February 16.

“Tops are in. Spin ’em agin.Tops are out. Smuggin about.

Tops are in. Spin ’em agin.Dumps are out, &c.

“The fair cock was not allowed to have his stand extended behind, more than his height and half as much more, nor much thicker than himself, and he was not to extend in width more than his height, nor to project over the stand; but fraudulent cocks were made extending laterally over the side, so as to prevent his lying down sideways, and with a long stand behind; the body of the cock was made thinner, and the stand thicker, by which means the cock bent upon being struck, and it was impossible to knock him over.” This information may seem trifling to some, but it will interest many. We all look back with complacency on the amusements of our childhood; and “some futureStrutt,” a century or two hence, may find this page, and glean from it the important difference between the sports of boys now, and those of our grandchildren’s great grandchildren.

The cruelty of cock-fighting was a chief ingredient of the pleasure which intoxicated the people on Shrove Tuesday.

Cock-fighting was practised by the Greeks. Themistocles, when leading his troops against the Persians, saw two cocks fighting, and roused the courage of his soldiers by pointing out the obstinacy with which these animals contended, though they neither fought for their country, their families, nor their liberty. The Persians were defeated; and the Athenians, as a memorial of the victory, and of the incident, ordered annual cock-fighting in the presence of the whole people. Beckmann thinks it existed even earlier. Pliny says cock-fighting was an annual exhibition at Pergamus. Plato laments that not only boys, but men, bred fighting birds, and employed their whole time in similar idle amusements. Beckmann mentions an ancient gem in sir William Hamilton’s collection, whereon two cocks are fighting, while a mouse carries away the ear of corn for which they contest: “a happy emblem,” says Beckmann, “of our law-suits, in which the greater part of the property in dispute falls to the lawyers.” The Greeks obtained their fighting cocks from foreign countries; according to Beckmann, the English import the strongest and best of theirs from abroad, especially from Germany.

Cæsar mentions the English cocks in his “Commentaries;” but the earliestnotice of cock-fighting in England is by Fitz-Stephens, who died in 1191. He mentions this as one of the amusements of the Londoners, together with the game of foot-ball. The whole passage is worth transcribing. “Yearly at Shrove-tide, the boys of every school bring fighting-cocks to their masters, and all the forenoon is spent at school, to see these cocks fight together. After dinner, all the youth of the city goeth to play at the ball in the fields; the scholars of every study have their balls; the practisers also of all the trades have every one their ball in their hands. The ancienter sort, the fathers, and the wealthy citizens, come on horseback, to see these youngsters contending at their sport, with whom, in a manner, they participate by motion; stirring their own natural heat in the view of the active youth, with whose mirth and liberty they seem to communicate.”

Cock-fighting was prohibited in England under Edward III. and Henry VIII., and even later: yet Henry himself indulged his cruel nature by instituting cock-fights, and even James I. took great delight in them; and within our own time, games have been fought, and attendance solicited by public advertisement, at the Royal Cock-pit, Whitehall, which Henry VIII. built.

Beckmann says, that as the cock roused Peter, so it was held an ecclesiastical duty “to call the people to repentance, or at least to church;” and therefore, “in the ages of ignorance, the clergy frequently called themselves the cocks of the Almighty.”

On Shrove Tuesday, according to an old author, “men ate and drank, and abandoned themselves to every kind of sportive foolery, as if resolved to have their fill of pleasure before they were to die.”

The preparing of bacon, meat, and the making of savoury black-puddings, for good cheer after the coming Lent, preceded the day itself, whereon, besides domestic feasting and revelry, with dice and card-playing, there was immensity of mumming. The records of Norwich testify, that in 1440, one John Gladman, who is there called “a man who was ever trewe and feythfull to God and to the kyng” and constantly disportive, made a public disport with his neighbours, crowned as king of christmas, on horseback, having his horse bedizened with tinsel and flauntery, and preceded by the twelve months of the year, each month habited as the season required; after him came Lent, clothed in white and herring-skins, on a horse with trappings of oyster-shells, “in token that sadnesse shulde folowe, and an holy tyme;” and in this sort they rode through the city, accompanied by others in whimsical dresses, “makyng myrth, disportes, and playes.” Among much curious observation on these Shrove-tide mummings, in the “Popish Kingdome” it is affirmed, that of all merry-makers,

The chiefest man is he, and one that most deserveth prayseAmong the rest, that can finde out the fondest kinde of playes.On him they look, and gaze upon, and laugh with lustie cheere,Whom boys do follow, crying foole, and such like other geare.He in the mean time thinkes himselfe a wondrous worthie man, &c.

