"I would draw from my blood, and I would lose years to give them to Michael Angelo, to preserve so great a man to the world." Such friends and companions never made Buonarotti proud; and he always remained the friend, if not always the companion of contemporary artists.

But I am only writing passages from the life of Michael Angelo, and I will close these brief words by a short account of his funeral.

He had manifested a desire to be buried in Florence: for Florence was his country, and he had exiled himself from it so long, only because the air was mortal to him. His nephew, Leonardo Buonarotti, went to Rome, and wrapped up the body in a bale of merchandise, and secretly bore it away.

This strange coffin reached Florence the eleventh of March, on Saturday, and the body was placed in the Chapel of the Assumption, under the high altar; and as no preparation had been made for the funeral, they carefully concealed the arrival of the invaluable spoils. The following day being in Lent, all the painters, and sculptors, and architects secretly assembled at the church, where the precious dust was deposited; and at midnight, all ranged round the body, they suddenly lighted a great number of torches,-the young men present disputed for the honor of being the pall-bearers of the greatest artist Italy had ever produced. The assembly, the hour, the torches, the noise, gathered the curious around the church; and notwithstanding the mystery they wished should surround the procession, the news spread from mouth to mouth that the body of the great sculptor had arrived-it had been brought to that obscure church only for safety,-and that it was now to be borne to the Santa Croce.

The whole town was aroused, and thousands rushed to the church, which was so thronged, it was with difficulty the procession could enter. After the ordinary religious ceremony, they placed it in the vestry, and the director of the procession exposed the face of the dead. Everyone expected to find the body decomposed, for it had been deprived of life twenty-five days, and twenty-two it had been in the coffin. But the body was entire in all its parts; no change had passed over it, it seemed only steeped in the soft slumber of night's repose. It was then brought out and exposed in the church. All Florence flocked to see once more the divine face of their great Patriarch, and the body and the coffin were soon covered with sonnets in the vulgar, and in the Latin tongue.

A meeting was then held to order the funeral honors they were so ready to bestow. Four commissioners were appointed to make the preparations; they were Assealo Bronzino, Vasari,

Benvenuto Cellini, and Ammannati. The fourteenth of July, in the centre of the gorgeous church of St. Lorenzo, a platform was erected twenty-eight cubits high, eleven long, eighty-nine wide; surmounting all, was Fame. The base was twelve cubits high, with four fronts, like the monument itself; two of them faced two lateral doors, one of which conducted to the cloister, and the other to the street; the third front faced the entrance door, and the fourth the high altar. On the side fronting the main door, were represented two beautiful riversthe Arno and the Tiber; the Arno with a horn of plenty filled with fruits and flowers; the Tiber, spreading out its arms, took part of the rich fruits and flowers, which signified that Rome had been enriched by the genius of Michael Angelo. On the base rose a block of marble five and a half cubits high, surmounted by cornices on all sides. On each of the four fronts was sculptured a beautiful scene. Above the two rivers, Lorenzo de' Medici was leading the youthful_Buonarotti through his garden of statues. On the second, Pope Clement was commanding the Library of S. Lorenzo. On the side facing the high altar, was a Latin inscription by the learned Vetiori; this epitaph was supported by two little angels, weeping. The fourth side represented Michael Angelo during the siege of Florence, directing the fortifications on the heights of San Miniato. These works were all from the hands of the masters of the time, and executed with great beauty. Moreover, this immense block, on which these scenes were sculptured, had at each of the four corners, in advanced pedestals, a statue larger than life, trampling upon another of the same size, representing some idea befitting the occasion-one was Genius, in the form of a young man, full of fire, clothed with wings, holding Ignorance under his feet-another, Piety crushing Vice-another still, Minerva (as Art) with Envy under her feet; while a fourth represented Study holding Indolence prisoner. Above this range rose another cornice, which formed a third square block, on whose sides other appropriate scenes were drawn. The first represented Michael Angelo before the Pontiff Pius, holding a model of the dome of St. Peter's in his hand; in the second, he is painting the Last Judgment; in the third, Sculpture, in a female form, is communing with him; in the fourth, Buonarotti is writing his Italian sonnets. At the four corners stood four statues, representing Sculpture, Poetry, Architecture, and Painting. Above rose a pyramid, nine cubits high, with a bust of Michael Angelo in relievo on one side, surmounted on the top by an urn, supposed to contain his ashes, while high above all, towered a figure of Fame, blowing three trumpets.

