'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.
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