government, the official style in place of the emotions of the heart. Besides, with the exception of a very small number of chosen souls, the great Catholic painter is, in general, but a Pagan in his actual life. The most licentious manners do not hinder Raphael from giving all the conventional purity, all the necessary piety, to a picture of the Virgin, for which the Fornarina has sat to him as a model. That purity, that piety is a costume in which the Church clothes her Madonnas, and which she prescribes to her artists; -happy imposture, springing from a Pagan Art and the service of a formalist Christianity. But is it impossible to conceive an Art more free and true? Let us first examine the subjects which the Church ceases not to prescribe to painters and sculptors. A great number of these she has stamped with a deplorable vassallage by dint of everywhere reproducing them. The most tragic events, the most touching histories become veritable commonplaces, of which one is weary; we look at without seeing them; we turn from them the wearied attention which nothing awakens. That most mournful of all the scenes of the Gospel-the Crucifixion, has it not lost much of its moving horror by being constantly represented by the pencil and the chisel? What more fatiguing to find without end from church to church, these Annunciations, almost always so cold and conventional? The same subjects treated according to fixed rules, have inevitably made Art a matter of routine, and have rendered invention useless, almost impossible, and sometimes even hazardous for the artist."

M. Coquerel afterwards adverts to the monotony of many pictures of sacred subjects, such as the Madonna; to the absurdity of others, such as the representations of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception; to the indecent, cruel, and ridiculous nature of many of the pictures from the legends of the saints. And he gives examples of all these, showing how unworthy an employment the Church has too often assigned to the rare gifts and brilliant genius of the most celebrated painters. He subsequently refers to the ancient church of San Stefano Rotondo at Rome, the walls of which are covered with about forty paintings by Tempesta and Pomarancio, all representing scenes of martyrdom, in which the most refined and varied cruelties are depicted with a sickening minuteness of detail; and he then demands, and with reason: Is not this a debasement, a sullying of the Arts, to employ them in such disgusting, such harrowing representations? And yet this is the Art prescribed and made use of by the Romish Church for her own purposes. To visit her sanctuaries, to study the marvels of Art with which they are enriched, is at the same time to graduate as an executioner, to become learned in every species of torture, and familiar with every description of punishment possible and impossible; and it must be remembered, that in all

these scenes of martyrdom the fury of the executioners, and the apparatus of torture, are necessarily more conspicuous and impressive, because more easily represented by painting, than the courage and constancy of the victims. What then, we may ask, must inevitably be the consequence of the daily contemplation of such abominable pictures upon the development of character, and the habits and modes of thinking of a people? Necessarily the production of a hardness of heart, an indifference to suffering, and a love of cruelty.

Our author also considers the question, how far the representation of the nude figure ought to be allowed in pictures hung up in churches intended for Christian worship; and he particularly refers to the Sistine Chapel, with its unrivalled frescoes, the figures of which, after being finished by Michel Angelo, were afterwards clothed by Volterra (who thence acquired the name of Bracchettone, or the Breeches-maker), and by Pozzi; and he thus concludes his argument:

"I have brought forward these facts, to which I could easily add a number of others borrowed from various churches in Rome and Italy; but the example of this single chapel is sufficient; that series of corrections so necessary for worship, so ever-to-be-regretted by artists, that manifest impossibility, maugre the efforts of two Popes, to make the richest sanctuary of painting suitable for a place of worship, are proofs of the fact of the real incompatibility which will always exist between the exigences of even the Roman Catholic religion and those of Art. That with which we reproach the Romish Church is, the having tried to bring about an impossible alliance, and while so doing, inflicted serious injury upon the Fine Arts-even while constantly making indecent concessions to them. We do not wish to dwell upon this point, which we might prove by a crowd of decisive examples. One will be sufficient: the grand central portico of the Basilica of St. Peter's is of bronze; modern bas-reliefs, taken from the history of the apostle, are there set among the magnificent ancient arabesques, which comprise a number of mythological scenes: amidst these, at the height of the eye and hand, we observe the story of Ganymede and that of Leda. It is between these representations that the Pope makes his solemn entry into the sanctuary on St. Peter's Day, and at Easter. In truth, a Church so intolerant about her dogmas and authority, might be a little more particular with regard to morality and religion-might send that mythology into a museum, and purify her temples from Pagan fables."

Let us now examine for a little whether the Romish Church treats the finished works of her greatest artists in the way which might be expected from a church which boasts of her enlightened and exclusive patronage of the Fine Arts, and we shall speedily find that nothing is more fatal to a picture than

to become an object of adoration. All those which are not protected against the homage of their votaries by being placed in a museum, are speedily damaged or destroyed by the exigences of worship. Look at the "Last Judgment" of Michel Angelo. When the Pope worships in the Sistine Chapel, tapers are lighted before it, incense ascends in clouds, and soon the lofty building is filled by a thick, warm vapour, which adds a new coating of smoke to those which have for three centuries been accumulating upon the fresco. Beneath such an ordeal, in a given time, this noble effort of genius must inevitably be destroyed, and thus the necessities of worship in a regular and systematic manner ruin the labours of the artist. Such is the way in which a church calling herself the mother of the Fine Arts, treats the masterpiece of one of her most illustrious sons. Twice she has intrusted it to the correction of inferior artists; at regular intervals she subjects it to destructive fumigations; and she has erected opposite to it an altar surmounted by a canopy of red velvet, whose glaring hues entirely destroy the effects of the fresco. Nor is this grand work of Michel Angelo an exception; many other masterpieces of Art are suffering from a similar course of treatment:

"The Romish Church," says M. Coquerel, "would deny it in vain. She prescribes to artists representations of subjects often monotonous, sometimes impossible, ridiculous, or repulsive, and when the works which she has inspired are delivered up to her, she exposes them to the chances of certain destruction within a given period, sacrifices them to the incompatible requirements of Art and worship, and subordinates them to the caprices of a false taste, which charms the vulgar eye."

