import; such as "Le prémier devoir d'une mère," &c.
I do not find this _motif_ in any known picture by Raphael: but in
one of his designs, engraved by Marc Antonio, it is represented with
characteristic grace and delicacy.

Goethe describes with delight a picture by Correggio, in which the
attention of the Child seems divided between the bosom of his mother,
and some fruit offered by an angel. He calls this subject "The Weaning
of the Infant Christ." Correggio, if not the very first, is certainly
among the first of the Italians who treated this _motif_ in the simple
domestic style. Others of the Lombard school followed him; and I know
not a more exquisite example than the maternal group by Solario, now
in the Louvre, styled _La Vierge à l'Oreiller verd_, from the colour
of the pillow on which the Child is lying. The subject is frequent in
the contemporary German and Flemish schools of the sixteenth century.
In the next century, there are charming examples by the Bologna
painters and the _Naturalisti_, Spanish, Italian, and Flemish. I would
particularly point to one by Agostino Caracci (Parma), and to another
by Vandyck (that engraved by Bartolozzi), as examples of elegance;
while in the numerous specimens by Rubens we have merely his own
wife and son, painted with all that coarse vigorous life, and homely
affectionate expression, which his own strong domestic feelings could
lend them.

We have in other pictures the relation between the Mother and Child
expressed and varied in a thousand ways; as where she contemplates him
fondly--kisses him, pressing his cheeks to hers; or they sport with a
rose, or an apple, or a bird; or he presents it to his mother; these
originally mystical emblems being converted into playthings. In
another sketch she is amusing him by tinkling a bell:--the bell,
which has a religious significance, is here a plaything. One or more
attendant angels may vary the group, without taking it out of the
sphere of reality. In a quaint but charming picture in the Wallerstein
Collection, an angel is sporting with the Child at his mother's
feet--is literally his playfellow; and in a picture by Cambiaso, Mary,
assisted by an angel, is teaching her Child to walk.

*       *       *       *       *

To represent in the great enthroned Madonnas, the Infant Saviour of
the world asleep, has always appeared to me a solecism: whereas in
the domestic subject the Infant slumbering on his mother's knee, or
cradled in her arms, or on her bosom, or rocked by angels, is a most
charming subject. Sometimes angels are seen preparing his bed, or
looking on while he sleeps, with folded hands and overshadowing wings.
Sometimes Marry hangs over his pillow; "pondering in her heart"
the wondrous destinies of her Child. A poetess of our own time has
given us an interpretation worthy of the most beautiful of these
representations, in the address of the Virgin Mary to the Child
Jesus,--"Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One!"

"And are thou come for saving, baby-browed
And speechless Being? art thou come for saving?
The palm that grows beside our door is bowed
By treadings of the low wind from the south,
A restless shadow through the chamber waving,
Upon its bough a bird sings in the sun.
But thou, with that close slumber on thy mouth,
Dost seem of wind and sun already weary,
Art come for saving, O my weary One?

"Perchance this sleep that shutteth out the dreary
Earth-sounds and motions, opens on thy soul
High dreams on fire with God;
High songs that make the pathways where they roll
More bright than stars do theirs; and visions new
Of thine eternal nature's old abode.
Suffer this mother's kiss,
Best thing that earthly is,
To glide the music and the glory through,
Nor narrow in thy dream the broad upliftings
Of any seraph wing.
Thus, noiseless, thus!--Sleep, sleep, my dreaming One."[1]

[Footnote 1: Poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, vol. ii. p. 174.]

Such high imaginings might be suggested by the group of Michael
Angelo,--his famous "Silenzio:" but very different certainly are the
thoughts and associations conveyed by some of the very lovely, but at
the same time familiar and commonplace, groups of peasant-mothers and
sleeping babies--the countless productions of the later schools--even
while the simplicity and truth of the natural sentiment go straight to
the heart.

I remember reading a little Italian hymn composed for a choir of nuns,
and addressed to the sleeping Christ, in which he is prayed to awake
or if he will not, they threaten to pull him by his golden curls until
they rouse him to listen!

*       *       *       *       *

I have seen a graceful print which represents Jesus as a child
standing at his mother's knee, while she feeds him from a plate or cap
held by an angel; underneath is the text, "_Butter and honey shall he
eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good_" And
in a print of the same period, the mother suspends her needlework
to contemplate the Child, who, standing at her side, looks down
compassionately on two little birds, which flutter their wings and
open their beaks expectingly; underneath is the test, "Are not two
sparrows sold for a farthing?"