It is further related, that some of the rout carried staves, or fought in armour; others, disguised as devils, chased all the people they came up with, and frightened the boys: men wore women’s clothes, and women, dressed as men, entered their neighbours’ or friends’ houses; some were apparelled as monks, others arrayed themselves as kings, attended by their guards and royal accompaniments; some disguised as old fools, pretended to sit on nests and hatch young fools; others wearing skins and dresses, became counterfeit bears and wolves, roaring lions, and raging bulls, or walked on high stilts, with wings at their backs, as cranes:

Some like filthy forme of apes, and some like fools are drest,Which best beseeme those papistes all, that thus keepBacchus’feast.

Others are represented as bearers of an unsavoury morsel—

—————————— that ona cushion soft they lay,And one there is that, with a flapdoth keepe the flies away

Some stuffed a doublet and hose with rags or straw—

Whom as a man that lately dyed of honest life and fame,In blanket did they beare about, and streightways with the sameThey hurl him up into the ayre, not suff’ring him to fall,And this they doe at divers tymes, the citie over all.

The Kentish “holly boy,” and “ivy girl” are erroneously supposed (atp. 226,) to have been carried about on St. Valentine’s day. On turning to Brand, who also cites the circumstance, it appears they were carried the Tuesday before Shrove Tuesday, and most probably were the unrecognised remains of the drest mawkin of the “Popish Kingdome,” carried about with various devices to represent the “death of good living,” and which our catholic neighbours continue. The Morning Chronicle of March the 10th, 1791, represents the peasantry of France carrying it at that time into the villages, collecting money for the “funeral,” and, “after sundry absurd mummeries,” committing the body to the earth.

Naogeorgus records, that if the snow lay on the ground this day, snow-ball combats were exhibited with great vigour, till one party got the victory, and the other ran away: the confusion whereof troubled him sorely, on account of its disturbance to the “matrone olde,” and “sober man,” who desired to pass without a cold salutation from the “wanton fellowes.”

The “rabble-rout,” however, in these processions and mockeries, had the honour of respectable spectators, who seem to have been somewhat affected by the popular epidemic. The same author says that,

——————— the noble men, the rich and men of hie degree,Least they with common people should not seeme so mad to bee,

came abroad in “wagons finely framed before” drawn by “a lustie horse and swift of pace,” having trappings on him from head to foot, about whose neck,

—————— and every place before,A hundred gingling belles do hang, to make his courage more,

and their wives and children being seated in these “wagons,” they

——————behinde themselves do standeWell armde with whips, and holding faste the bridle in their hande.

Thus laden and equipped

With all their force throughout the streetes and market place they ron,As if some whirlwinde mad, or tempest great from skies should come

and thus furiously they drove without stopping for people to get out of their way:

Yea, sometimes legges or arms they breake, and horse and cart and allThey overthrow, with such aforce, they in their course dofall!

The genteel “wagon”-drivers ceased not with the cessation of the vulgar sports on foot,

But even till midnight holde they on, their pastimes for to make,Whereby they hinder men of sleepe, and cause their heades to akeBut all this same they care not for, nor do esteeme a heare,So they may have their pleasure, &c.

Shrove Tuesday was until late years the great holiday of the apprentices; why it should have been so is easy to imagine, on recollecting the sports that boys were allowed on that day at school. The indulgencies of the ancient city ’prentices were great, and their licentious disturbances stand recorded in the annals of many a fray. Mixing in every neighbouring brawl to bring it if possible to open riot, they at length assumed to determine on public affairs, and went in bodies with their petitions and remonstrances to the bar of the house of commons, with as much importance as their masters of the corporation. A satire of 1675 says,

They’r mounted high, contemn the humble playOf trap or foot-ball on a holidayIn Finesbury-fieldes. No, ’tis their brave intent,Wisely t’ advise the king and parliament.

But this is not the place to notice their manners further. The successors to their name are of another generation, they have been better educated, live in better times, and having better masters, will make better men. The apprentices whose situation is to be viewed with anxiety, are the out-door apprentices of poor persons, who can scarcely find homes, or who being orphans, leave the factories or work-rooms of their masters, at night, to go where they can, and do what they please, without paternal care, or being the creatures of any one’s solicitude, and are yet expected to be, or become good members of society.

A MS. in the British Museum quoted by Brand states, that in 1560, it was a custom atEtonschool on Shrove Tuesday for the cook to fasten a pancake to a crow upon the school door; and as crows usually hatch at this season, the cawing of the young ones for their parent, heightened this heartless sport. From a question by Antiquarius, in the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” 1790, it appears that it is a custom on Shrove Tuesday atWestminsterschool for the under clerk of the college, preceded by the beadle and the other officers, to throw a large pancake over the bar which divides the upper from the lower school. Brand mentions a similar custom atEtonschool. Mr. Fosbroke is decisive in the opinion that pancakes on Shrove Tuesday were taken from the heathen Fornacalia, celebrated on the 18th of February, in memory of making bread, before ovens were invented, by the goddess Fornax.

