Seen from below, these figures are solemn and striking; but seen near by, their grandeur of character is vastly more impressive, and their beauty and refinement, which are less apparent when seen from a distance, are quite as remarkable as their power and energy. Great as Michel Angelo was as a sculptor, he seems even greater as a painter. Not only is the design broader and larger, but there is a freedom of attitude, a strength and loftiness of conception, and a beauty of treatment, which are beyond what he reached, or perhaps strove for, in his statues. The figure of Adam, for instance, is not more wonderful for its novelty and power of design than for its truth to nature. The figure of the Deity, encompassed by angelic forms, is whirling down upon him like a tempest. His mighty arm is outstretched, and from his extended fingers an electric flash of life seems to strike into the uplifted hand of Adam, whose reclining figure, issuing from the constraint of death, and quivering with this new thrill of animated being, stirs into action, and rises half to meet his Creator. Nothing could be more grand than this conception, more certain than its expression, or more simple than its treatment. Nothing, too, has ever been accomplished in art more powerful, varied, and original than the colossal figures of the sibyls and the prophets. The Ezekiel, listening to the voice of inspiration; the Jeremiah, surcharged with meditative thought, and weighed down with it as a lowering cloud with rain; the youthful Daniel, writing on his book, which an angel supports; Esaias, in the fullness of his manhood, leaning his elbow on his book and holding his hand suspended while turning he listens to the angel whose tidings he is to record; and the aged Zacharias, with his long beard, swathed in heavy draperies, and intently reading,—these are the prophets; and alternating with them on the span of the arch are the sibyls,—the noble Erythrean, seated almost in profile, with crossed legs, and turning the leaves of her book with one hand while the other drops at her side, grand in the still serenity of her beauty; the aged Persian sibyl, turning sideway to peruse the book which she holds close to her eyes, while above her recline two beautiful naked youths, and below her sleeps a madonna with the child Christ; the Libyan, holding high behind her with extended arms her open scroll, and looking down over her shoulder; the Cumæan, old, weird, Dantesque in her profile, with a napkin folded on her head, reading in self-absorption, while two angels gaze at her; and last, the Delphic, sweet, calm, and beautiful in the perfectness of womanhood, who looks serenely down over her shoulder to charm us with a peaceful prophecy. All the faces and heads o£ these figures are evidently drawn from noble and characteristic models,—if, indeed, any models at all are used; and some of them, especially those of the Delphic and Erythrean, are full of beauty as well as power.