Part 11

Michael Angelo’s second work in fresco, the Last Judgment, occupying the east end of the Sistine chapel, seems to have been begun in 1533 or 1534. It was not finished till 1541. His last and only other works of this kind were two large pictures in the Pauline chapel, representing the Martyrdom of St. Peter, and the Conversion of St. Paul. These were not completed till he had reached the advanced age of seventy-five.

In 1546 died Antonio da San Gallo, the third architect employed in the rebuilding of St. Peter’s. The project of renewing the metropolitan church of Rome was first suggested to the ambitious mind of Pope Julius II. by the impossibility of finding any place in the then existing cathedral, worthy of the splendid monument which he had ordered Michael Angelo to execute. Bramante, Raphael, and San Gallo, were successively appointed to conduct the mighty undertaking, and removed by death. San Gallo had deviated materially from the design of Bramante. Michael Angelo disapproved of his alterations; but was deterred from returning to the original plan by its vast extent, and the necessity of contracting the extent of the work so as to meet the impoverished state of the Papal treasury, produced by the spreading of the Reformation in Germany and England. He accordingly gave in the design from which the present building was erected, which, gigantic as it is, falls short of the dimensions of that which Julius proposed to raise. Having now reached the advanced age of seventy-one, it was with reluctance that he undertook so heavy a charge. It was, indeed, only by the absolute command of the Pope that he was induced to do so; and on the unusual condition that he should receive no salary, as he accepted the office purely from devotional feelings. He also made it a condition that he should be absolutely empowered to discharge any persons employed in the works, and to supply their places at his pleasure.

To the independent and upright feelings which led him to insist on this latter clause, the factious opposition, which harassed the remainder of his life, is partly to be ascribed. Disinterested himself, he suffered no peculation under his administration; and he was repaid by the hatred of a powerful party connected with those whose vanity his appointment wounded, or whose interests his honesty crossed. Repeated attempts were made to procure his removal, to which he would willingly have yielded, but for a due sense of the greatness of the work which he had undertaken, and reluctance to quit it, until too far advanced to be altered and spoiled by some inferior hand. This praiseworthy solicitude was not disappointed. During the life of Paul, and through four succeeding pontificates, he held the situation of chief architect; and before his death, in February, 1563–4, the cupola was raised, and the principal features of the building unalterably determined.

His earlier architectural works are to be seen at Florence. They consist of the façade and sacristy of the church of St. Lorenzo, left unfinished by Brunelleschi, the mausoleum of the Medici family, and the Laurentian library. During the latter part of his life he amused his leisure hours by working on a group representing a dead Christ, supported by the Virgin and Nicodemus, which he intended for an altar-piece to the chapel in which he should himself be interred. It was never finished, however, and is now in the cathedral of Florence. But, from the time of his assuming the charge of St. Peter’s, his attention was almost entirely devoted to architecture. His chief works were the completion of the Farnese palace, begun by San Gallo; the palace of the Senator of Rome, the picture galleries, and flight of steps leading up to the convent of Araceli, all situated on the Capitoline hill; and the conversion of the baths of Diocletian into the church of S. Maria degli Angeli.

Michael Angelo, though he painted few pictures himself, frequently gave designs to be executed by his favourite pupils, especially Sebastiano del Piombo. Such was the origin of the magnificent Raising of Lazarus, in the National Gallery. Like many artists of that age, he aspired to be a poet. His works consist chiefly of sonnets, modelled on the style of Petrarch. Religion and Love are the prevailing subjects.

The Life of Michael Angelo, by Mr. Duppa, will gratify the curiosity of the English reader, who wishes to pursue the subject beyond this mere list of the artist’s principal works. To the Italian reader we may recommend the lives of Condivi and Vasari, as containing the original information from which subsequent writers have drawn their accounts. To do justice to the versatile, yet profound genius of this great man, is a task which we must leave to such writers as Reynolds and Fuseli, in whose lectures the reader will find ample evidence of the profound admiration with which they regarded him. Nor can we conclude better than with the short but energetic character given by the latter, of his favourite artist’s style of genius, and of his principal works:—

