“THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ART” 237

the chamber dazzling as of a heavenly city-the mortal forms themselves impressed with divine changelessness-no domesticity-no jest-no anxiety-no expectation-no variety of action or of thought. Love, all fulfilling, and various modes of power, are alone expressed; the Virgin never shows the complacency or petty watchfulness of maternity; she sits serene, supporting the child whom she ever looks upon, as a stranger among strangers; “Behold the handmaid of the Lord” for ever written upon her brow.

67. An approach to an exception in treatment is found in the Annunciation of the upper corridor of St. Mark’s,¹ most unkindly treated by our author:-

“Probably the earliest of the series-full of faults, but imbued with the sweetest feeling; there is a look of naïve curiosity, mingling with the modest and meek humility of the Virgin, which almost provokes a smile.”-iii. 176.

Many a Sabbath evening of bright summer have we passed in that lonely corridor-but not to the finding of faults, nor the provoking of smiles. The angel is perhaps something less majestic than is usual with the painter; but the Virgin is only the more to be worshipped, because here, for once, set before us in the verity of life. No gorgeous robe is upon her; no lifted throne set for her; the golden border gleams faintly on the dark blue dress; the seat is drawn into the shadow of a lowly loggia. The face is of no strange, far-sought loveliness; the features might even be thought hard, and they are worn with watching, and severe, though innocent. She stoops forward with her arms folded on her bosom: no casting down of eye nor shrinking of the frame in fear; she is too earnest, too self-forgetful for either: wonder and inquiry are there, but chastened and free from doubt; meekness, yet mingled with a patient majesty; peace, yet sorrowfully sealed, as if the promise of the Angel were already underwritten by the prophecy of Simeon. They

¹ [This fresco at Florence is also described in Modern Painters, vol. ii. (Vol. IV. p. 264). The Bible reference above is Luke i. 38.]

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