ind is exhibited, from
the stern vengeance of Achilles, whom not even the massacre of half the
Grecian host could melt, to the tender heart of Andromache, who wept her
husband's valour, and her sad presentiments for her infant son.

In modern painting, as it appeared in the hands of Raphael and Michael
Angelo, a wider range was attempted: more spiritual and touching objects
had come to engross the human mind. The mere contemplation of abstract
character--its delineation by the graphic representation of the human
form, had ceased to be the principal object of genius. The temple of the
unknown God was no longer to be filled with idols made under image of man.
The gospel had been preached to the poor; the words of mercy and peace had
been heard on the earth. Painting had come to be the auxiliary of
religion; it was in the churches of a spiritual and suffering faith that
its impression was to be produced. Calvary was to be presented to the eye;
the feeling of the centurion. "Truly this man was the Son of God,"
engraven on the heart. It was to the faithful who were penetrated with the
glad words of salvation, that the altar-pieces were addressed; it was the
feeling of the song of Simeon that had gone forth on the earth. It was
those divine feelings which painting, as it arose in modern Europe, was
called to embody in the human form; it was to this heavenly mission that
the genius of Italy was called. And if ever there was a mind fitted to
answer such a call--if ever the spirit of the gospel was breathed into the
human breast, that mind and that breast were those of Raphael.

Michael Angelo was the personification of the genius of Dante. The bold
conceptions, the awful agonies, the enduring suffering which are brought
forth in that immortal poet, had penetrated his kindred spirit, and
realized the _Inferno_ in the representation of the _Last Judgment_. But
it was the Spirit of Christ which had been breathed into the heart of
Raphael. The divine words, "Suffer the little children to come unto me,
and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," had inspired
his immortal conceptions. It is neither physical beauty nor mental
character, as in the Greek sculpture, which is represented in his
paintings. It is the Divine spirit breathed into the human heart; it is
the incarnation of deity in the human form that formed the object of his
pencil. He has succeeded in the attempt beyond any other human being that
ever existed.