This was, and remains, a game on Shrove Tuesday, in various parts of England.

Sir Frederick Morton Eden in the “Statistical account of Scotland,” says that at the parish of Scone, county of Perth, every year on Shrove Tuesday the bachelors and married men drew themselves up at the cross of Scone, on opposite sides; a ball was then thrown up, and they played from two o’clock till sun-set. The game was this: he who at any time got the ball into his hands, run with it till overtaken by one of the opposite party; and then, if he could shake himself loose from those on the opposite side who seized him, he run on; if not, he threw the ball from him, unless it was wrested from him by the other party, but no person was allowed to kick it. The object of the married men was tohangit, that is, to put it three times into a small hole in the moor, which was thedoolor limit on the one hand: that of the bachelors was todrownit, or dip it three times in a deep place in the river, the limit on the other: the party who could effect either of these objects won the game; if neither won, the ball was cut into equal parts at sun-set. In the course of the play there was usually some violence between the parties; but it is a proverb in this part of the country that “All is fair at the ball of Scone.” Sir Frederick goes on to say, that this custom is supposed to have had its origin in the days of chivalry; when an Italian is reported to have come into this part of the country challenging all the parishes, under a certain penalty in case of declining his challenge. All the parishes declined this challenge except Scone, which beat the foreigner, and in commemoration of this gallant action the game was instituted. Whilst the custom continued, every man in the parish, the gentry not excepted, was obliged to turn out and support the side to which he belonged, and the person who neglected to do his part on that occasion was fined; but the custom being attended with certain inconveniences, was abolished a few years before Sir Frederick wrote. He further mentions that on Shrove Tuesday there is a standing match at foot-ball in the parish of Inverness, county of Mid Lothian, between the married and unmarried women, and he states as a remarkable fact that the married women are always successful.

Crowdieis mentioned by sir F. M. Eden, (“State of the Poor,”) as a never failing dinner on Shrove Tuesday, with all ranks of people in Scotland, as pancakes are in England; and that a ring is put into the basin or porringer of the unmarried folks, to the finder of which, by fair means, it was an omen of marriage before the rest of the eaters. This practice onFasten’s Eve, is described in Mr. Stewart’s “Popular Superstitions of the Highlands,” with little difference; only that the ring instead of being in “crowdie” is in “brose,” made of the “bree of a good fat jigget of beef or mutton.” This with plenty of other good cheer being despatched, theBannich Junit, or “sauty bannocks” are brought out. They are made of eggs and meal mixed with salt to make them “sauty,” and being baked or toasted on the gridiron, “are regarded by old and young as a most delicious treat.” They have a “charm” in them which enables the highlander to “spell” out his future wife: this consists of some article being intermixed in the meal-dough, and he to whom falls the “sauty bannock” which contains it, is sure—if not already married—to be married before the next anniversary. Then theBannich Brauder, or “dreaming bannocks” find a place. They contain “a little of that substance which chimney-sweeps call soot.” In baking them “the baker must be as mute as a stone—one word would destroy thewhole concern.” Each person has one, slips off quietly to bed, lays his head on his bannock, and expects to see his sweetheart in his sleep.

Shakspeare in King Henry IV. says,

Be merry, be merry,————’Tis merry in hall, when beards wag allAnd welcome merryShrovetide.Be merry, be merry, &c.

It is mentioned in the “Shepherd’s Almanack” of 1676, that “some say, thunder on Shrove Tuesday foretelleth wind, store of fruit, and plenty. Others affirm that so much as the sun shineth on that day, the like will shine every day in Lent.”

Cloth of Gold.Crocus sulphureus.Dedicated toSt. Sigifride.

St. Onesimus.Sts. Elias, Jeremy, Isaias, Samuel, and Daniel,A. D.309.St. Juliana.St. Gregory X.Pope,A. D.1276.St. Tanco, orTatta, of Scotland,A. D.815.

Holiday at the Public Offices; except the Stamps, Customs, and Excise.

This is the first day of Lent. It is calledAshWednesday, because in the Roman catholic church the priest blesses ashes on this day, and puts them on the heads of the people. These ashes are made of the branches of brushwood or palms, consecrated the year before. The ashes are cleaned, and dried, and sifted, fit for the purpose. After the priest has given absolution to the people, he prays “Vouchsafe + to bless and sanctify + these ashes—that whosoever shall sprinkle these ashes upon them for the redemption of their sins, they may obtain health of body and protection of soul,” &c. Prayers ended, the priest sprinkles the ashes with holy water, and perfumes them thrice with incense, and the people coming to him and kneeling, he puts ashes on their heads in the form of a cross with other ceremonies.