“Sublimity of conception, grandeur of form, and breadth of manner, are the elements of Michael Angelo’s style. By these principles he selected or rejected the objects of imitation. As painter, as sculptor, as architect, he attempted, and above any other man, succeeded, to unite magnificence of plan, and endless variety of subordinate parts, with the utmost simplicity and breadth. His line is uniformly grand: character and beauty were admitted only as far as they could be made subservient to grandeur. To give the appearance of perfect ease to the most perplexing difficulty, was the exclusive power of Michael Angelo. He is the inventor of epic painting, in that sublime circle of the Sistine chapel which exhibits the origin, the progress, and the final dispensations of theocracy. He has personified motion in the groups of the Cartoon of Pisa; embodied sentiment on the monuments of S. Lorenzo; unravelled the features of meditation in the Prophets and Sibyls of the Sistine chapel; and in the Last Judgment, with every attitude that varies the human body, traced the master-trait of every passion that sways the human heart. Though, as sculptor, he expressed the character of flesh more perfectly than all who came before or went after him, yet he never submitted to copy an individual, Julius II. only excepted; and in him he represented the reigning passion rather than the man. In painting he has contented himself with a negative colour, and as the painter of mankind, rejected all meretricious ornament. The fabric of St. Peter’s, scattered into infinity of jarring parts by Bramante and his successors, he concentrated; suspended the cupola, and to the most complex gave the air of the most simple of edifices. Such, take him for all in all, was M. Angelo, the salt of art: sometimes he no doubt had his moments of dereliction, deviated into manner, or perplexed the grandeur of his forms with futile and ostentatious anatomy: both met with armies of copyists; and it has been his fate to be censured for their folly.”—(Lecture II.)

[Illustration:

JACKSON

From the Monument of Giuliano de Medici. ]

[Illustration:

_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._

MOLIERE.

_From the original Picture of Lebrun’s School, in the collection of the Musée Royale. Paris._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._ ]

[Illustration]

MOLIERE

Moliere, the contemporary of Corneille and Racine, whose original and real name was Jean Baptiste Poquelin, was born at Paris on the 15th January, 1622. His father and mother were both in trade; and they brought up their son to their own occupation. At the age of fourteen, young Poquelin could neither read, write, nor cast accounts. But the grandfather was very fond of him; and being himself a great lover of plays, often took his favourite to the theatre. The natural genius of the boy was, by this initiation, kindled into a decided taste for dramatic entertainments: a disgust to trade was the consequence, and a desire of that mental cultivation from which he had hitherto been debarred. His father consented at length to his becoming a pupil of the Jesuits at the College of Clermont. He remained there five years, and was fortunate enough to be the class-fellow of Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, whose friendship and protection proved of signal service to him in after-life. He studied under the celebrated Gassendi, who was so impressed by the apparent aptitude of young Poquelin to receive instruction, that he admitted him to the private lectures given to his other pupils. Gassendi was in the habit of breaking a lance with two great rivals: Aristotle, at the head of ancient, and Descartes, then at the head of modern philosophy. By witnessing this combat, Poquelin acquired a habit of independent reasoning, sound principles, extensive knowledge, and that feeling of practical good sense, which was so conspicuous not only in his most laboured, but even in his lightest productions.

His studies under Gassendi were abruptly terminated by the following circumstance. His father was attached to the court in the double capacity of valet-de-chambre and tapestry-maker; and the son had the reversion of these places. When Louis XIII. went to Narbonne in 1641, the old man was ill, and the young one was obliged to officiate for him. On his return to Paris, his passion for the stage, which had first led him into the paths of literature, revived with renewed strength. The taste of Cardinal de Richelieu for theatrical performances was communicated to the nation at large, and a peculiar protection was granted to dramatic poets. Many little societies were formed for acting plays in private houses, for the amusement at least of the performers. Poquelin collected a company of young stage-stricken heroes, who so far exceeded all their rivals, as to earn for their establishment the pompous title of The Illustrious Theatre. He now determined to make the stage his profession, and changing his name, according to the usage in such cases, adopted that of Moliere.

He disappears during the time of the civil wars, from 1648 to 1652; but we may suppose the interval to have been passed in composing some of those pieces which were afterwards brought before the public. When the disturbances ceased, Moliere, in partnership with an actress of Champagne, named La Béjard, formed a strolling company; and his first regular piece, called L’Etourdi, or the Blunderer, was performed at Lyons in 1653. Another company of comedians settled in that town was deserted by the spectators in favour of these clever vagabonds; and the principal performers of the regular establishment took the hint, pocketed their dignity, and joined Moliere. The united company transferred itself to Languedoc, and were retained in the service of the Prince of Conti. During the Carnival of 1658, the troop, having resumed their vagrant life, were playing at Grenoble. The following summer was passed at Rouen. When so near Paris, Moliere made occasional journeys thither, with the earnest hope of bettering his fortune in the metropolis, where the market for talent is always brisk and open, the competition, though severe, fair and encouraging. Once more he received protection from his august fellow-collegian, who introduced him to Monsieur, and ultimately to the King himself. The company appeared before their Majesties and the court for the first time, on the 3d of November, 1658, on a stage erected in the Hall of the Guards in the Old Louvre. Their success was so complete that the King gave orders for their permanent settlement in Paris, and they were allowed to act alternately with the Italian players in the Hall of the Petit Bourbon. In 1663 a pension of a thousand livres was granted to Moliere, and in 1665 his company was taken altogether into the King’s service.

