The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-03-14
MICHAEL ANGELO.
[Bll Nye, in New York Mercury.l

lBill Nye, in New York Mercury.l This g.ea: sc.ir;s: was born in I47s. four hundred and ten years ago on the 6 h Of March next, st Set:igasno, thirteen miles from Florence. His correct name is supposed to have been Michael Angelo Buonanoti. Mike began to draw as soon as he was large enough, and for miles and miles around Florence they still point with pride to pictures on the high board fences of which he is supposed to have been the author.
 While very young, Michael went into the Madonna business, and now it is a pretty poor Italian town that can't afford Madonna of some kind. The first great work that Mir. Angelo executed in Rome was the Drunken Bacchus." It seems that Bacchus was a first-rate boy if he had let liquor alone. But he would drink. He would go and fill his skin as full of old-fashioned red liquor as it would hold, and then he would hunt up sculptor and get himself measured for bus.
 Early in the sixteenth century, Michael executed a statue of David, from mem- ory. This statue weighed IS 900 pounds, and several Americans who have been over there and who were perfectly famil far with the way David looked pronounce the expression perfect. It takes a certain kind of American to settle the merits of any great work, from the creation itself down to the latest joke.
 The fame of the great sculptor had by this time reached the ears ot Pope Julius | II, who was meditating the erection of ~nlnreo1 (.- h,.,oeaI4 C. Peters. A serious misunderstanding arose, however, between Michael Angelo and the pope over this work, and the sculptor left in disgust. It is not yet fully settled what this trouble resulted from, but as near as l am able to learn, the pope became enraged and discharged the sculptor because, at the last moment and when it was too late to remedy the evil, he found that the mausoleum didn't fit him. If this be true, am free to say that Mike was in the wrong. No m an wants to pay large sum for mauso- leum and then find when he comes to try it on that it bags at the knees.
 Later on, at Florence, the great artist designed magnificent work representing company of soldiers startled by the call of the trumpet while bathing in the Arno. This was never completed and only the cartoon itself remains to suggest what masterpiece was designed. So life-like is the cartoon alone that on a still day you can hear the snort of the trumpet as the soldiers rush to the bank. As you gaze at the picture you are lost in admiration and you hardly know whether to So wild over the masters great genius or to go and inform the police.
 Michael frescoed the Sistine chapel ceiling in twelve months; and did itwell, too. He was rapid as we'll as thor ough artist, and his head was literally fall of ideas.
 At fast he and the pope again became reconciled, and in I5I3 the sumptuous pontiff died leaving instructions for Angelo to cut his mausoleum a little higher in the neck and his executor would settle the bill on sight.
 It would take many pages to give even rough outline of the many beautiful monuments which Michael Angelo has erected to his own undying fame as sculptor, painter and poet. He lived to be ninety years old, and then, full of years and crowned with the glory he had carved out by his own genius and in- dustry, he died.
 Though his work was beautiful, he was not himself beautiful. He ran largely to brow, but his nose was broken in little misunderstanding that he had at school with young designer, who thought it would be good scheme to put what was termed in Florence in the fifteenth cen- tury tin nose on Mike. This gave him a look of pain, and his nose served to convey the idea that the great sculptor had just detected the presence of Linn burger cheese under his pillow.
 As general thing, however, great men are not beautiful. The pretty young man has really but one avenue open to him in the worlds great race. If he can- not mash tough old heiress whose father has got the pip, he has very little chance in the mighty struggle of life.
 If my son should show any signs of great physical beauty, having taken them from his mothers side of the house, would immediately hump my back ready to bear great burden for, judging by the worlds history, his father-in-law and l would have to take a turn about in maintaining tho young man and his cumulative family