Platina, a priest, and librarian to the Vatican, who wrote the lives of the popes relates that Prochetus, archbishop of Geneva, being at Rome on Ash Wednesday, he fell at the feet of pope Boniface VIII., who blessed and gave out the ashes on that day, in order to be signed with the blessed ashes as others had been. Thinking him to be his enemy, instead of uttering the usual form, “Remember, O man, because thou art dust, thou shalt return to dust,” &c., the pope parodied the form and said “Remember thou art a Gibelline, and with the Gibellines thou shalt return to ashes,” and then his holiness threw the ashes in the archbishop’s eyes.

It is observed by Mr. Fosbroke that ladies wore friars’ girdles in Lent. This gentleman quotes, from “Camden’s Remains,” that sir Thomas More, finding his lady scolding her servants during Lent, endeavoured to restrain her. “Tush, tush, my lord,” said she, “look, here is one step to heavenward,” showing him a friar’s girdle. “I fear me,” said he, “that one step, will not bring you up one step higher.” There are various instances of belief in the virtues of garments that had been worn by monks and friars; some of them almost surpassing belief.

Ash Wednesday is observed in the church of England by reading publicly the curses denounced against impenitent sinners; to each malediction the people being directed to utter, amen. Many who consider this as cursing their neighbours, keep away from church on the occasion; which absence from these motives Mr. Brand regards as “a folly and superstition worthy of the after-midnight, the spirit-walking time of popery.” On this eloquent remark, and Mr. Brand is seldom warmed to eloquence, it may be observed, that persons far removed from superstition and who have never approached “the valley of the shadow of popery,” deem the commination of the “Common Prayer Book,” a departure from the christian dispensation, and its injunctions of brotherly kindness.

Lilac Primrose.Primula acaulis plena.Dedicated toSt. Juliana.

St. Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople,A. D.449.Sts. Theodulus and Julian.St. Silvinof Auchy,A. D.718.St. Loman, orLuman, Bishop.St. Fintan, Abbot.

Scotch Crocus.Crocus Susianus.Dedicated toSt. Flavian.

On the 17th of February, 1563, died Michael Angelo Buonarroti, as an artist and a man one of the most eminent ornaments of the times wherein he lived. A bare record of his decease is not sufficient. Thousands of readers have heard his name; some know his works; few know his character.

Michael Angelo was born in Tuscany, on the 6th of March, 1474. Fascinated by art at an early age, he executed a facsimile of a picture in his thirteenth year, which he presented to the owner instead of the original, who did not discover the deception till a confidant of Michael’s began to laugh. He afterwards studied under Ghirlandaïo, and at fifteen drew an outline round a drawing by his master which showed its defects and his own superiority. Studying in a garden supplied by the celebrated Lorenzo de Medici with antique statues and other forms, he saw a student modelling figures in clay, and emulous of excelling in the same branch, begged a piece of marble, and the use of implements, from one of the workmen employed in making ornaments for Lorenzo’s library. With these he imitated an old head, or mask, of a laughing faun, supplying the deficiencies effected by time, by his own invention, and making other additions. Lorenzo saw it, and good humouredly remarked, “You have restored to the old faun all his teeth, but don’t you know that a man of such an age has generally lost some?” As soon as Lorenzo departed, Michael broke a tooth from the upper jaw, and drilled a hole in the gum to denote that it had decayed. Lorenzo at his next visit was delighted by this docility, and to encourage Michael assigned him an apartment in his palace for a workroom, seated him at his table, and introduced him to the men of rank and talent who daily resorted to Lorenzo, as the munificent patron of learning and the arts. He justified this distinction by labouring with intense ardour. At seventeen years of age he sculptured in brass the battle of Hercules with the Centaurs; a work of which he said at seventy, “When I see it now, I repent that I did not entirely devote myself to sculpture.” His reputation increased with his application, for application brought him nearer to excellence. By the merit of a sleeping cupid from his chisel, which was stained and buried by a dealer to be dug up as an antique, and purchased by cardinal Giorgio under the persuasion that it was one, he was invited to Rome.

On the elevation of Julius II. to the pontificate he desired a mausoleum for his remains, and commissioned Michael Angelo to execute it. The design was magnificent and gratified Julius. He inquired the cost of completing it, “A hundred thousand crowns,” answered Michael; the pope replied, “It may be twice that sum,” and gave orders accordingly. The pontiff further determined on rebuilding the cathedral of St. Peter on a plan of corresponding grandeur wherein the mausoleum should be erected. It was for the prosecution of this vast structure for Romish worship, that Leo X. sold the indulgencies against which Luther inveighed, and by establishing the right of private judgment shook the papacy to its foundations. While Michael was engaged on the mausoleum, Julius caused a covered bridge to be erected by which he might pass from the Vatican to Michael’s study unobserved. Envy was excited in the papal dependents by this distinction, and insinuated so much to Michael’s disadvantage that his unrestrained visits to the Vatican were suddenly interrupted. “I have an order not to let you enter,” said the groom of the chamber: a prelate inquired if he knew to whom he spoke; “Well enough,” answered the officer, “and it is my duty to obey my orders.” “Tell the pope,” said Michael indignantly, “if he wants me, he shall have to seek me in another place.” He returned home, ordered his servants to sell his furniture immediately, and follow him to Florence, and the same evening left Rome.