As in the course of about fifteen years he produced more than double that number of dramatic pieces, instead of giving, within our narrow limits, a mere dry catalogue of titles, we shall make some more detailed remarks on a few of those masterpieces, in different styles, which not only raised the character of French comedy to a great height in France itself, but in a great measure furnished the staple to some of our own most distinguished writers.

Among many persons of taste and judgment, the Misantrope has borne the character of being the most finished of all Moliere’s pieces; of combining the most powerful efforts of united genius and art. The subject is single, and the unities are exactly observed. The principal person of the drama is strongly conceived, and brought out with the boldest strokes of the master’s pencil: it is throughout uniform, and in strict keeping. The subordinate persons are equally well drawn, and fitted for their business in the scene, so as to throw an artist-like light upon the chief figure. The scenes and incidents are so contrived and conducted as to diversify the main character, and set it in various points of view. The sentiments are strong and nervous as well as proper; and the good sense with which the piece is fraught, proves that the bustle and dissipation of the court and the theatre had not obliterated the lessons of the college, or the lectures of Gassendi. The title of the play will at once bring to the mind of an Englishman our own Timon of Athens; but there are scarcely any other points of resemblance. The ancient and the modern Man-hater had little in common: the Athenian was the victim of personal ill-treatment; having suffered by excess of good-nature and credulity, he runs into the other extreme of suspicion and revenge. Moliere’s Man-hater owes his character to the severity of virtue, which can give no quarter to the vices of mankind; to that sincerity which disdains indiscriminate complaisance, and the prostitution of the language of friendship to the flattery of fools and knaves. Wycherley, in his Plain Dealer, has given the French Misantrope an English dress. Manly is a character of humour, speaking and acting from a peculiar bias of temper and inclination; but the coarseness of the _plain dealing_ is not to be tolerated, and what Manly _does_ goes near to counteract the moral effect of what he _says_.

By way of contrasting the various talents of the author, than whom none better understood human nature in its various ramifications, or copied more skilfully every shade and gradation of manners, we may just mention the Bourgeois Gentilhomme, exhibiting the folly and affectation of a cit turned man of fashion. If the moral of the Misantrope be pure, the wit of the Bourgeois is terse and diverting.

In several of his comedies he has treated medicine and its professors not only with freedom but severity; it was, however, perverted medicine only, and its quack professors that were the subjects of his ridicule. The respectable members of the faculty could be no more affected by the satire, nor displeased by what they could not fear, than a true prophet by the punishment of imposture. Those who are acquainted with the history of the science will recollect the state of it at Paris in Moliere’s time, and the character of the physicians. Their whole employment was confined to searching after visionary specifics, and experimental trickery in chemistry. The cause of a disease was never inquired after, nor the symptoms regarded; but hypothetical jargon and random prescription were thrown like dust into the eyes of the patient, to the exclusion of a practice founded on science and observation. Thus medicine became a pest instead of a remedy; and this state of things justified the chastisement inflicted.

Les Précieuses Ridicules is a comedy intended to reprove a vain, fantastical, and preposterous humour prevailing very much about that time in France. It had the desired effect, and conduced materially towards rooting out a taste in manners so unreasonable and ridiculous.

Tartuffe, or The Impostor, has occasionally, and even recently, sometimes to the disturbance of the public peace in France, given great offence not only to those who felt the justice, and winced under the severity of the satire; but to others, who suspected that a blow was aimed at religion, under the mask of an attack upon hypocrisy. But its intrinsic merit, the truth of the drawing, and the justness of the colouring, have secured patrons for it among persons of unquestionable sense, virtue, learning, and taste; and it has always triumphed over the violence of opposition. Cibber, a vamper of other men’s plays, has borrowed from it his favourite Nonjuror, and applied it to the purposes of a political party. On this adaptation has been grafted a more modern attack on the Methodists, under the title of The Hypocrite. But however great may be the merit of this celebrated drama, it cannot boast of entire originality. Machiavelli left behind him three comedies, the fruits of a statesman’s leisure hours. In all three, the author has exhibited the hand of a master; he has painted mankind in the spirit of truth, and unmasked falsehood and hypocrisy in a tone of profound contempt. Two monks, a brother Timothy and a brother Alberico, are represented with too much wit and keenness of sarcasm to have been overlooked by Moliere in his working up of the third specimen. The first three acts of the Tartuffe were played for the first time at court before the piece was finished. Masques of pomp, magnificence and panegyric, such as usually furnish out the amusement of royal saloons, are forgotten as soon as they have served the purpose of the moment: but masterpieces like that now in question perpetuate their own renown, and leave a lasting memorial of what is supposed to be a phenomenon, a princely taste for genuine wit.

