as inimical to true reason as the most extravagant and distorted metaphors of the tawdry rhetorician, and as difficult to be reduced to practice as the wildest dreams of the poet?

FOUR DRAMATIC SCENES.

I.

MICHAEL ANGELO.

[SCENE. The Study of Michael Angelo at Rome.]

MICHAEL ANGELO AND PUPILS.

MICHAEL.

So, 't is well done, Battista; ably drawn.
Do thus, and thou wilt need no marble fame.

Look, Michael!

1ST PUPIL.

MICHAEL.

Ah! 'tis bad. These colors sleep

Like death upon thy figures: touch them thus.
This flesh is like a cardinal, red and dull :

Thought should lie pale upon the scholar's cheek;

Thus, thus. And now, my young friend, Cosimo,
Give me thy sketch; nay do not fear me. So-
Why thou hast overwrought this shape, my child,
Cheating (fie on 't!) air-travelling Ganymede
Of his boy-beauty. See, 'tis thus: that eye-
Lash'd with dark fringe: touch the lip tenderly;
And hide his forehead all in cloudy gold.

See, let him lie thus, helpless; thus, my child;

And clasp the eagle's

talon round his arm.

There, it is done.

What think'st thou ?

2D PUPIL.

Oh! 't is brave,

'Tis brave. Thy eagle is the king of eagles. As thou art king of painters.

MICHAEL.

Idle child!

2D PUPIL.

Shall I win fame ?

MICHAEL.

Fame is a bounteous tree :

Upon its branches hang bubbles and gold.

Which wilt thou have?

2D PUPIL.

Both, Michael.

MICHAEL.

Art so greedy?

Thou 'It scarcely prosper. Wilt thou be the dog
Who grasp'd at flesh and shadow, and lost all ?
Bring me that head of Faunus, Giacomo:

That big as a giant, with snaky locks,

And the wild eyes, and nostrils stretch'd and blown.

Ha! this is right.

3D PUPIL.

'Tis like a Titan, Michael.

None but thyself can master these great shapes

MICHAEL.

Ha, ha! There, give it me, good Giacomo.
Why, how thou fix'st thine eye upon its eye :
Wouldst thou wage battle with it, Giacomo?

Shall I not copy it ?

3D PUPIL.

MICHAEL.

:

Surely but take heed:
Mar not the thought which thou dost gaze upon,
Translating it in blind obedience;

But steal the spirit, as old Prometheus won
From Phoebus' fiery wheels the living light.
It is not dainty shadows, nor harlot hues,
(Though flush'd with sunset, like Vecelli's gawds,)
Will make a painter. Take great heed the mind
Live in the eye, and the wild appetite

Breathe through the bosom and the sinewy shape.
Come near me.
Mark! do not thou miss that turn.

O the rich sleep! Couldst thou not cozen her
To quit her poppies, and aye toil for thee?

MICHAEL.

Methought I lived three thousand years ago,
Somewhere in Egypt, near a pyramid,

And in my dream I heard black Memnon playing:
He stood twelve cubits high, and, with a voice
Like thunder when it breaks on hollow shores,
Call'd on the sky, which answer'd. Then he awoke
His marble music, and with desert sounds

Enchanted from her chamber the coy Dawn.

He sang, too

Torpid upon

O such songs! Silence, who lay
those wastes of level sand,

Stirr'd and grew human: from its shuddering reeds
Stole forth the crocodile, and birds of blood
Hung listening in the rich and burning air.

Didst dream all this?

RAFFAELLE.

MICHAEL.

Ay, Raffaelle; and so gazed