. The bloody march of the French Revolution, the disasters consequent on domestic dissension, were forgotten, and the Christian world was penetrated with a grief akin to that felt by all civilized nations at the fall of Jerusalem.

The poet has celebrated these events in the immortal lines:

"Oh! bloodiest picture in the book of Time,

Sarmatia fell unwept, without a crime;
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe!

Dropp'd from her nerveless grasp the shatter'd spear,
Closed her bright eye, and curb'd her high career:
Hope for a season bade the world farewell,

And Freedom shriek'd as Kosciusko fell."

But the truth of history must dispel the illusion, and unfold in the fall of Poland the natural consequence of its national delinquencies. Sarmatia neither fell unwept nor without a crime; she fell the victim of her own dissensions; of the chimera of equality insanely pursued, and the rigor of aristocracy unceasingly maintained; of extravagant jealousy of every superior, and merciless oppression of every inferior rank. The eldest born of the European family was the first to perish, because she had thwarted all the ends of the social union; because she united the turbulence of democratic to the exclusion of aristocratic societies; because she had the vacillation of a republic without its energy, and the oppression of a monarchy without its stability. Such a system neither could nor ought to be maintained.-SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON.

N the wonderful and glorious epoch of the Renaissance, that great revival after the dark and troubled times of the Middle Ages, bright with many genius-stars of the first magnitude, one of the most remarkable characters is Michelangelo Buonarroti. Sculptor, painter, architect, engineer and poet was this versatile man, whose genius as an artist was joined to a clean and noble character; who worked to the very end of a long life, and revealed new phases of his genius as he grew older.

Born on the 6th of March, 1475, at Caprese, in Casentino, as the son of Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Michelangelo, when sent to school, spent all his leisure time in drawing. At the age of fourteen, he entered the service of Ghirlandaio, and thus had ample opportunity to indulge his bent for painting, and to progress in the art at an astonishingly rapid rate. Before he had finished his three years' apprenticeship, however, he left, to study sculpture at the school opened by Lorenzo de Medici, in the Gardens of St. Mark. The Mask of a Faun, sculptured here by the young artist, gained for him the friendship and patronage of Lorenzo, with whom he remained until the latter's death (1492). He next spent some time with Piero de Medici, the son of Lorenzo, then went to Bologna, at which latter place Aldrovandi procured some commissions for him. Returning to Florence in 1495, he produced the Sleeping Cupid, which gained him a call to Rome, where he worked for about four years. Among the

fruits of his activity there were a Bacchus, strongly materialistic in conception, and a group, "La Pieta," which at once stamped him as an artist of extraordinary power.

After returning to Florence, he carved his giant David from a huge block of Carrara marble which other sculptors had unsuccessfully attempted to utilize. In 1503 he was also engaged to produce twelve statues of apostles; but he only hewed out roughly the figure of St. Matthew, now in the Florence Academy, and the work was abandoned, just as was the earlier order (1501), from Cardinal Piccolomini, for fifteen marble figures for a funeral vault. He was destined, in fact, to leave much unfinished work behind him; and of that which he did complete, much has been lost.

In 1503-04, Leonardo de Vinci and he were commissioned to decorate one of the sides of the Council Hall of the Signory; but the paintings were not carried out. Even the cartoons have been lost, and are known to us only in part through engravings; a portion of Michael Angelo's, dealing with the Battle of Pisa, gives us some idea of the originality of his work. Michael Angelo had at this time attained only his twenty-ninth year, and had not only established his reputation as the greatest artist of his day, but had created by the novelty and grandeur of his style a new era in the arts. Julius II., a pontiff who, in the energetic cast of his character, bore a strong resemblance to Michael Angelo himself, having now ascended to the papal chair, called him immediately to Rome, and commissioned him to make his monument, a work conceived on a scale which Michael Angelo felt to be commensurate to his powers. He made a design which, had it been finished according to his original intention, would have surpassed in grandeur, beauty, and richness of ornament, every ancient and imperial sepulchre. It was to have had four fronts of marble, embellished with forty statues, besides several mezzo-rilievi in bronze. To this design Rome and the world are indebted for the magnificent church of St. Peter's; for Michael Angelo having suggested to the Pope that the interior of the old edifice would not allow sufficient space for the monument to be properly seen, the pontiff determined to rebuild the church on a larger scale.

