intelligences! So youthful and fresh,
yet so strong. Some merely docile and reverent, others eager
for utterance before the thought be known,--so firm is the
trust in its value, so great the desire for sympathy. Others
so brilliant in the attention of the inquiring eye, so
intelligent in every feature, that they seem to divine the
whole, before they hear it.

'Zachariah is much the finer of the two prophets.

'Of the sibyls, the _Cumaea_ would be disgusting, from her
overpowering strength in the feminine form, if genius had not
made her tremendous. Especially the bosom gives me a feeling
of faintness and aversion I cannot express. The female breast
looks made for the temple of sweet and chaste thoughts, while
this is so formed as to remind you of the lioness in her lair,
and suggest a word which I will not write.

'The _Delphica_ is even beautiful, in Michel's fair,
calm, noble style, like the mother and child asleep in the
_Persica_, and _Night_ in the casts I have just seen.

'The _Libica_ is also more beautiful than grand. Her adjuncts
are admirable. The elder figure, in the lowest pannel,--with
what eyes of deep experience, and still unquenched enthusiasm,
he sits meditating on the past! The figures at top are fiery
with genius, especially the melancholy one, worthy to lift any
weight, if he did but know how to set about it. As it is, all
his strength may be wasted, yet he no whit the less noble.

'But the _Persica_ is my favorite above all. She is the
true sibyl. All the grandeur of that wasted frame comes from
within. The life of thought has wasted the fresh juices of the
body, and hardened the sere leaf of her cheek to parchment;
every lineament is sharp, every tint tarnished; her face is
seamed with wrinkles,--usually as repulsive on a woman's
face as attractive on a man. We usually feel, on looking at
a woman, as if Nature had given them their best dower, and
Experience could prove little better than a step-dame. But
here, her high ambition and devotion to the life of thought
gives her the masculine privilege of beauty in advancing
years. Read on, hermitess of the world! what thou seekest is
not there, yet thou dost not seek in vain.

'The adjuncts to this figure are worthy of it. On the right,
below, those two divine sleepers, redeeming human natur