Mary employed in needlework, while her cradled Infant slumbers at her
side, is a beautiful subject. Rossini, in his _Storia della Pittura_,
publishes a group, representing the Virgin mending or making a little
coat, while Jesus, seated at her feet, without his coat, is playing
with a bird; two angels are hovering above. It appears to me that
there is here some uncertainty as regards both the subject and the
master. In the time of Giottino, to whom Rossini attributes the
picture, the domestic treatment of the Madonna and Child was unknown.
If it be really by him, I should suppose it to represent Hannah and
her son Samuel.

*       *       *       *       *

All these, and other varieties of action and sentiment connecting the
Mother and her Child, are frequently accompanied by accessory figures,
forming, in their combination, what is properly a Holy Family. The
personages introduced, singly or together, are the young St. John,
Joseph, Anna, Joachim, Elizabeth, and Zacharias.


THREE FIGURES.

The group of three figures most commonly met with, is that of the
Mother and Child, with St. John. One of the earliest examples of the
domestic treatment of this group is a quaint picture by Botticelli,
in which Mary, bending down, holds forth the Child to be caressed by
St. John,--very dry in colour and faulty in drawing, but beautiful
for the sentiment. (Florence, Pitti Pal.) Perhaps the most perfect
example which could be cited from the whole range of art, is
Raphael's "Madonna del Cardellino" (Florence Gal.); another is his
"Belle Jardinière" (Louvre, 375); another, in which the figures are
half-length, is his "Madonna del Giglio" (Lord Garvagh's Coll.). As
I have already observed, where the Infant Christ takes the cross from
St. John, or presents it to him, or where St. John points to him as
the Redeemer, or is represented, not as a child, but as a youth or a
man, the composition assumes a devotional significance.

The subject of the Sleeping Christ is beautifully varied by the
introduction of St. John; as where Mary lifts the veil and shows her
Child to the little St. John, kneeling with folded hands: Raphael's
well-known "Vierge à la Diademe" is an instance replete with grace and
expression.[1] Sometimes Mary, putting her finger to her lip, exhorts
St. John to silence, as in a famous and oft-repeated subject by
Annibale Caracci, of which there is a lovely example at Windsor. Such
a group is called in Italian, _Il Silenzio_, and in French _le Sommeil
de Jésus_.

[Footnote 1: Louvre, 376. It is also styled _la Vierge au Linge_]

*       *       *       *       *

Another group of three figures consists of the Mother, the Child, and
St. Joseph as foster-father. This group, so commonly met with in the
later schools of art, dates from the end of the fifteenth century.
Gerson, an ecclesiastic distinguished at the Council of Constance for
his learning and eloquence, had written a poem of three thousand lines
in praise of St. Joseph, setting him up as the Christian, example
of every virtue; and this poem, after the invention of printing, was
published and widely disseminated. Sixtus IV. instituted a festival
in honour of the "Husband of the Virgin," which, as a novelty
and harmonizing with the tone of popular feeling, was everywhere
acceptable. As a natural consequence, the churches and chapels were
filled with pictures, which represented the Mother and her Child,
with Joseph standing or seated by, in an attitude of religious
contemplation or affectionate sympathy; sometimes leaning on his
stick, or with his tools lying beside him; and always in the old
pictures habited in his appropriate colours, the saffron-coloured robe
over the gray or green tunic.

In the Madonna and Child, as a strictly devotional subject, the
introduction of Joseph rather complicates the idea; but in the
domestic Holy Family his presence is natural and necessary. It is
seldom that he is associated with the action, where there is one;
but of this also there are some beautiful examples.

*       *       *       *       *

1. In a well-known composition by Raphael (Grosvenor Gal.), the mother
withdraws the covering from the Child, who seems to have that moment
awaked, and, stretching out his little arms, smiles in her face:
Joseph looks on tenderly and thoughtfully.

2. In another group by Raphael (Bridgewater Gal.), the Infant is
seated on the mother's knee, and sustained by part of her veil;
Joseph, kneeling, offers flowers to his divine foster-Son, who eagerly
stretches out his little hand to take them.

In many pictures, Joseph is seen presenting cherries; as in the
celebrated _Vierge aux Cerises_ of Annibale Caracci. (Louvre.) The
allusion is to a quaint old legend, often introduced in the religious
ballads and dramatic mysteries of the time. It is related, that before
the birth of our Saviour, the Virgin Mary wished to taste of certain
cherries which hung upon a tree high above her head; she requested
Joseph to procure them for her, and he reaching to pluck them, the
branch bowed down to his hand.