While the monument was in progress, the Pope delighted to come and see it; but the work was interrupted by an accident which strongly marks the character of the artist. Having occasion to make some communication to his Holiness, and not having found admission on two applications, in the latter of which he felt himself somewhat superciliously treated by one of the officers in attendance, he gave directions to his servants to sell his goods to the Jews, and immediately set off for Florence. He had scarcely reached Poggiobonzi before five couriers had arrived from Julius commanding his immediate return; but Michael Angelo was inflexible and continued his journey. On arriving at Florence, he set about finishing the cartoon of Pisa; but three briefs were dispatched to Soderini the Gonfaloniere, requiring that he should be sent back. Michael Angelo excused himself, alleging that he had accepted a commission from the Grand Sultan to go to Constantinople for the purpose of building a bridge. The Pope, in the meantime, had gone on political affairs to Bologna, and Soderini, fearing he should himself incur the papal displeasure through Michael Angelo's contumacy, persuaded him to go to that city. Immediately on his arrival, and before he had had time to dress, he was conducted by the Pope's officers before his Holiness, who, looking at him with an angry glance, said: "What, then! instead of coming to seek us, thou wast determined that we should come to seek thee?" Michael Angelo excused himself, saying "that he had quitted Rome, being unable, after his faithful services to his Holiness, to endure the indignity of being denied admission to him." A bishop in attendance, intending to say something in extenuation, observed to the Pope that such persons, however expert in their professions, were usually ignorant of everything else. "Who told thee to interfere?" exclaimed Julius, bestowing at the same time a hearty blow with his staff on the shoulders of the ecclesiastic; and commanding Michael Angelo to kneel, he gave him his benediction and received him into full favor, giving him directions at the same time to make his statue in bronze. Michael Angelo soon completed the clay model; the statue was the personification of majesty, but the face had so terrible an expression that the Pope demanded, "Am I utter

ing a blessing or a curse?" Michael Angelo replied that he had intended to represent him admonishing the people of Bologna, and inquired if his Holiness would have a book placed in one of the hands. "Give me a sword," answered the warlike pontiff, "I know nothing of books."

On his return to Rome, Julius was induced by the advice of his architect, Bramante, to suspend the execution of the monument, and he gave orders to Michael Angelo to paint the vault of the Sistine Chapel. When the tomb was finally finished in 1550, after the most vexatious delays and disputes, it was set up, quite out of place, in the Church of San Pietro in Vincula, a mere fragment of the original ambitious and elaborate design. The principal interest of the modified tomb centres in the statue of Moses, powerful and grand, despite its disadvantageous position, "the crown of modern sculpture," as Grimm enthusiastically says.

The decoration of the Sistine Chapel was undertaken by Michael Angelo with many misgivings and under protest: sculpture was his art; he had done no fresco work since his apprenticeship with Ghirlandaio. But, once begun, the stupendous task was rapidly completed and turned out one of his grandest achievements. He was subsequently commissioned to execute two large frescoes for the ends of the Chapel, the Fall of the Rebel Angels and the Last Judgment. Only the latter was completed, however, and that not until 1541; despite adverse criticism, much of it just, it is a unique and wonderful, an awe-inspiring creation.

Next, some precious years (1516-19) were partly wasted in quarrying marble at Seravezza, by order of Leo X., for the façade which he had designed for the Church of San Lorenzo, in Florence. Soon after this his versatile genius was called upon to construct fortifications for the Florentines, who had driven out the Medici, and objected to their re-establishment. But the city fell into the hands of the Imperialists, and the sculptor remained in hiding for some time, until Pope Clement, anxious to have the Medici monument finished, announced that his life would be spared. This monument, with the statues of Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici, and the famous and magnificent figures of "Dawn," "Twilight,""