thinks it necessary to apologize for the error of the painter, or the mistaken piety of his employer. We must remember that the personages here brought together in their sacred character belong no more to our earth, but to heaven and eternity for them there is no longer time or place; they are here assembled together in the perpetual "communion of saints," immortal contemporaries in that kingdom where the Angel of the Apocalypse proclaimed "that there should be time no longer."

Such groups are sometimes arranged with an artless solemnity, all the personages standing and looking straight out of the picture at the worshipper. Sometimes there is a touch of dramatic sentiment, which, without interfering with the solemn devotional feeling, lights up the whole with the charm of a purpose; as in the Correggio at Parma [Gallery], where St. Jerome presents his translation of the Scriptures to the infant Christ, while an angel turns the leaves, and Mary Magdalene, symbol of redemption and reconciliation, bends to kiss the feet of the Saviour.

Our ancestors of the Middle Ages were not particular in drawing that strong line of demarcation between the classical, Jewish, and Christian periods of history, that we do. They saw only Christendom everywhere; they regarded the past only in relation to Christianity. Hence we find in the early ecclesiastical monuments and edifices such a strange assemblage of Pagan, Scriptural, and Christian worthies; as, Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great, King David, Judas Maccabeus, King Arthur, St. George, Godfrey of Boulogne, Lucretia, Virginia, Judith, St. Elizabeth, St. Bridget (as in the Cross of Nuremberg). In the curious Manual of Greek Art published by Didron, we find the Greek philosophers and poets entering into a scheme of ecclesiastical decoration, as in the carved stalls in the Cathedral of Ulm, where Solon, Apollonius, Plutarch, Plato, Sophocles are represented, holding each a scroll, on which is inscribed a passage from their works, interpreted into an allusion to the coming of Christ: and I have seen a picture of the Nativity in which the sibyls are dancing hand-inhand around the cradle of the new-born Saviour. This may appear profane to some, but the comprehension of the whole universe within the pale of Christianity strikes me as being in the most Catholic, as well as in the most poetical, spirit.

It is in devotional subjects that we commonly find those anthropomorphic representations of the Divinity which shock devout people; and which no excuse or argument can render endurable to those who see in them only ignorant irreverence or intentional profaneness. It might be pleaded that the profaneness is not intentional; that emblems and forms are, in the imitative arts, what figures of speech are in language; that only through a figure of speech can any attempt be made to place the idea of Almighty power before us. Familiar expres

sions, consecrated by Scripture usage, represent the Deity as reposing, waking, stretching forth His hand, sitting on a throne; as pleased, angry, vengeful, repentant; and the ancient painters, speaking the language proper to their art, appear to have turned these emblematical words into emblematical pictures. I forbear to say more on this point, because I have taken throughout the poetical and not the religious view of Art, and this is an objection which must be left, as a matter of feeling, to the amount of candor and knowledge in the critical reader.

In the sacred subjects properly called HISTORICAL, we must be careful to distinguish between those which are Scriptural, representing scenes from the Old or New Testament, and those which are Legendary.

Of the first, for the present, I do not speak, as they will be fully treated hereafter.

The historical subjects from the lives of the saints consist principally of Miracles and Martyrdoms.

In the first, it is worth remarking that we have no pictured miracle which is not imitated from the Old or the New Testament (unless it be an obvious emblem, as where the saint carries his own head). There is no act of supernatural power related of any saint which is not recorded of some great Scriptural personage. The object was to represent the favorite patron as a copy of the great universal type of beneficence, CHRIST OUR REDEEMER. And they were not satisfied that the resemblance should lie in character only; but should emulate the power of Christ in his visible actions. We must remember that the common people of the Middle Ages did not, and could not, distinguish between miracles accredited by the testimony of Scripture and those which were fabrications, or at least exaggerations. All miracles related as divine interpositions

were to them equally possible, equally credible. If a more extended knowledge of the natural laws renders us in these days less credulous, it also shows us that many things were possible, under particular conditions, which were long deemed supernatural.

We find in the legendary pictures, that the birth of several saints is announced by an angel, or in a dream, as in the stories of St. Catherine, St. Roch, etc. They exhibit precocious piety and wisdom, as in the story of St. Nicholas, who also calms a tempest, and guides the storm-tossed vessel safe to land. They walk on the water, as in the stories of St. Raymond and St. Hyacinth; or a river divides, to let them pass, as in the story of St. Alban. Saints are fed and comforted miraculously, or delivered from prison by angels; or resist fire, like the "Three Children." The multiplication of bread and the transformation of water into wine are standing miracles. But those

which most frequently occur in pictures are the healing of the sick, the lame, the blind; the casting out of demons, the restoration of the dead, or some other manifestation of compassionate and beneficent power.

