"Nor then forget that chamber of the dead, Where the gigantic shapes of Night and Day, Turned into stone, rest everlastingly; Yet still are breathing, and shed round at noon A twofold influence,--only to be felt-- A light, a darkness, mingling each with each; Both, and yet neither. There, from age to age, Two ghosts are sitting on their sepulchres. That is the Duke Lorenzo. Mark him well. He meditates, his head upon his hand. What from beneath his helm-like bonnet scowls? Is it a face, or but an eyeless skull? 'Tis lost in shade; yet, like the basilisk, It fascinates, and is intolerable. His mien is noble, most majestical! Then most so, when the distant choir is heard At morn or eve--nor fail thou to attend On that thrice-hallowed day, when all are there; When all, propitiating with solemn songs, Visit the Dead. Then wilt thou feel his power!" It is strange that this should be the only written instance (as far as I recollect) of just and entire appreciation of Michael Angelo's spiritual power. It is perhaps owing to the very intensity of his imagination that he has been so little understood--for, as I before said, imagination can never be met by vanity, nor without earnestness. His Florentine followers saw in him an anatomist and posture-master--and art was finally destroyed by the influence over admiring idiocy of the greatest mind that art ever inspired.