hich mimic in variously injurious ways the characters
of Michael Angelo's own work; and the series, except as material for
reference, can be of no practical service until these are withdrawn, and
placed by themselves. It includes, besides, a number of original
drawings which are indeed of value to any laborious student of Michael
Angelo's life and temper; but which owe the greater part of this
interest to their being executed in times of sickness or indolence, when
the master, however strong, was failing in his purpose, and, however
diligent, tired of his work. It will be enough to name, as an example of
this class, the sheet of studies for the Medici tombs, No. 45, in which
the lowest figure is, strictly speaking, neither a study nor a working
drawing, but has either been scrawled in the feverish languor of
exhaustion, which cannot escape its subject of thought; or, at best, in
idly experimental addition of part to part, beginning with the head, and
fitting muscle after muscle, and bone after bone, to it, thinking of
their place only, not their proportion, till the head is only about
one-twentieth part of the height of the body: finally, something between
a face and a mask is blotted in the upper left-hand corner of the paper,
indicative, in the weakness and frightfulness of it, simply of mental
disorder from over-work; and there are several others of this kind,
among even the better drawings of the collection, which ought never to
be exhibited to the general public.

211. It would be easy, however, to separate these, with the acknowledged
copies, from the rest; and, doing the same with the drawings of Raphael,
among which a larger number are of true value, to form a connected
series of deep interest to artists, in illustration of the incipient and
experimental methods of design practiced by each master.

I say, to artists. Incipient methods of design are not, and ought not to
be, subjects of earnest inquiry to other people; and although the
re-arrangement of the drawings would materially increase the chance of
their gaining due attention, there is a final and fatal reason for the
want of interest in them displayed by the younger students;--namely,
that these designs have nothing whatever to do with present life, with
its passions, or with its religion. What their historic value is, and
relation to the life of the past, I will endeavor, so far as time
admits, to explain to-day.

212. The course of Art divides itself