The walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, with the picture of the Last Judgment, executed thirty years afterwards, form the principal, almost the sole, works of Michael Angelo in painting. The latter is the greatest work of modern art, being fifty feet high by forty wide, and containing upwards of 300 figures, many of which are larger than life. Here the human form appears under every variety of position, and agitated by every gradation of feeling; and over the whole is diffused a living ease--a science--a magic power--a fascination, which constrains us to gaze with wonder, astonishment, admiration, but not with interest or sympathy. Similar are our feelings in every other example; nor can this be exactly charged as a defect. Michael Angelo formed a system for himself--he stands alone in his art--an ideal abstraction of mind was the object of his imitation, to which all of living nature, elevated into gigantic forms and energetic modes, was to be moulded in subserviency. His art was creative, not imitative--standing forth, in its own independence of aim. Hence, there are two relations in which the works in painting of Michael Angelo are to be examined, and according to which his merits will be very differently estimated. Viewed in themselves, the frescos of the Vatican present astonishing evidences of human power. Every thought is grandeur and strength; and the rapid, fervent execution arms the pencil with an omnipotence of art equal to all the modifications of form. Here the whole is perfect, inimitable; within this his own walk, Buonarotti has no compeer,--'second to none, with nothing like to him.' But when the same works are considered in reference to the general principles of imitation, and as deriving value according as they reflect the archetypes of elevated nature, those very qualities which formerly constrained our approbation, become startling blemishes. The ideal is found to consist solely in the imaginative; sublimity is sought too exclusively in the vehement to be always dignified. All is action,--all participates of an unquiet and too aspiring character of composition: every form, every muscle, every attitude, exhibits the very gladiatorship of art,--for each is displayed, exerted, involved, to the utmost. Even repose is anything save rest. Yet, in difficulty apparently insurmountable, constraint is not perceived; the execution, wonderfully facile, though too prominent in general effect, gives to each giant limb of the awful and gloomy shapes, the very effect of life and movement. But to this display of capabilities--to the exhibition of science, and the sporting with difficulty, truth, simplicity, feeling, and real beauty, have been sacrificed. In this nothing seems peculiar to painting as distinguished from sculpture; nor, indeed, is there any discrimination: color, tone, light, shadow--all is systematic and ideal, but all mighty and overpowering in the whole. Again, when