_Coroll._--The armed figure of Rome, with Fortune behind her frowning at Coriolanus, surrounded by the Roman matrons in the Volscian camp (by Poussin), is a vision seen by that warrior, and not an allegory; it is a sublime image, which, without diminishing the credibility of the fact, adds to its importance, and raises the hero, by making him submit, not to the impulse of private ties, but to the destiny of his country. 166. All ornament ought to be allegoric. 167. Dignity is the salt of art. _Coroll._--In the Salutation of Michael Angelo,[35] the angelic messenger emerges from solitary twilight, his countenance seems to labour with the awful message, and his knees to bend as he approaches the mysterious personage: with virgin majesty and humble grace Mary bows to the extended arm of the lucid herald, as if waked from sacred meditation, and appears entranced by celestial sounds. The Madonnas of Raffaelle, whether hailed parents of a God, or pressing the divine offspring to their breast, whether receiving him from his slumbers, or contemplating his infant motions, are uniformly transcripts from the daily domestic images of common life and of some favourite face matronized: the eyes of his Fornarina beamed with other fires than those of sanctity; the sense and native dignity of her lover could veil their fierceness, but not change their language. The Madonna of Titiano receives her celestial visitant under an open portico of Palladian structure, and skirted by gay gardens; the usual ray precedes the floating angel; gold-ringleted and in festive attire, he waves a lily wand: in sable weeds the Virgin receives the gorgeous homage, proudly devout, like a young abbess amidst her cloistered lambs. Tintoretto has turned salutation into irruption. The angel bursts through the shattered casement and terrifies a vulgar female; but his wings are tipped in heaven.[36] 168. Dignity gives probability to the impossible: we listen to the monstrous tale of Ulysses with all the devotion due to a creed. By dignity, even deformity becomes an instrument of art: Vulcan limps like a god at the hand of Homer: the hump and withered arm of Richard are engines of terror or persuasion in Shakspeare; the crook-back of Michael Angelo strikes with awe. 169. Luxuriance of ornament destroys simplicity and repose, the attendants of dignity. _Coroll._--"Simon Mosca, one of the most distinguished sculptors of ornament and foliage in the sixteenth century, when proposed by Vasari to embellish by his designs the monument of the Cardinal di Monte, was discountenanced by Michael Angelo on this principle." Vasari, vita de Simone Mosca.