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Raphael. The drama, or in other words the representation of 

 v -y^~* character in conflict with passion, was his sphere ; to 

 represent this, his invention in the choice of the mo- 

 ment, his composition in the arrangement of his actors, 

 and his expression in tin- delineations of their emotions, 

 were, and are, and perhaps will be, unrivalled. And 

 to this he adde'd a style of design dictated by the sub- 

 ject itself, a colour suited to the subject, all the grace 

 which propriety permitted, or sentiment suggested, and 

 as much chiaro-scuro as was compatible with his su- 

 preme desire of perspicuity and evidence. It is there- 

 fore only when he forsook the drama, to make excur- 

 sions into the pure epic or sublime, that his forms be- 

 came inadequate, and were inferior to those of M. An- 

 gelo. It is only in subjects where colour from a ve- 

 hicle becomes the ruling principle, that he is excelled 

 by Titian. He yields to Correggio only in that grace, 

 and that chiaro-scuro, which is less the minister of pro- 

 priety and sentiment, than its charming abuse, or vo- 

 luptuous excess ; and which sacrifices to the eye what 

 was claimed in vain by the mind. 



Michael Angelo appears to have had no infancy ; if 

 he had, we are not acquainted with it. His earliest 

 works equal in principle and elements of style, the vi- 

 gorous offspring of his virility. Raphael we see in his 

 cradle. We hear him stammer ; but propriety rocked 

 the cradle, and character formed his lips. Even in the 

 trammels of Pietro Perugino, dry and servile in his 

 style of design, formal and gothic in his composition, 

 he traced what was essential, and separated it from 

 what was accidental in figure and subject. The works 

 of Leonardo, and the cartoons of Pisa, invigorated his 

 eye, but it was the antique that completed the system 

 which he had begun to establish on nature. From the 

 antique he learned discrimination and propriety of form. 

 He found, that in the construction of the body, the ar- 

 ticulation of the bones was the true cause of ease and 

 grace in the actions of the limbs, and that the know- 

 ledge of this was the true cause of the superiority of 

 the ancients. He discovered that certain features were 

 fitted for certain expressions, and peculiar to certain 

 characters : that such a head, such hands, and such feet, 

 are the stamen or the growth of such a body, and on 

 physiognomy established uniformity of parts. When 

 he designed, his attention was immediately directed to 

 the primary intention and motive of his figure, next to 

 its general measure, then to the bones and their articu- 

 lation, from them to the principal muscles, or those 

 eminently wanted, to their attendant nerves, and, last, 

 to the more or less essential minutiae ; but the charac- 

 ter part of the subject is infallibly the characteristic 

 part of his design, whether it be in rapid sketch, or a 

 more finished drawing. The strokes of his pen or pen- 

 cils themselves are characteristic : they follow the di- 

 rection and texture of the part ; flesh, in their round- 

 ing tendons, in straight, bones in angular lines. 



Such was the felicity and propriety of Raphael, when 

 employed in the dramatic evolutions of character ! Both 

 suffered when he attempted to abstract the forms of 

 sublimity and beauty. The painter of humanity not 

 often wielded with success super-human weapons. His 

 gods never rose above prophetic or patriarchal forms ; 

 if the finger of Michael Angelo impressed the divine 

 countenance oftener with sternness than awe, the gods 

 of Raphael are sometimes too affable or mild, like him 

 who speaks to Jacob in a ceiling of the Vatican ; or 

 too violent like him who separates light from darkness 

 in the loggia of the same place. But though, to speak 

 with things, he was chiefly made to walk with dignity 



on earth, he soared above it in the conception of Christ Raphael, 

 on Tabor, and still more in the form of the angelic 

 countenance that withers the strength of Heliodorus. 



Of ideal female besuty, though he himself tells us 

 in his letter to Count Castiglione, that from its scarcity 

 in life, he made attempts to reach it by an idea formed 

 in his own mind, he certainly wanted that standard 

 which guides him in character ; his goddesies and my- 

 thologic females are no more than aggravations of the 

 generic power of Michael Angelo. Roundness, mild- 

 ness, sanctimony, and insipidity compose in general the 

 features and airs of his Madonnas, transcripts of the 

 nursery or some favourite face. The Madonna della 

 Impanato, the Madonna della Sedia, and the Madonna 

 Bella show more or less of this insipidity, which arises 

 chiefly from the high rounded smooth forehead, the 

 shaven vacuity between the arched semicircular eye- 

 brows, their elevation above the eyes, and the ungrace- 

 ful division and scanty growth of hair; This indeed 

 might be the result of his desire not to stain the virgin 

 character of sanctity with the most distant bint of co- 

 quetry or meretricious charms ; for in his Magdalens 

 he throws the hair with luxuriant profusion, and sur- 

 rounds the breast and shoulders with undulating waves 

 and plaids of gold. The character of Mary Magdalene 

 met his. It was the character of a passion. It is evi- 

 dent from every picture or design, at every period of 

 his art in which she had a part, that he supposed her 

 enamoured. When she follows the body of the Savi- 

 our to the tomb, or throws herself dishevelled over his 

 feet, or addresses him when he bears his cross, the cast 

 of her features, her mode, her action, are the character 

 of love in agony. When the drama inspired Raphael, 

 his women became definitions of grace and pathos 

 at once. Such is the exquisite line of turn of the 

 half averted kneeling female with two children among 

 the spectators of the punishment inflicted on Helio- 

 dorus ; her attitude, the turn of her neck, supplies all 

 face, and intimates more than he ever " expressed by 

 feature." Some account of the cartoons of Raphael, 

 and minute notices of several of his pictures will be 

 found in our article PAINTING, Vol. XIII. p. 239, 240. 

 See Duppa's Life of Raphael, prefixed to his " Heads 

 from the Fresco pictures of Raffaello in the Vatican," 

 1802 ; and Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses. 



RAPIN, DE THOYRAS PAUL, a French historian, 

 celebrated chiefly for his History of England, was born 

 on the 26th March, 1661, at Castres in Languedoc. After 

 going through the usual routine of education, he went to 

 study law at Nantes, where his father was an advocate. 

 At the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1687, he 

 came over to England ; and entered into a company of 

 French cadets at Utrecht. He followed the Prince of 

 Orange to England in 1689 ; and he afterwards went 

 to Ireland as ensign in Lord Kingston's regiment. In 

 that capacity he served at the sieges of Carrickfergus 

 and Limerick, and at the battle of the Boyne, and on 

 those occasions he conducted himself with such intre- 

 pidity as to merit and obtain a captain's commission. 

 In 1693, he was appointed governor to the Earl of 

 Rutland's son, and having resigned his commission to 

 a younger brother, he received from government L.150 

 a year for his services. After travelling to different 

 parts of Europe with his pupil, and finishing his en- 

 gagement, he had the misfortune to lose his pension by 

 the death of King William. 



Under these circumstances he retired to Wesel in 

 the duchy of Cleves, where he composed his History of 

 England. In the year 1717, he published a Dissertation 