Some of the pictured legends are partly Scriptural, partly historical, as the story of St. Peter; others are clearly religious apologues founded on fact or tradition, as those of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Christopher; others are obviously and purely allegorical, as the Greek story of St. Sophia (i. e. Heavenly Wisdom, ZOPIA) and her celestial progeny, St. Faith, St. Hope, and St. Charity, all martyred by the blind and cruel Pagans. The names sound as if borrowed from the "Pilgrim's Progress;" and it is curious to find Bunyan's allegorical legend, the favorite picture-book of the people, appearing just at the time when the legends and pictures of the saints became objects of puritanical horror, and supplying their place in the popular imagination.

Martyrdoms are only too common: they present to us Christianity under its most mystical aspect the deification of suffering; but to render these representations effective, they should be pathetic without being terrible, they should speak to us

Of melancholy fear subdued by faith,

Of blessed consolations in distress;

but not of the horrid cruelty of man towards man, It has

been well remarked by my friend M. Rio (to whose charming and eloquent exposition of Christian Art I refer with evernew delight) that the early painters of Western Christendom avoided these subjects, and that their prevalence in ecclesiastical decoration marked the decline of religious feeling and the degeneracy of Art. But this remark does not apply to Byzantine Art; for we find from the exact description of a picture of the martyrdom of St. Euphemia (both the picture and the description dating from the third century), that such representations were then common, and were appealed to in the same manner as now, to excite the feelings of the people. The martyrdoms generally met with are those of St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Stephen Protomartyr, St. Laurence, St. Catherine, and St. Sebastian. These we find everywhere, in all countries and localities. Where the patron of the church or chapel is a martyr, his martyrdom holds a conspicuous place, often over the high altar, and accompanied by all the moving circumstances which can excite the pity, or horror, or enthusiasm of the pious votaries; but in the best examples we find the saint preparing for his death, not suffering the torments actually inflicted; so that the mind is elevated by the sentiment of his courage, not disturbed and disgusted by the spectacle of his agonies.

III. OF CERTAIN PATRON SAINTS

WHO ARE COMMONLY GROUPED TOGETHER IN WORKS OF ART, OR WHO BELONG TO PARTICULAR COUNTRIES, CITIES, OR LOCALITIES

While such assemblages of holy persons as are found grouped together in devotional pictures are to be considered as quite independent of chronology, we shall find that the selection has been neither capricious nor arbitrary, and, with a little consideration, we shall discover the leading idea in the mind of the artist that, at least, which was intended to be conveyed to the mind of the spectator, and which was much more intelligible in former times than it is now.

Sometimes we find certain saints placed in companionship, because they are the joint patrons and protectors of the city or locality for which the picture was painted. Thus in the Bologna pictures we constantly find the bishop St. Petronius,

St. Eloy, St. Dominick, and the warrior St. Proculus; while in the Venetian pictures we have perpetual St. Marks, St. Georges, and St. Catherines.

Or, secondly, they are connected by kindred powers and attributes. Thus we find St. Sebastian, the patron against pestilence, in company with St. Roch, who ministered to the sick of the plague. Thus St. Catherine and St. Jerome, the two patrons of school theology, are often found in companionship. Where St. Catherine and St. Barbara are found together, the first figures as patroness of the ecclesiastical, and the second of the military, power or they represent respectively the contemplative and the active life.

Or, thirdly, they are combined in the fancy by some inevitable association; as St. Augustine and St. Stephen are often in the same picture, because St. Augustine dedicated some of his most eloquent works to the glory of the martyr.

Or they were friends on earth, for which reason St. Cyprian and St. Cornelius are placed together.

Or their relics repose in the same spot; whence St. Stephen and St. Laurence have become almost inseparable. When St. Vincent and St. Laurence are placed together (as in a lovely composition of Parmigiano, where they sit reading out of the same book), it is because of the similarity of their fate, and that the popular tradition supposed them to be brothers.

A point of more general importance, and capable of more definite explanation, is the predominance of certain sacred personages in particular schools of Art. St. Cosmo and St. Damian, for instance, are perpetually recurring in the Florentine pictures as the patron saints of the Medici family. In the Lombard pictures St. Ambrose is often found without his compeers - not as doctor of the Church, but as bishop of Milan. In the Siena pictures, we may look for the nun St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Ansano, the apostle of the Sienese, holding his banner and palm. And in the Augustine chapels and churches, St. Augustine figures, not as doctor of the Church, but as patriarch of the Order.

A bishop-martyr, holding his palm, and not otherwise designated either by name or attribute, would be - in one of Perugino's pictures, St. Ercolano or St. Costanzo; in a Florentine picture, St. Donato or St. Romulo; if the picture were