we not at least have reserved “godlike” for him?  For never till now did we appreciate the primeval vigor of creation, the instant swiftness with which thought can pass to deed; never till now appreciate the passage, “Let there be light, and there was light,” which, be grateful, Michel! was clothed in human word before thee.

’One feels so repelled and humbled, on turning from Raphael to his contemporary, that I could have hated him as a Gentile Choragus might hate the prophet Samuel.  Raphael took us to his very bosom, as if we had been fit for disciples,—­

      ’"Parting with smiles the hair upon the brow,
      And telling me none ever was preferred”

    ’This man waves his serpent wand over me, and beauty’s self
    seems no better than a golden calf!

’I could not bear M. De Quincy for intimating that the archangel Michel could be jealous; yet I can easily see that he might have given cause, by undervaluing his divine contemporary.  Raphael was so sensuous, so lovely and loving.  All undulates to meet the eye, glides or floats upon the soul’s horizon, as soft as is consistent with perfectly distinct and filled-out forms.  The graceful Lionardo might see his pictures in moss; the beautiful Raphael on the cloud, or wave, or foliage; but thou, Michel, didst look straight upwards to the heaven, and grasp and bring thine down from the very sun of invention.

’How Raphael revels in the image!  His life is all reproduced; nothing was abstract or conscious.  Pantheism, Polytheism, Greek god of Beauty, Apollo Musagetes,—­what need of life beyond the divine work?  “I paint,” said he, “from an idea that comes into my mind.”

’But thou, Michel, didst not only feel but see the divine Ideal.  Thine is the conscious monotheism of Jewry.  Like thy own Moses, even on the mount of celestial converse, thou didst ask thy God to show now his face, and didst write his words, not in the alphabet of flowers, but on stone tables.

’It is, indeed, the two geniuses of Greece and Jewry, which are reproduced in these two men.  Thaumaturgus nature saw fit to wait but a very few years before using these moulds again, in smaller space.  Would you read the Bible aright? look at Michel; the Greek Mythology? look at Raphael.  Would you know how the sublime coexists with the beautiful, or the beautiful with the sublime? would you see power and truth regnant on the one side, with beauty and love harmonious and ministrant, but subordinate; or would you look at the other aspect of Deity?—­study here.  Would you open all the founts of marvel, admiration, and tenderness?—­study both.

’One is not higher than the other; yet I am conscious of a slight rebuke from Michel, for having so poured out my soul at the feet of his brother angel.  He seems to remind of Mr. E.’s view, and ask, “Why did you not question