The whole church, not excepting the smallest chapel, was hung in black; and there was not a spot on these mourning hangings that was not decorated by a picture or an inscription. There were pictures and figures of Fame, of Hatred; trees thrown down by the storm, images of death, eternity; and Sculpture, with Painting and Poetry, as three sisters, by the side of Michael Angelo. On the pulpit above, no picture was seen, for it was a bronze work of Donatello. Thus gorgeously enriched, flooded with light, crowded by a generous people, the magistrates, academicians, the consuls, the painters, architects, and sculptors of Florence, who sat at their head, between the high altar and the funeral pile, the church presented a spectacle of great and gorgeous solemnity. The solemn mass began with all the ceremonies of sacred music and ecclesiastical pomp. When it was over, the illustrious Varchi ascended the pulpit, and pronounced a funeral oration. The whole ended by carrying the sacred ashes of the dead to the tomb, where they still repose after a quiet slumber of three hundred years. When one reads an account of these signal and touching honors, paid to Michael Angelo, he feels he can almost forgive Florence for her cruelty to Dante!

I intended to speak of Buonarotti's poetry, but I will only transcribe his beautiful sonnet upon Dante. The poet will explain the sculptor:

DANTE.

Dal mondo scese ai ciechi abissi, e poi
Che l'uno e l'altro inferno vide a Dio

Scorto dal gran pensier viro sulio,
E ne diè in terra vero lume a noi.

Stella d'alto valor co' raggi suoi
Gli occulti eterni a noi ciechi scoprio
En' ebbe il premio alfin che il mondo rio
Dona sovente a più pregiati eroi.

Di Dante mul fur l'opre conosciute
El bel desio da quel popolo ingrato
Che solo a giusti muncu di euluti.

Pur fossi io tal! ch'a simil sorte nato
Per l'aspro esiglio suo con sua virtuto
Darei del mondo il più felice stato.

EXPENDITURES OF THE GOVERNMENT.

THE Opposition, finding the Democratic party invulnerable to every assault upon its principles, resorts to the device of assailing what it terms the extravagant expenditures of the National Administration. We are prepared to expose the falsity of the accusation embraced in this assault as well as the hypocrisy of the accusers.

But once since the birth of the present dual opposition to the Democracy has it been within its power to correct the profligacy and extravagance of a Democratic Administration, if any such existed, as they now charge has been and is now existing, at the expense of sapping the very foundations of the Republic.

That time was during the thirty-fourth Congress, when it had a clear majority in the House of Representatives. It is true that the Senate was Democratic; but all the monied measures which generally carry in them the means of stimulating a profligacy in the government, originate in the House. The Senate, it may be said, can amend; but still the House would have it in its power to insist upon the rigid exactions of a just economy initiated by it, or else let the bills fall. The Senate would not defy such an issue, and if it did the country would not fail to sustain the House. The latter body, in the thirty-fourth Congress, did not scruple to kill the army appropriation bill, merely because the Senate would not submit to a mischievous exaction that an amendment should be engrafted upon it preventing any portion of the army from being used to enforce an observance of the laws of Kansas. Surely if anti-slavery fanaticism could demand the experiment in one instance, how much more could an honest desire for economy defend it in the other? But this argument is unnecessary, for a large number of the Democratic Senators in that Congress were kept busy battling against the extravagances of the Opposition in the House, sustained by nearly all of their brethren in the Senate.

But for facts and figures. The following table exhibits the amount of money appropriated by the thirty-fourth Congress, and also that estimated for by the administration of President Pierce, to be appropriated by that Congress, not only for the expenses of the government for the fiscal years beginning the

1st of July, '56, and ending the 30th of June, '58, but also to supply deficiencies for the year ending June 30th, '56: Amount of money appropriated by the Thirty

fourth Congress, Amount of money estimated by the Departments as necessary to have been appropriated by the Thirty-fourth Congress, as embraced in regular printed estimates, and subsequent estimates sent in by Departments,

Amount appropriated by Thirty-fourth Congress not asked for by the Departments,

$113,464,839 16

101,976,061 17

$11,488,777 99

It will thus be seen that an opposition Congress, instead of restricting itself to the estimates of a Democratic administration, or if extravagance existed, cutting them down, actually appropriated $11,488,777 99 more than that administration asked should be appropriated.

This excess over the estimates was to have been expended amongst the several departments as follows:

Legislative,
Executive,
State,

Treasury,
Interior,

$2,059,689 28

6,398 29

6,395 60 4,889,858 60

809,007 77

1,848,035 44

658,779 45

160,265 23

1,040,348 33

$11,488,777 99

The excess of $2,059,689 28 in the Legislative is attributable, to near one-half its extent, to the compensation act passed by that Congress. Upon this point we express no opinion to influence the public. It can draw its own conclusions from the fact. It is believed that some increase was necessary; as to what extent it is not our purpose to discuss.

As to the balance of this excess, in the Legislative Department, over one million of dollars, the opposition Congress is left to justify it.

The largest excess voted over estimates, it will be discovered from the above table, was for expenditures under the auspices of the Treasury Department, amounting to $4,889,858 60. Över four millions of this amount was for custom-houses, post-offices, court-houses, sites for same, etc., at places at the greater portion of which there is not money enough collected to pay the expenses of collection.