, and a drama.[259] The rapture of Greek art in its most youthful
moment has never been recaptured by a modern painter with more force and
fire of fancy than in the "Galatea." The tenderness of Christian feeling
has found no more exalted expression than in the multitudes of the
Madonnas, one more lovely than another, like roses on a tree in June, from
the maidenly "Madonna del Gran' Duca" to the celestial vision of the San
Sisto, that sublimest lyric of the art of Catholicity.[260] It is only by
hurrying through a list like this that we can appreciate the many-sided
perfection of Raphael's accomplishment. How, lastly, was it possible that
this young painter should have found the time to superintend the building
of S. Peter's, and to form a plan for excavating Rome in its twelve
ancient regions?[261]

When Lomazzo assigned emblems to the chief painters of the Renaissance, he
gave to Michael Angelo the dragon of contemplation, and to Mantegna the
serpent of sagacity. For Raphael, by a happier instinct, he reserved man,
the microcosm, the symbol of powerful grace, incarnate intellect. This
quaint fancy of the Milanese critic touches the truth. What distinguishes
the whole work of Raphael, is its humanity in the double sense of the
humane and human. Phoebus, as imagined by the Greeks, was not more
radiant, more victorious by the marvel of his smile, more intolerant of
things obscene or ugly. Like Apollo chasing the Eumenides from his
Delphian shrine, Raphael will not suffer his eyes to fall on what is
loathsome or horrific. Even sadness and sorrow, tragedy and death, take
loveliness from him. And here it must be mentioned that he shunned stern
and painful subjects. He painted no martyrdom, no "Last Judgment," and no
"Crucifixion," if we except the little early picture belonging to Lord
Dudley.[262] His men and women are either glorious with youth or dignified
in hale old age. Touched by his innocent and earnest genius, mankind is
once more gifted with the harmony of intellect and flesh and feeling, that
belonged to Hellas. Instead of asceticism, Hellenic temperance is the
virtue prized by Raphael. Over his niche in the Temple of Fame might be
written: "I have said ye are gods;"--for the children of men in his ideal
world are divinized. The godlike spirit of man is all in all. Happy indeed
was the art that by its limitations and selections could thus early
express the good news of the Renaissance; while in the spheres of polit