oon, the awfulness and quietness of
M. Angelo's treatment of a subject in most respects similar, (the
plague of the Fiery Serpents,) but of which the choice was justified
both by the place which the event holds in the typical system he had
to arrange, and by the grandeur of the plague itself, in its
multitudinous grasp, and its mystical salvation; sources of
sublimity entirely wanting to the slaughter of the Dardan priest. It
is good to see how his gigantic intellect reaches after repose, and
truthfully finds it, in the falling hand of the near figure, and in
the deathful decline of that whose hands are held up even in their
venom coldness to the cross; and though irrelevant to our present
purpose, it is well also to note how the grandeur of this treatment
results, not merely from choice, but from a greater knowledge and
more faithful rendering of truth. For whatever knowledge of the
human frame there may be in the Laocoon, there is certainly none of
the habits of serpents. The fixing of the snake's head in the side
of the principal figure is as false to nature, as it is poor in
composition of line. A large serpent never wants to bite, it wants
to hold, it seizes therefore always where it can hold best, by the
extremities, or throat, it seizes once and forever, and that before
it coils, following up the seizure with the twist of its body round
the victim, as invisibly swift as the twist of a whip lash round any
hard object it may strike, and then it holds fast, never moving the
jaws or the body, if its prey has any power of struggling left, it
throws round another coil, without quitting the hold with the jaws;
if Laocoon had had to do with real serpents, instead of pieces of
tape with heads to them, he would have been held still, and not
allowed to throw his arms or legs about. It is most instructive to
observe the accuracy of Michael Angelo in the rendering of these
circumstances; the binding of the arms to the body, and the knotting
of the whole mass of agony together, until we hear the crashing of
the bones beneath the grisly sliding of the engine folds. Note also
the expression in all the figures of another circumstance, the
torpor and cold numbness of the limbs induced by the serpent venom,
which, though justifiably overlooked by the sculptor of the Laocoon,
as well as by Virgil-