Les Fâcheux was the first piece in which dancing was so connected with the dramatic action, as to fill up the intervals without breaking the thread of the story.

Le Mariage Forcé was borrowed from Rabelais, to whom both Moliere and La Fontaine were deeply indebted. The Aristotelian and Pyrrhonian philosophy, as travestied by modern doctors, furnishes occasion for lively satire and clever buffoonery. The horror with which Pancrace calls down the vengeance of heaven on him who should dare to say the _form_ of a hat, instead of the _figure_ of a hat, is a pleasant parody on the unintelligible absurdities of the schools. According to Marphurius, philosophy commands us to suspend our judgment, and to speak of every thing with uncertainty; not to say _I am come_, but, _I think that I am come_.

La Princesse d’Elide, though not one of Moliere’s happiest efforts, deserves notice on account of its contributing to the festivities of the court, by an adaptation of ingenious allegories to the manners and events of the time. This satire was aimed at the illusion of Judicial Astrology, after which many princes of the period were running mad; and in particular Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, father of the Duchess of Burgundy, who kept an astrologer about his person even after his abdication. The dramatic antiquary may find some amusement in comparing the fêtes of the French court with the masques of Ben Jonson, Davenant, and others, exhibited before our James I. and Charles I.; but here the interest ends. It is sufficient to remark, that the masques of the English court owed their power of pleasing to the ingenuity of the machinist and the flattery of the poet. The little dramas performed before the royal family of France tickled the ears of the audience by the pungency of their wit and ridicule.

The Miser has been pretty closely translated, for the version is little more, by Henry Fielding; but not so happily as he himself seems to have imagined.

The subject of that excellent comedy, Les Femmes Savantes, in which the ridicule is kept within reasonable bounds, and female faults and virtues are painted with a proper gradation of colouring, where what the painters call a _medium tint_ harmonizes the extremes of light and shade, was taken up by Goldoni with that coarse and abrupt pencilling of black and white, which has always been the vice of the Italian stage. It has indeed been advanced as a reproach to Moliere, that he too often charged his comic pictures with the extravagance of caricature: but if we compare even the most farcical of his scenes with the speaking pantomimes and half-improvisations of Italy, we must pronounce him a model of delicacy and classical propriety.

His last comedy was Le Malade Imaginaire. It was acted for the fourth time on the 17th February, 1673. The principal character represented is that of a sick man, who, to carry on a purpose of the plot, pretends to be dead. This part was played by Moliere himself. The popular story was, that when he was to discover that it was only a feint, he could neither speak nor get up, being actually dead. The wits and epigrammatists made the most of the occurrence; those who could not write good French, treated it with bad Latin. But unluckily for the stability of their conceits, they were not built on the foundation of truth. Though very ill, and obviously in much pain, he was able to finish the play. He went home, and was put to bed: his cough increased violently; a vessel burst in his lungs, and he was suffocated with blood in about half an hour after. He was only in his fifty-second year when this event took place. The King was extremely affected at this sudden loss, by which, as Johnson said of Garrick, the gaiety of nations was eclipsed; and as a strong mark of his regard, he prevailed with the archbishop of Paris to allow of his being interred in consecrated ground. Nothing short of so absolute a King’s interposition could have effected this; for, independently of the general sentence of excommunication then in force against scenic performers, Moliere had drawn upon himself the resentment of the ecclesiastics in particular, by exposing the hypocrites of their cloth, as well as the bigots among the laity. Those who ridicule folly and knavery in all orders of men must expect to be treated as Moliere was, and to have the foolish and knavish of all orders for enemies. During his life, Paris and the court were stirred up and inflamed against the dramatist; and on more than one occasion, he must have fallen a sacrifice to the indignation of the clergy, had he not been protected by the King. The friend of his life did not desert him when he was dead; but procured for his insensible remains that decent respect, which all nations have consented to pay, as a tribute even to themselves.