The pope sent couriers to force his return, but before he was overtaken he had reached a territory wherein the papal mandate was without authority. “Immediately return to Rome on pain of our disgrace,” was the pope’s letter. Michael’s answer was, that having been expelled his holiness’s antichamber without having merited disgrace, he had left Rome to preserve his character, and that he would not return; for if he had been deemed worthless one day, he could be little valued the next, unless by a caprice that would neither be creditable to the pope nor to himself. Having despatched thepope’s couriers with this letter, he proceeded to Florence. To the government of this city Julius wrote: “We know the humour of men of his stamp; if he will return, we promise he shall be neither meddled with nor offended, and he shall be reinstated in the apostolic grace.” Michael was unmoved. A second and a third arrived, each more impressive, and Michael remained unchanged; but the Gonfaloniere of Florence, to whom these epistles were addressed, became alarmed and expostulated: “You have done by the pope what the king of France would not have presumed to do; he must be no longer trifled with; we cannot make war against his holiness to risk the safety of the state; and therefore you must obey his will.” Thus remonstrated with, Michael entertained a proposal for entering into the service of the sultan Bajazet II., and building a bridge from Constantinople to Pera. The sultan had even sent him letters of credit on Florence and all the cities on his way; and appointed escorts of Janizaries to await his arrival on the Turkish frontiers, and conduct him, by whatever road he pleased, to the Mahometan capital. To divert Michael Angelo from this course, the Gonfaloniere urged that it was better to die under the pope’s displeasure than to live in the Turkish service; and that if he were apprehensive for his security at Rome, the government of Florence would send him thither as its ambassador, in which character his person would be inviolable. Michael, urged by these and other reasons, relented, and met the pope at Bologna, a city which had been betrayed to the papal arms, and taken possession of by Julius in great pomp just before Michael’s arrival. The cardinal Soderini, brother to the Gonfaloniere, was to have introduced Michael to the pope, but indisposition constrained him to depute that office to a prelate of his household. The pope askanced his eye at Michael with displeasure, and after a short pause saluted him, “Instead of your coming to us, you seem to have expected that we should attend upon you.” Michael answered, that his error proceeded from too hastily feeling a disgrace he was unconscious of having merited, and hoped his holiness would pardon what had passed. The officious prelate who had introduced him, not thinking this apology sufficient, observed to the pope, that great allowance was to to be made for such men, who were ignorant of every thing but their art. “Thou,” answered the pontiff, “hast vilified him; I have not: thou art no man of genius but an ignorant fellow; get out of my sight.” The prelate was pushed from the room. The pope gave Michael his benediction, restored him to full favour, and desired him not to quit Bologna till he had given him a commission for some work. In a few days, Michael received an order from Julius for a colossal statue of himself in bronze. While it was modelling, the pope’s visits to Michael were as frequent as formerly. This statue was grand, austere, and majestic: the pope familiarly asked if the extended arm was bestowing a blessing or a curse upon the people. Michael answered that the action only implied hostility to disobedience, and inquired whether he would not have a book put into the other hand. “No,” said the pope, “a sword would be more adapted to my character, I am no book-man.” Julius quitted Bologna, and left Michael Angelo there to complete the statue; he effected it in sixteen months, and having placed it in the façade of the church of St. Petronio, returned to Rome. This product of Michael’s genius was of short existence. The prosperity of Venice under united councils, and a prudent administration of its affairs, excited the hatred of the European powers. An infamous league was entered into at Cambray for the ruin of the Venetian government, and the partition of its territory; Julius became a party to this alliance, with the hope of adding Romagna to the dominions of the church, and retaining possession of Bologna. Effecting his object, he withdrew from the league; and by a change of policy, and a miscalculation of his strength, quarrelled with Louis XII. who had assisted him in subjecting Bologna. That monarch retook the city, restored the Bentivoglio family, which had been displaced by the papal arms, and the populace throwing down Michael’s statue of the pope, dragged it through the streets, and broke it to pieces. With the mutilated fragments the duke of Ferrara cast a cannon, which he named Julio, but preserved the head entire, as an invaluable specimen of art, although it bore the countenance of his implacable enemy.

