"The ma'vels that a't will accomplish!" said Fitzen.

66

And all with the aid of the single monosyllable 'Pad!'" observed O'Flaherty.

"Yes," said Fitzen; "but with genius to direct its graceful undulations. And now for the legs! Straight, but shapeless (he remarked, in a side whisper to O'Flaherty). Straight, and that's eve'y thing. But, sacred Heaven! what shall we do with the feeeet?"

“I'll bring him to my bootmaker presently," said O'Flaherty, "and cramp his toes into somethin' like semmetry."

"Bring him, sa, to a man of genius," said Fitzen, "or the case is 'opeless. My cut round the instep is perfectly exquisite. Oh, sa, how supe'bly it acco❜ds with the Adelaide boot!-and then my patte'ns are all so choice such a delèecate mixtyaw!"

"Yes," said O'Flaherty, "like an apothecary's cough-prescription-an everlasting mixture!"

"Haw! haw! haw!" said Fitzen, displaying his white teeth, upon my wawd, Mr. O'Flairty, you are quite facetious. Reeelly, your weet is truly delaightful. But I don't always adhere to the mixtyaw, which you so humorously descraibe-on the contrary, I still peetronaise occeesionally the railway pattern.'

"By J-, yes," said O'Flaherty, "and with gaiter termini !"

'Facetious again. Upon my laife, Mr. O'Flairty, you are poositively a weet!"

"By the way," remarked O'Flaherty, "have you read Bulwer's novel of Pelham ?"

"Oh, desaidedly. Every one has read Pelham-the only good thing he ever wrote."

"You are not far wrong there," said O'Flaherty, "though it abounds with absurdities-particularly the chapter about tailoring directions."

Fitzen burst into convulsions of laughter, and exclaimed: "The most absawd tissue of nonsense that eva'

was perpetwated. Why, sa, what think you he says about the cut of twouzas? Why this: Let them be sufficiently tight about the hips, and let the rest flow as Heaven pleases? Haw! haw! haw! This would let in Mr. Muntz's, the new-made member for Birmingham's balloon-breechespawsiteevely, the greatest fraights that ever human eye was laid on, beating out a Turk's lower garments all to nothing!"

"I'm told," said O'Flaherty, "he is obliged to insure them aginst fire, though, in consequence of their extreme width, he is always compelled to sit at six yards' distance from the fender."

Bastewell, his tailor, tells me," continued Fitzen, "that he can find no piece of broad cloth in all London large enough to make a pair of twouzas for Mr. Muntz, and is obliged to baste two pieces together-a pafwetly astounding faact!"

The process of mensuration and the other arrangements having been completed, and the clothes having been directed to be sent to O'Flaherty's chambers at the Temple, seeing that Fitzen would have turned up his nose at Davie's degraded address in Holborn, the two gentlemen took their departure, being politely bowed out by Mr. Fitzen, that accomplished MAKER OF MEN.

As they turned the corner of the street, they observed a very handsome cabriolet, with a dashing horse splendidly harnessed, and an elegant tiger, negligently drawn up, and awaiting no doubt its proprietor's arrival.

"That's Fitzen's cab," said O'Flahertv.

G.

THE period at which this great and good man sprang into existenceto redeem the Arts from the bondage of ignorance or fantastic aberration to which they had been for a long succession of centuries subjected was remarkable for the production of minds accomplished by the greatest variety of eminently brilliant characteristics; and often adorned, as in the instance of the subject we have chosen for this paper, with a corresponding elevation of soul, and a charming association of the finest feelings. It was the age of spiritual resuscitation throughout Europe, when the throes of new-born mind produced a moral earthquake through the world; when the boldness of physical discovery in the western hemisphere, and the undazzled and piercing eye of science, tracing new theories through the "void immense," were but the heralds of as great a revolution in the regions of moral and æsthetic philosophy. The Aristotelian and Platonic systems were successively exploded. The task of clearing off the rubbish of antiquated structures was a task for giants; new errors sprang up in the rapid progress of mind-errors inseparable from the imperfect lights of humanity; but on every side was witnessed, proportioned to the amount of labour, a mighty muscular development, and a torrent of sweeping thought.

No country in Europe was without its coruscation of great minds at that period. Dante, and Petrarch, and Boccaccio somewhat preceded it in Italy. But, contemporaneous with Michael Angelo were the illustrious names of Poliziano, Landino and Mirandolo, of Pontano and Lorenzo de' Medici in literature; of Raphael, and Titian, and Correggio, in art; of Leonardo da Vinci, and Giulio Romano, and Fra Bartolomeo, and Perugino, and Giorgione. At that brilliant epoch, the different depart

ments of art and science and litera

ture, instead of being separately pur

VOL. I.

sued, were properly considered as interwoven with each other, and as each of them tending to throw light on its analogous pursuit. The sculptor was a painter, and the painter a sculptor, and both were poets and philosophers besides. Leonardo da Vinci is the most striking instance of this wonderful versatility. His philosophical treatises have latterly challenged much attention; and it has been proved to demonstration that he anticipated many of the most sublime scientific discoveries of succeeding ages. Michael Angelo's acquirements were quite as diversified; and if he devoted himself with less zeal to recondite science, he was a still profounder adept in the Platonic philosophy. The wreath of classic and elegant poesy, tinged with the hues of his Platonic speculation, his unwearied contemplation of that divine beauty which he sought to reproduce in all his works-the "gloriosa Donna della mia mente " of Dante's Divina Commedia-the disembodied intelligence which was personified in his Beatrice-" per mia donna intendo sempre quella virtuosissima Philosophia was added also to the brow of Michael Angelo; and in another part of our present number will be seen, in a translated form, a poetical tribute in which we have endeavoured, but in vain, to do justice to the fervour of feeling and beauty of language in which the poet-painter has recorded the merits of his great predecessor and imaginative model.

The Inferno of Dante undeniably furnished Michael Angelo with a number of thoughts, which he has wrought into such a substance and semblance of magnificence as nothing but a genius like his could attain, in his "Last Judgment;" and we can well believe that there never was a more interesting record of the genius of one artist illustrated by the kindred spirit of another, than the copy of Dante's great poem, the Divina Commedia, which was

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