7

the close of the year 32 B.C., Octavian declared war, nominally against Cleopatra, but with the intention really of crushing his rival.

A sea-fight off Actium in the following autumn left Antony a fugitive without a fleet, whilst his premature flight alienated his army, for he had escaped to Alexandria with his enchantress, who had fled at a critical part of the battle with a squadron of sixty Egyptian ships. In the following year Octavian entered Alexandria as conqueror.

Cleopatra then withdrew to her mausoleum 10 with two of her maidens, through whom she sent a message to Antony that she was dead. Believing the information to be true, Antony stabbed himself, and while dying was taken, at his request, to Cleopatra's retreat, where he ended his wasted life. Cleopatra did not long survive him well knowing that she was destined by Octavian to grace his triumphal entry into Rome," she determined to defeat his purpose. When his soldiers came to take her, they found her in queenly attire, lying dead upon. her golden bed. The manner of her death is uncertain, but the popular belief ascribed it to the bite of an asp, brought by a peasant in a basket of figs.

1 Cydnus, a river in Cilicia, in Asia
Minor, on which stands Tarsus.
2 Venus, the goddess of beauty.
3 Cupid, the god of love.
4 Nereids, nymphs of the sea. They
are represented as young and
handsome virgins, sitting on dol-
phins, and holding Neptune's tri-
dent in their hand.

5 Indolent voluptuary, one entirely
given up to a life of ease and plea-
sure. (Lat. voluptas, pleasure.)

6 Fascinating, bewitching, charming.

7 Nominally, in name merely. (Lat. nomen, name.)

8 Actium, a town and promontory of Epirus, in Greece.

9 Alienated his army, lost their esteem and friendship; they became estranged. (Lat. alienus, strange, foreign.)

10 Mausoleum, a splendid tomb, so called from Mausolus, a king of Caria, in Asia Minor, in whose honour a superb tomb was erected by his widow.

11 To grace, &c. To form one of the captives led in triumph into Rome, and by her presence to do honour to the conqueror.

A

MICHAEL ANGELO.

MONG all the names celebrated in art, there is not one that can be put in comparison with that of Michael Angelo.1 No man certainly ever had such a wonderful soul for art, in every department: the cupola of St. Peter's, as an architect; his Moses and his Christ, as a sculptor; and his Last Judgment, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, as a painter,-are three monuments which would have made the eternal fame, not of three, but of a hundred, artists in each department.

Great, noble, generous, and though perhaps somewhat in his temper not amiable, yet sternly honest in all his dealings, he seems to have been the great centre around which the art of his period revolved. There was no one so great, so sublime in any particular branch of it, that did not look up to Michael Angelo, and consider him his superior. It is acknowledged that Raffaelle 2 went into the Sistine Chapel and saw Angelo's wonderful works, and changed entirely his style upon beholding them; and it is particularly acknowledged by the writers of that time that in every other department he was considered equally supreme.

Now, you would suppose that this man, upon whom commissions poured in every day for great works, would have employed a number of artisans to assist him; that he would have had carefully-prepared models, which he would have entrusted to skilful artificers, so as to lighten his labour. But no such thing. There is every evidence we can desire that, from the beginning to the end, Michael Angelo performed the whole of his own work; that he began with the piece of marble as it came from the quarry; that, if not always, pretty generally,

he did not even condescend to make a design beyond a small wax model, but immediately set to work with chisel and mallet on the figure which he had in his imagination, and which he knew was as truly lurking in the inanimate block.

Vasari shows us, in fact, from his unfinished pieces, in what way he must have mapped out the marble and done the work himself; and that is why we have so many vast pieces by him unfinished; either the stroke did not come out as he desired, or it went too far into the marble, and spoilt his labour. But so it is, that by far the greater part of those gigantic pieces which he finished, if not all, were the productions of his own hand as well as of his intellect.

4

When about seventy-five years of age he used to be just as indefatigable with his chisel and hammer as when he was a stout young man. He had near his bedroom, if not in it, an immense block of marble, and, when he had nothing else to do, he used to be hammering at that; and, when asked why he so continuously worked at this branch of his various arts, he used to reply that he did it for amusement, to pass his time, and that it was good for his health to take exercise with the mallet.

He undertook at that age, from an enormous block of marble, to bring out four figures, larger than life, repre-senting the Descent from the Cross; and he had nearly worked out the figure of our Lord, when, happening to meet with a vein that was hard and troublesome, he one day broke it into half a dozen pieces. It was seen in this state by a friend, and his servant begged it for him. It was put together, and it is now to be seen at Florence. But Vasari says that it was necessary, in order to give him occupation, to get another large block

of marble and put it near his bed, that so he might continue at his work; and he began another group of the same sort. This was at the age of seventy-five. And Vasari gives us an interesting account of how he

worked. He says he was remarkably sober, and while performing his greatest works, such as the paintings, he rarely took more than a crust of bread and a glass of

wine for his dinner. This sobriety, he says, made him very vigilant; and very often in the night he used to rise, when he could not sleep, and work away with his chisel, having made for himself a sort of helmet, or cap, out of pasteboard, and upon the middle of this, in the top, he had his candle, so that the shadow of his body never could be thrown upon the wɔrk.

We have a very interesting account of the manner in which he used to work at his marble, from a French writer, who says: "I can say that I have seen Michael Angelo, when he was about sixty years of age, and not then very robust, make the fragments of marble fly about at such a rate, that he cut off more in a quarter of an hour than three strong young men could have done in an hour-a thing almost incredible to any one who has not seen it; and he used to work with such fury, with such an impetus, that it was feared he would dash the whole marble to pieces, making at each stroke chips of three or four fingers' thick fly off into the air; and that with a material in which, if he had gone only a hair's-breadth too far, he would totally have destroyed the work, which could not be restored like plaster or clay."

We shall find it true, that wherever there has really been grand or noble work executed by sculptors, they have been artificers as well as designers; they have done the work with their own hands, as well as imagined it in their own fancies.

1 Michael Angelo, born in Tuscany, 1474, died 1563.

2 Raffaelle, a celebrated painter, born at Urbino(Italy),1483, died at Rome, 1520.

3 Commissions, orders, as we commonly say.

4 Indefatigable, of unwearied indus

try. (Lat. in, not; defatigo, I am weary.)

5 Vasari, an Italian painter and architect, who studied under Michael Angelo. He wrote the "Lives of Celebrated Painters, Sculptors, and Architects."

6 Vigilant, wakeful,