And this was Michel Angelo’s response:— “Grato mi è il sonno, e piu l’ esser de sasso Mentre che il danno e la vergogna dura Non veder non sentir m’ è gran ventura Però, non mi destar; deh! parla basso.” Which may be rendered:— “Grateful is sleep—and more, of stone to be; So long as crime and shame here hold their state, Who cannot see nor feel is fortunate— Therefore speak low, and do not waken me.” This would clearly seem to show that under these giant shapes he meant to embody allegorically at once the sad condition of humanity and the oppressed condition of his country. What lends itself still more to this interpretation is the character and expression of both the statues of Lorenzo and Giuliano, and particularly that of Lorenzo, who leans forward with his hand raised to his chin in so profound and sad a meditation that the world has given it the name of Il Pensiero—not even calling it Il Pensieroso, the thinker, but Il Pensiero, thought itself; while the attitude and expression of Giuliano is of one who helplessly holds the sceptre and lets the world go, heedless of all its crime and folly, and too weak to lend his hand to set it right. But whatever the interpretation to be given to these statues, in power, originality, and grandeur of character they have never been surpassed. It is easy to carp at their defects. Let them all be granted. They are contorted, uneasy, over-anatomical, untrue to nature. Viewed with the keen and searching eye of the critic, they are full of faults, _e pur si muove_. There is a lift of power, an energy of conception, a grandeur and boldness of treatment which redeems all defects. They are the work of a great mind, spurning the literal, daring almost the impossible, and using human form as a means of thought and expression. It may almost be said that in a certain sense they are great, not in despite of their faults, but by very virtue of these faults. In them is a spirit which was unknown to the Greeks and Romans. They sought the simple, the dignified, the natural; beauty was their aim and object. Their ideal was a quiet, passionless repose, with little action, little insistence of parts. Their treatment was large and noble, their attitude calm. No torments reach them, or if passion enter, it is subdued to beauty:— “Calm pleasures there abide, majestic pains.”