Each supreme artist whom God hath sent into the world with inspiration and a particle of the imperishable fire, is a law to himself, an universe, a revelation of the divine life under one of its innumerable attributes.  We cannot therefore classify Michelangelo with any of his peers throughout the long procession of the ages.  Of each and all of them it must be said in Ariosto’s words, “Nature made him, and then broke the mould.”  Yet, if we seek Michelangelo’s affinities, we find them in Lucretius and Beethoven, not in Sophocles and Mozart.  He belongs to the genus of deep, violent, colossal, passionately striving natures; not, like Raffaello, to the smooth, serene, broad, exquisitely finished, calmly perfect tribe.  To God be the praise, who bestows upon the human race artists thus differing in type and personal quality, each one of whom incarnates some specific portion of the spirit of past ages, perpetuating the traditions of man’s soul, interpreting century to century by everlasting hieroglyphics, mute witnesses to history and splendid illustrations of her pages.