Michael Angelo resumed Julius’s mausoleum, but the pontiff had changed his mind, and sorely against Michael’s inclination, engaged him to decorate the ceilings and walls of the Sixtine chapel, withpaintings in fresco, to the memory of Sixtus VI., the pope’s uncle. For the purpose of commencing these paintings, ropes were let through the ceiling to suspend the scaffolding. Michael asked Bramante the architect, who had arranged this machinery, how the ceiling was to be completed if the ropes were suffered to remain? The answer did not obviate the objection. Michael represented to the pope that the defect would have been avoided if Bramante had better understood the application of mechanical principles, and obtained the pope’s permission to take down the inefficient contrivance and erect another. This he effected; and his machinery was so ample and complete, that Bramante himself adopted it in the building of St. Peter’s. Michael gave this invention to the poor man who was his carpenter in constructing it, and who realized a fortune from the commissions he received for others on the same plan. To indulge his curiosity, and watch the progress of the work, the pope ascended the ladder to the top of Michael’s platform almost daily. He was of an impetuous temper, and impatient to see the general effect from below before the ceiling was half completed: Michael, yielding to his impatience, struck the scaffold; and so eager were men of taste to obtain a view, that before the dust from displacing the machinery had settled, they rushed into the chapel to gratify their curiosity. Julius was satisfied: but Michael’s rivals, and Bramante among the rest, secretly solicited the pope to intrust the completion of the cartoons to Raphael. Michael had intimation of these wiles, and in the presence of Bramante himself, claimed and obtained of the pope the entire execution of his own designs. He persevered with incessant assiduity. In twenty months from the commencement of “this stupendous monument of human genius” it was completed, and on All Saints’ day, 1512, the pontiff himself opened the chapel in person with a splendid high mass, to crowds of devotees and artists. Whatever Julius conceived he hastened with the ardour of youth; he was old, and knowing that he had no time to spare, he had so harassed the progress of these cartoons by his eagerness, that the scaffolding was struck before they were thoroughly completed; yet, as there was not any thing of importance to be added, Michael determined not to undergo the labour of reerecting the machinery. The pope loved splendour, and wished them ornamented with gold. Michael answered, “In those days gold was not worn, and the characters I have painted were neither rich, nor desirous of riches; they were holy men with whom gold was an object of contempt.”

Julius soon afterwards died; and the execution of his mausoleum was frustrated by Leo X., to whose patronage Michael was little indebted. He finished his celebrated cartoon of the Last Judgment, for the east end of the Sistine chapel, in 1541. On Christmas-day in that year the chapel was opened, and residents in the most distant parts of Italy thronged to see it. In the following year, he painted the Conversion of St. Paul, and the Crucifixion of St. Peter, on the walls of the chapel Paolina. In 1546, when he was 72 years old, the reigning pope nominated him architect of St. Peter’s. Michael would only accept the appointment on the condition that he received no salary; that he should have uncontrolled power over the subordinate officers; and be allowed to alter the original design conformably to his own judgment. It was necessary to adapt and contract that design to the impoverished state of the papal exchequer. Though numerous impediments were purposely opposed to his progress with this splendid edifice, he advanced it rapidly; and before he was 74, he had completed the Farnese palace, built a palace on the hill of the Capitol for the senator of Rome, erected two galleries for sculpture and painting on the same site, and threw up a flight of steps to the church of the convent of Araceli—an edifice remarkable for its occupying the highest part of the hill whereon the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus formerly stood, and, more especially, for Gibbon having mused there, while listening to the vespers of the bare-footed friars, and conceived the first thought of writing his “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”

In 1550, Julius III. succeeded to the pontificate, and Michael to new vexations. His rivals endeavoured to displace him for unfitness in the conduct of St. Peter’s. A committee of architects was appointed to investigate the charge, in the presence of the pope. The committee alleged that the church wanted light; and they furnished the cardinals Salviati and Marcello Cervino with plans, to show that Michael had walled up a recess for three chapels, and made only threeinsufficient windows. “Over those windows are to be placed three others,” answered Michael. “You never said that before,” answered one of the cardinals. To this Michael indignantly replied, “I am not, neither will I ever be, obliged to tell your eminence, or any one else, what I ought or am disposed to do; it is your office to see that money be provided, to keep off the thieves, and to leave the building of St. Peter’s to me.” The pope decided in Michael’s favour. From that time Julius prosecuted no work in painting or sculpture without Michael’s advice; and his estimation of him was so high, that he told him at a public audience, that if he died before himself, he should be embalmed, and kept in his own palace, that his body might be as permanent as his works. Soon after the death of Julius III. in 1555, Paul IV., the new pontiff, expressed his displeasure of the academical figures in the Last Judgment, and intimated an intention to “reform” the picture. Michael sent this message to him: “What the pope wishes, is very little, and may be easily effected; for if his holiness will only ‘reform’ the opinions of mankind, the picture will be reformed of itself.” This holy father plunged Italy in blood by his vindictive passions; and while war ravaged its plains, Michael, at the age of 82, retreated for a while to a monastery. On coming from his seclusion, he wrote to Vasari, “I have had a great deal of pleasure in visiting the monks in the mountains of Spoleto: indeed, though I am now returned to Rome, I have left the better half of myself with them; for in these troublesome times, to say the truth, there is no happiness but in such retirement.” The death of this pope filled Rome with “tumultuous joy,” and the papal chair was ascended by Pius IV., in whose pontificate, wearied and reduced by the incessant attacks and artifices of his enemies, Michael, at the age of 87, resigned his office of architect to St. Peter’s; but the pope, informed of the frauds which had occasioned it, reinstated him, and to induce him to retain the appointment, ensured strict adherence to his designs until the building should be completed.

