doomed to envy, ingratitude,
and neglect; rarely understood, and never fully appreciated even by
those who employed and honored him. He was an isolated man; grave,
abstracted, lonely, yet not unhappy, since his world was that of
glorious and exalting ideas, even those of grace, beauty, majesty, and
harmony,--the world which Plato lived in, and in which all great men
live who seek to rise above the transient, the false, and puerile in
common life. He was also an original genius, remarkable in everything he
attempted, whether as sculptor, painter, or architect, and even as poet.
He saw the archetypes of everything beautiful and grand, which are
invisible except to those who are almost divinely gifted; and he had the
practical skill to embody them in permanent forms, so that all ages may
study those forms, and rise through them to the realms in which his
soul lived.

Michael Angelo not only created, but he reproduced. He reproduced the
glories of Grecian and Roman art. He restored the old civilization in
his pictures, his statues, and his grand edifices. He revived a taste
for what is imperishable in antiquity. As such he is justly regarded as
an immortal benefactor; for it is art which gives to nations culture,
refinement, and the enjoyment of the beautiful. Art diverts the mind
from low and commonplace pursuits, exalts the imagination, and makes its
votary indifferent to the evils of life. It raises the soul into regions
of peace and bliss.

But art is most ennobling when it is inspired by lofty and consecrated
sentiments,--like those of religion, patriotism, and love. Now ancient
art was consecrated to Paganism. Of course there were noble exceptions;
but as a general rule temples were erected in honor of heathen deities.
Statues represented mere physical strength and beauty and grace.
Pictures portrayed the charms of an unsanctified humanity. Hence ancient
art did very little to arrest human degeneracy; facilitated rather than
retarded the ruin of states and empires, since it did not stimulate the
virtues on which the strength of man is based: it did not check those
depraved tastes and habits which are based on egotism.

Now the restorers of ancient art cannot be said to have contributed to
the moral elevation of the new races, unless they avoided the sensualism
of Greece and Rome, and appealed purely to those eternal ideas which the
human mind, even under Pagan influences, sometimes conceived, and which
do not conf