t
profane author in existence. Dante flourished about the year 1300: he
lived at a time when the English barons lived in rooms strewed with
rushes, and few of them could sign their names. The long life of
Michael Angelo, extending from 1474 to 1564, over ninety years, if not
passed in the infancy of civilization, was at least passed in the
childhood of the arts: before his time, painting was in its cradle.
Cimabue had merely unfolded the first dawn of beauty at Florence; and
the stiff figures of Pietro Perugino, which may be traced in the first
works of his pupil Raphael, still attest the backward state of the
arts at Rome. This peculiarity, applicable alike to all these three
great men, is very remarkable, and beyond all question had a powerful
influence, both in forming their peculiar character, and elevating
them to the astonishing greatness which they speedily attained.

It gave them--what Johnson has justly termed the first requisite to
human greatness--self-confidence. They were the first--at least the
first known to themselves and their contemporaries--who adventured on
their several arts; and thus they proceeded _fearlessly_ in their
great career. They had neither critics to fear, nor lords to flatter,
nor former excellence to imitate. They portrayed with the pencil, or
in verse, what they severally felt, undisturbed by fear, unswayed by
example, unsolicitous about fame, unconscious of excellence. They did
so for the first time. Thence the freshness and originality, the
vigour and truth, the simplicity and raciness by which they are
distinguished. Shakspeare owed much of his greatness to the same
cause; and thence his similarity, in many respects, to these great
masters of his own or the sister arts. When Pope asked Bentley what he
thought of his translation of the _Iliad_, the scholar replied, "You
have written a pretty book, Mr Pope; but you must not call it Homer."
Bentley was right. With all its pomp of language and melody of
versification, its richness of imagery and magnificence of diction,
Pope's Homer is widely different from the original. He could not avoid
it. The "awful simplicity of the Grecian bard, his artless grandeur
and unaffected majesty," will be sought for in vain in the
translation; but if they had appeared there, it would have been
unreadable in that age. Michael Angelo, in his bold conceptions,
energetic will, and rapid execution, bears a close resemblance to the
father of poetry. In both