In his letter upon "Christian Antiquity at Rome," M. Coquerel makes the following excellent remarks, upon the mutual and deplorable effects of Paganism and Christianity when brought into contact, during the decline of the Roman Empire:

"It is true that Roman civilization was decaying of old age; but upon that soil, covered with such mighty debris; encumbered with the foundations and the ruins of a monarchy, a republic, an empire (already frail at its birth), and, finally, of polytheism, the regenerating river, the torrent of living waters, could not spread itself out without becoming defiled, like the Tiber, with the filth of Rome, and without rolling along, on its mighty waves, the innumerable ruins of bygone days. Catholicism is nothing else than this: Paganism and Christianity interpenetrating one another. In the final struggle between the religions, that of the old world has fallen, like the mystic serpent; but not without having wounded its adversary, and

having instilled the poison into all his veins. It could not well be otherwise. A civilization, so glorious, so truly great; a mass of facts and ideas, so profoundly human, does not suffer itself to be swept away from the face of the earth in a single day; but re-acts for a long time against its very conquerors. Two circumstances contribute to this result. The Roman spirit has always been essentially traditional and conservative, by superstition, by policy, and by instinct. It was a characteristic trait of such a people to make a sort of fusion of the new and Christian spirit with the secular forms of polytheism. It was at Rome, if anywhere, that such a result might have been expected; and we need not be astonished to read on one side of the obelisk, in the Piazza del Popolo, that it was brought from Egypt by the Pontifex Maximus, Cæsar Augustus, and upon the opposite face, that it was raised to its present position by the Pontifex Maximus, Sextus V."

M. Coquerel proceeds to point out, at considerable length, how the influences of Paganism are to be traced, even in the frescoes of the catacombs; where Jesus Christ is often represented converting the world, under the symbol of Orpheus playing on the lyre, and ravishing wild beasts, rocks, and trees. Christianity, introduced into the heathen world by converted. Jews, was at first but little favourable to the Fine Arts. The most ancient sepulchral stones bear no symbols, but often the most touching inscriptions; the Christian idea of life and peace after death is constantly reproduced; Christ is frequently designated merely by the two first letters of his name in Greek, and sometimes also by the Alpha and Omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Still later, palms appear engraven upon the tombs, as emblems of the victory of the Christian, and especially of the martyr. The dove with the olive branch, also appears, as a token of safety. And the fish designates the Christian, according to the saying of our Saviour to Peter and Andrew, "I will make you fishers of men." The anchor, too, is another common symbol of the Christian hope. It is somewhat singular that during the first three centuries, when the Christians were continually exposed to persecutions, torture, and martyrdom, no emblems of pain or terror are to be seen on their tombs; only symbols of security, hope, and triumph, as the anchor, the lyre, and the crown; as if the faith of these early warriors of the church militant was so lively and fervent, so capable of realizing the unseen, of grasping the future, that the heavenly glories which awaited them were unceasingly present to their view, and entirely dwarfed or shut out the evils and sufferings of their earthly career.

In 691, a council of the church declared, that for the future, Christ ought to be represented under the similitude of a man

as the most suitable. The first human figure met with in the ancient Christian tombs is that of Jesus, under the emblem of the good shepherd. On these the Saviour always appears as a beardless young man, with a short Roman tunic, bearing upon his shoulders the lost sheep. At other times, he appears as a doctor, surrounded by his disciples, always in a Greco-Roman costume, and generally without a beard. When Christian Art begins to show itself, the taint of Paganism is immediately apparent; nothing is more common than to see rivers, mountains, towns, day, and night, represented by divinities. The god of the Jordan, for instance, leaning upon an urn, assists at the baptism of Christ; and, to descend to more modern days, Dante, Michel Angelo, Camoens-all the Middle Age-mixed up without scruple the débris of Pagan mythology with the mysteries of Christianity.

The favourite themes of traditional Roman Catholic orthodoxy have no place in the catacombs. These remote witnesses of the early Christian faith are very curious and instructive. The Gospel scenes which are there engraven, are Christ as the good shepherd, and Christ teaching; the changing of the water into wine; the miracle of the loaves and fishes; the cures of the lame and blind; the raising of Lazarus; and, sometimes, the adoration of the Magi, and the entry into Jerusalem; that is to say, an asemblage of subjects where Christ alone gives life, nourishment, and healing to the souls who believe in him. Scenes from the passion and death of our Lord, especially the crucifixion, are never found before the eighth century, and the reason is obvious: those whose tastes were formed by the spirit of ancient Art could not take pleasure in scenes of horror, and desired that even suffering itself should appear with a calm and noble aspect. For them the cross was enough; the effigy of the Crucified One would have been painful. And this distinction ought especially to be kept in view between the modern church and that of the earlier ages; that while the former has specially adored the body of Jesus nailed to the cross, the latter preferred to think of and contemplate him as a living, Saviour. In the first centuries of Christianity, too, the mother of our Lord is never depicted except as a completely secondary personage; and there is good reason to believe that the Virgin and the infant Jesus were never represented alone before the sixth century. The portrait of our Saviour only occurs twice in the Roman catacombs, and cannot belong to the earliest ages of Christian art. God the father is never represented under a human figure in the catacombs; and many ages subsequently, the subject was treated with the greatest reserve, the presence of the Eternal being indicated merely by a hand