and that, in another _morceau_, he thanks "those beautiful eyes which lend him their sweet light, the genius that raises his own to heaven, the support that steadies his tottering steps,"
"Veggio co'bei vostri occhi un dolce lume." ...
But, checking himself immediately in these half-revelations, the poet, on the contrary, multiplies the complaints torn from him by the coldness and apparent indifference of her whose beauty he celebrates, whom he can render immortal. See more particularly Sonnet 21--
"Perchè d'ogni mia speme il verde è spento."
He exclaims even that he has rarely enjoyed the presence on which his happiness depends:--"You know neither custom nor opportunity have served my affection: it is very rarely that my eyes kindle themselves at the fire which burns in yours, guarded by a reserve to which desire scarcely dares to approach--
----'gli occhi vostri Circonscritti ov' appena il desir vola.'
A single look has made my destiny, and I have seen you, to say truly, but once."--(_Madrigale_ 5.)
It has been said that the "divine hand" of Michel Angelo painted the portrait of Luigia de' Medici. This is the name given, in reality, during the last century, to the head of a young female, "handsome rather than really beautiful," writes father Della Valle--a work in which Buonarotti's drawing was said to be recognised, with a softer and more lively colouring than obtains in the other pictures from his easel. Angelo's repugnance to paint portraits is one of the best established traits of his character. But he sculptured several--among those positively known are that of Julius II., lost in the chateau of Ferrara, and another of Gabriel Faërne, preserved in the Museum Capitolinum. We know, besides, that he consented to paint the portrait of the noble and witty Messer Tomasso de' Cavalieri, (see _Vasari_,) of the natural size; but that was a rare favour. "For," said he, "I abhor the obligation to copy that which, in nature, is not of infinite beauty." In another place, sonnet nineteen, addressing the object of his tenderness, Michel Angelo reminds her, that works of art are endowed, so to say, with eternal life and youth. "Perhaps," he adds, (_Sonnetto_ 19 ,) "I shall be able to prolong thy life and mine beyond the tomb, by employing, if thou wilt, colour, or marble, if thou preferest, to fix the lines of our features and the resemblance of our affection!"