At the age of eighty-nine a slow fever indicated Michael Angelo’s approaching decease. His nephew, Leonardo Buonarrotti, was sent for; but not arriving, and the fever increasing, he ordered the persons who were in the house into his chamber, and in the presence of them and his physicians uttered this verbal will:—“My soul I resign to God, my body to the earth, and my worldly possessions to my nearest of kin:” then admonishing his attendants, he said, “In your passage through this life, remember the sufferings of Jesus Christ.”

Thus died one of the greatest artists, and one of the noblest men of modern times. The ceremony of his funeral was conducted at Rome with great pomp, but his remains were removed within a month to Florence, and finally deposited in the church of Santa Croce at Florence. In 1720, the vault was opened; the body retained its original form, habited in the costume of the ancient citizens of Florence, in a gown of green velvet, and slippers of the same.

According to his English biographer, Mr. Duppa, Michael Angelo was of the middle stature, bony in make, rather spare, and broad shouldered; his complexion good, his forehead square and “somewhat” projecting; his eyes hazel and rather small; his brows with little hair; his nose flat from a blow given him in his youth by Torrigiano; his lips thin; his cranium large in proportion to his face. Within these pages a detail of his works will not be sought. The few particulars mentioned are from Mr. Duppa’s quarto life, where many of them are enumerated, and outline sketches of some of them are engraved.

The portrait of Michael Angelo selected by Mr. Duppa, to precede his life, is engraved by Bartolozzi, from a profile in Gori’s edition of “Condivi’s Memoir.” He says its original was a drawing supposed to have been made by Julio Bonasoni, from which Mr. Duppa presumes that artist to have etched a print bearing his name, and dated in the year 1546. There is an engraved portrait dated 1545, without any artist’s name attached. Mr. Duppa says, “of thesetwoprints Bonasoni’s is much the best; and although the second has a prior date, it appears to have been engraved from the same original.” That “original,” whatever it was, is no longer in existence. Certainly Bonasoni’s print is better as aprint, for it has the grace of that master’s point, yet as alikenessthe print of 1545 seems to the editor of theEvery-day Bookto have a stronger claim to regard; not because it is of prior date, but because it has more decisive marks of character. He conjectures, that theanonymous print of 1545 may have been executed from a bust or statue of Michael. There is a laboured precision in the contour, and a close mannered marking of the features, that denote the “original” to have been marble. The conjecture is strengthened by the fact, that the eye in the anonymous print is without an iris; a deficiency which exists in no engraved portraits unless they are executed from a marble “original.” Whilecorrectnessseems to have been the aim of the engraver in this anonymous print, elegance appears to have been the object of the painter Bonasoni in his etching. Bonasoni’s portrait is comparatively common; the anonymous one is rare; acopyof it from the print in the editor’s possession, is executed on wood, by Mr. T. Williams, and placed under the reader’s eye.

Michael Angelo was remarkable for nothing but his genius. He slept little, and was abstemious; he was accustomed to say, “However rich I may have been, I have always lived as a poor man.” He obtained the reputation of being proud and odd; for he found little pleasure in the society of men from whom he could not learn, or whom he could not teach. He was pleased by originality of character in whatever rank he met with it; and cultivated in mature life the society of persons respected for their talents and learning. When young he endeavoured to acquaint himself with every branch of knowledge that could contribute to his improvement. In common with all who have obtained a deserved eminence, he was never satisfied with his performances; if he perceived an imperfection that might have been avoided, he either threw aside the work in disgust, or commenced it anew.

He continued to study to the end of his life. In his old age the cardinal Farnese found him walking in solitude amidst the ruins of the Coliseum and expressed his surprise. Michael answered, “I go yet to school that I may continue to learn.” He lived much alone. His great excess seems to have been indulgence in reflection, and the labours of his profession. The power of generalizing facts, and realizing what he conceived, he drew from this habit: without it some men have become popular for a time, but no man ever became great.

