such lustre over the works of other painters.

It must be acknowledged likewise, that together with these, which we wish
he had more attended to, he has rejected all the false though specious
ornaments which disgrace the works even of the most esteemed artists; and
I will venture to say, that when those higher excellences are more known
and cultivated by the artists and the patrons of arts, his fame and
credit will increase with our increasing knowledge. His name will then
be held in the same veneration as it was in the enlightened age of Leo
the Tenth: and it is remarkable that the reputation of this truly great
man has been continually declining as the art itself has declined. For I
must remark to you, that it has long been much on the decline, and that
our only hope of its revival will consist in your being thoroughly
sensible of its depravation and decay. It is to Michael Angelo that we
owe even the existence of Raffaelle; it is to him Raffaelle owes the
grandeur of his style. He was taught by him to elevate his thoughts, and
to conceive his subjects with dignity. His genius, however, formed to
blaze and to shine, might, like fire in combustible matter, for ever have
lain dormant if it had not caught a spark by its contact with Michael
Angelo: and though it never burst out with that extraordinary heat and
vehemence, yet it must be acknowledged to be a more pure, regular, and
chaste flame. Though our judgment will upon the whole decide in favour
of Raffaelle: yet he never takes that firm hold and entire possession of
the mind in such a manner as to desire nothing else, and feel nothing
wanting. The effect of the capital works of Michael Angelo perfectly
correspond to what Bourchardon said he felt from reading Homer. His
whole frame appeared to himself to be enlarged, and all nature which
surrounded him diminished to atoms.

If we put those great artists in a light of comparison with each other,
Raffaelle had more taste and fancy, Michael Angelo more genius and
imagination. The one excelled in beauty, the other in energy. Michael
Angelo has more of the poetical inspiration; his ideas are vast and
sublime; his people are a superior order of beings; there is nothing
about them, nothing in the air of their actions or their attitudes, or
the style and cast of their very limbs or features, that puts one in mind
of their belonging, to our own species. Raffaelle's imagination is not
so elevated; his figures are no