the centre; on the right side, Purgatory; on the left side, Hell. He explained to me that he had not attempted to paint the interior of Paradise as the sojourn of the blessed, because he could imagine no kind of occupation or delight which, prolonged to eternity, would not be wearisome. He had therefore represented the exterior of Paradise, where Christ, standing on the threshold with outstretched arms, receives and welcomes those who enter. (This was better and in finer taste than the more common allegory of St. Peter and his keys.) On one side of the door, the Virgin Mary and a group of guardian angels encourage those who approach. Among these we distinguish a martyr who has died for the truth, and a warrior who has fought for it.

A care-worn, penitent mother is presented by her innocent daughter. Those who were " in the world and the world knew them not," are here acknowledged

66

and eyes

dim with weeping, and heads bowed with shame, are here uplifted, and bright with the rapturous gleam which shone through the portals of Paradise.

The idea of Purgatory, he told me, was suggested by a vision or dream related by St. Catherine of Genoa, in which she beheld a great number of men and women shut up in a dark cavern; angels descending from heaven, liberate them from time to time, and they are borne away one after another from darkness, pain, and penance, into life and light

again to behold the face of their Maker

recon

ciled and healed. In his picture, Schadow has represented two angels bearing away a liberated soul. Below in the fore-ground groups of sinners are waiting, sadly, humbly, but not unhopefully, the term of their bitter penance. Among these he had placed a group of artists and poets who, led away by temptation, had abused their glorious gifts to wicked or worldly purposes; - Titian, Ariosto, and, rather to my surprise, the beautiful, lamenting spirit of Byron. Then, what was curious enough, as types of ambition, Lady Macbeth and her husband, who, it seems, were to be ultimately saved, I do not know why- unless for the love of Shakespeare.

Hell, like all the hells I ever saw, was a failure. There was the usual amount of fire and flames, dragons and serpents, ghastly, despairing spirits, but nothing of original or powerful conception. When I looked in Schadow's face, so beautiful with benevolence, I wondered how he could but in truth he could not realise to himself the idea of a hell; all the materials he had used were borrowed and commonplace.

But among his cartoons for pictures already painted, there was one charming idea of quite a different kind. It was for an altar, and he called it "THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE." Above, the sacrificed Redeemer lies extended in his mother's arms.

The

pure abundant Waters of Salvation, gushing from the rock beneath their feet, are received into a great cistern. Saints, martyrs, teachers of the truth, are standing round, drinking or filling their vases, which they present to each other. From the cistern flows a stream, at which a family of poor peasants are drinking with humble, joyful looks; and as the stream diyides and flows away through flowery meadows, little sportive children stoop to drink of it, scooping up the water in their tiny hands, or sipping it with their rosy smiling lips. A beautiful and significant allegory beautifully expressed, and as intelligible to the people as any in the "Pilgrim's Progress."

H

135.

AYDON discussed "High Art" as if it depended

solely on the knowledge and the appreciation of form. In this lay his great mistake. Form is but the vehicle of the highest art.

136.

OUTHEY says that the Franciscan Order "

SOUTH

ex

cluded all art, all science; - no pictures might

profane their churches." This is a most extraordinary instance of ignorance in a man of Southey's universal learning. Did he forget Friar Bacon? had he not heard of that museum of divine pictures, the Franciscan church and convent at Assisi? And that some of the greatest mathematicians, architects, mosaic workers, carvers, and painters, of the 13th and 14th centuries were Franciscan friars?

W

137.

́ORDSWORTH's remark on Sir Joshua Reynolds as a painter, that "he lived too much for the age and the people among whom he lived," is hardly just; as a portrait painter he could not well do otherwise; his profession was to represent the people among whom he lived. An artist who takes the higher, the creative and imaginative walks of art, and who thinks he can, at the same time, live for and with the age, and for the passing and clashing interests of the world, and the frivolities of society, does so at a great risk: there must be perilous discord between the inner and the outer life such discord as wears and irritates the whole physical and moral being. Where the original material of the character is not strong, the artistic genius will be

gradually enfeebled and conventionalised, through flattery, through sympathy, through misuse. If the material be strong, the result may perhaps be worse; the genius may be demoralised and the mind lose its balance. I have seen in my time instances of both.

"THE

138.

HE man," says Coleridge, "who reads a work meant for immediate effect on one age, with the notions and feelings of another, may be a refined gentleman but a very sorry critic."

This is especially true with regard to art: but Coleridge should have put in the word, only, (" only the notions and feelings of another age,") for a very great pleasure lies in the power of throwing ourselves into the sentiments and notions of one age, while feeling with them, and reflecting upon them, with the riper critical experience which belongs to another age.