Grandeur was Michael Angelo’s prevailing sentiment. In his architecture of St. Peter’s, he seems to have been limited by the impossibility of arriving to excellence without adopting the ancient styles, and the necessity of attempting something great without them; and to speak with the severity of uncompromising truth he failed. Of what else he did in that science, and he did much, for which he obtained deserved renown, there is neither room nor occasion to speak. In painting and sculpture, if he did not always succeed in embodying his feelings, yet he succeeded more frequently than any other artist since the revival of arts; and, as his power was greater than theirs, so he accomplished greater works. His aim was elevated as that of the giants who warred against the fabled gods; in one respect he was unlike them—he conquered. Majestic and wild as nature in her undescribable sublimity, he achieved with corresponding greatness and beauty. His forms and their intellectual expression are of the highest order. He never did any thing little. All was in harmony with a mind which he created of himself by adding fact to fact, by severe reading, by close observation, by study, by seclusion. He was the quarrier, and architect, and builder-up of his own greatness.

Sir Joshua Reynolds speaks with becoming deference of Michael Angelo’s powers.—“It will not be thought presumptuous in me to appear in the train, I cannot say of his imitators, but of his admirers. I have taken another course, one more suited to my abilities, and to the taste of the times in which I live. Yet however unequal I feel myself to that attempt, were I now to begin the world again, I would tread in the steps of that great master: to kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an ambitious man. He was the bright luminary from whom painting has borrowed a new lustre, under whose hands it assumed a new appearance, and became another and superior art, and from whom all his contemporaries and successors have derived whatever they have possessed of the dignified and majestic.”

There are excellent casts from three of Michael Angelo’s statues exhibited by Mr. West at Mr. Bullock’s museum, in Piccadilly; they are, Christ, from the church of Sta. Maria at Florence, Lorenzo de Medici from his monument, and the celebrated Moses, from the church of St. Pietro, in Vincoli, at Rome. The editor of theEvery-day Bookhas conversed with persons who think themselves pupils and students in sculpture and painting without having seen these!

Michael Angelo had studied anatomy profoundly. Condivi, who was his pupil and one of his biographers, says that his knowledge of human anatomy and of other animals was so correct, that those who had studied it as a profession all their lives, scarcely understood it so well. When he began to dissect he conceived disgust from the offensiveness of the operation and desisted; but reflecting that it was disgraceful to abandon what otherscould achieve, he resumed and pursued it to the fullest extent. Perceiving the utility of Albert Durer’s “Treatise on the Proportions of the Human Body,” he deemed it capable of improvement. Its rules were in his opinion insufficient and too mechanical, and he contemplated a treatise to exhibit the muscles in their various action. A friend, whom he consulted on the subject, sent him the body of a fine young Moor, which he dissected and made remarks on, but they were never published. The result of his anatomical knowledge may be seen in the powerful muscular developement of his figures: he left no part undefined.

Several remarks occur in the course of Michael Angelo’s letters concerning his art. Speaking of the rivalry between sculpture and painting, he says, “The sculptor arrives at his end by taking away what is superfluous; the painter produces his, by adding the materials which embody the representation to the mind: however, after all, they are both produced by the same intelligence, and the superiority is not worth disputing about, since more time may be lost in the discussion, than would produce the works themselves.” At one time, however, Michael Angelo regarded painting with less favour than he expresses in this letter. It is addressed to Varchi, who wrote a dissertation on the subject, and sent it to him with an inquiry, which had divided the amateurs of Florence, as to whether painting or sculpture required the most talent. Varchi’s treatise has the merit of having convinced Michael Angelo that he was in error, and with the truth and candour inseparable from such a character he confessed his mistake. “Of the relative importance of painting and sculpture,” says Michael Angelo, “I think painting excellent in proportion as it approaches relievo, and relievo bad in proportion as it partakes of the character of a picture, and therefore I was used to be of opinion, that painting might be considered as borrowing light from sculpture, and the difference between them as the sun and moon. Now, however, since I have read your dissertation, which treats the subject philosophically, and shows, that those things which have the same end, are one, and the same, I have changed my opinion, and say, that, if greater judgment, labour, difficulty, and impediment, confer no dignity on the work on which it is bestowed, painting and sculpture may be considered without giving the preeminence to either: and since it has been so considered, no painter ought to undervalue sculpture, and in like manner, no sculptor ought to make light of painting.”

Great as Michael Angelo was in art, his intellectual character was greater. “No one,” says Mr. Duppa, “ever felt the dignity of human nature with its noblest attributes more forcibly than Michael Angelo, and his disgust at any violation of principle was acute in proportion to his sensibility and love of truth.” He despised and shrunk from the shadow of a meanness: hating the heartlessness of unmeaning profession, he regarded the dazzling simulation which constitutes the polish of society as a soul-cloud. With these commanding views of self dignity he poured out his feelings to his friend Luigi del Ricco, in

Back to Index Next