as if trying to kill himself.

He was bold as he was angry. He was treated kindly, and advised to
forget the past; but he never concealed his views. When his statue of
Night was exhibited, verses were put upon it, according to the custom of
the time; one verse read, "Night, whom you see slumbering here so
charmingly, has been carved by an angel, in marble. She sleeps, she
lives; waken her, if you will not believe it, and she will speak."

To this Michael Angelo replied, "Sleep is dear to me, and still more
that I am stone, so long as dishonor and shame last among us; the
happiest fate is to see, to hear nothing; for this reason waken me not.
I pray you, speak gently." He had great courage to speak his anger thus
publicly in the midst of those who could easily destroy him.

In 1537 or 1538 his father died, and the artist suffered terribly from
his grief. He wrote a sonnet beginning:

"Already had I wept and sighed so much.
I thought all grief forever at an end,
Exhaled in sighs, shed forth in bitter tears."

The religious views of Michael Angelo were very broad, and he had a
trustful and obedient dependence upon God, in whose mercy and love he
gratefully rested with the simple faith of a child. It was not far from
the time when his father died that Michael Angelo first met Vittoria
Colonna. He was now more than sixty years old; and though his poems show
that he had loved children and women all his life, yet he had allowed
himself no attachments; his life had been lonely and alone. Now, at this
late hour, he yielded his heart to this beautiful, gifted woman, who
returned his friendship with the fullest esteem. During these years he
was happier than he had ever been. But in 1541 she fell under the
suspicion of the Inquisition, and was obliged to leave Rome.

During two years they wrote constantly to each other, and each sent to
the other the sonnets they wrote. At this time all Italy read the poems
of Vittoria, and those of Michael Angelo still stand the test of time.
In them he shows the blessed effect of her influence over him. At length
she returned to Rome and entered a convent, where she died in 1547.
Michael Angelo was with her to the last, and years later he declared
that he regretted nothing so much as that he had only kissed her hand,
and not her forehead or cheeks in that last hour. His loss was far too
great to be told. (An engraving of a portrait of Michael Angelo can be
seen in Mrs. Clement's