3. There is a lovely pastoral composition by Titian, in which Mary
is seated under some trees, with Joseph leaning on his staff, and the
Infant Christ standing between them: the little St. John approaches
with his lap full of cherries; and in the background a woman is seen
gathering cherries. This picture is called a Ripose; but the presence
of St. John, and the cherry tree instead of the date tree, point out a
different signification. Angels presenting cherries on a plate is also
a frequent circumstance, derived from the same legend.

4. In a charming picture by Garofalo, Joseph is caressing the Child,
while Mary--a rather full figure, calm, matronly, and dignified, as is
usual with Garofalo--sits by, holding a book in her hand, from which
she has just raised her eyes. (Windsor Gal.)

5. In a family group by Murillo, Joseph, standing, holds the Infant
pressed to his bosom; while Mary, seated near a cradle, holds out her
arms to take it from him: a carpenter's bench is seen behind.

6. A celebrated picture by Rembrandt, known as _le Ménage du
Menuisier_, exhibits a rustic interior; the Virgin is seated with the
volume of the Scriptures open on her knees--she turns, and lifting
the coverlid of the cradle, contemplates the Infant asleep: in the
background Joseph is seen at his work; while angels hover above,
keeping watch over the Holy Family. Exquisite for the homely
natural sentiment, and the depth of the colour and chiaro-oscuro.
(Petersburg.)

7. Many who read these pages will remember the pretty little picture
by Annibale Caracci, known as "le Raboteur."[1] It represents Joseph
planing a board, while Jesus, a lovely boy about six or seven years
old, stands by, watching the progress of his work. Mary is seated on
one side plying her needle. The great fault of this picture is the
subordinate and utterly commonplace character given to the Virgin
Mother: otherwise it is a very suggestive and dramatic subject, and
one which might be usefully engraved in a cheap form for distribution.

[Footnote 1: In the Coll. of the Earl of Suffolk, at Charlton.]

*       *       *       *       *

Sometimes, in a Holy Family of three figures, the third figure is
neither St. John nor St. Joseph, but St. Anna. Now, according to
some early authorities, both Joachim and Anna died either before the
marriage of Mary and Joseph, or at least before the return from Egypt.
Such, however, was the popularity of these family groups, and the
desire to give them all possible variety, that the ancient version of
the story was overruled by the prevailing taste, and St. Anna became
an important personage. One of the earliest groups in which the mother
of the Virgin is introduced as a third personage, is a celebrated,
but to my taste not a pleasing, composition, by Lionardo da Vinci,
in which St. Anna is seated on a sort of chair, and the Virgin on her
knees bends down towards the Infant Christ, who is sporting with a
lamb. (Louvre, 481.)


FOUR FIGURES.

In a Holy Family of four figures, we have frequently the Virgin, the
Child, and the infant St. John, with St. Joseph standing by. Raphael's
Madonna del Passeggio is an example. In a picture by Palma Vecchio,
St. John presents a lamb, while St. Joseph kneels before the Infant
Christ, who, seated on his mother's knee, extends his arms to his
foster-father. Nicole Poussin was fond of this group, and has repeated
it at least ten times with variations.

But the most frequent group of four figures consists of the Virgin and
Child, with St. John and his mother, St. Elizabeth--the two mothers
and the two sons. Sometimes the children are sporting together,
or embracing each other, while Mary and Elizabeth look on with a
contemplative tenderness, or seem to converse on the future destinies
of their sons. A very favourite and appropriate action is that of St.
Elizabeth presenting St. John, and teaching him to kneel and fold his
hands, as acknowledging in his little cousin the Infant Saviour. We
have then, in beautiful contrast, the aged coifed head of Elizabeth,
with its matronly and earnest expression; the youthful bloom and soft
virginal dignity of Mary; and the different character of the boys, the
fair complexion and delicate proportions of the Infant Christ, and
the more robust and brown-complexioned John. A great painter will be
careful to express these distinctions, not by the exterior character
only, but will so combine the personages, that the action represented
shall display the superior dignity of Christ and his mother.


FIVE OR SIX FIGURES.

The addition of Joseph as a fifth figure, completes the domestic
group. The introduction of the aged Zacharias renders, however, yet
more full and complete, the circle of human life and human affection.
We have then, infancy, youth, maturity, and age,--difference of sex
and various degrees of relationship, combined into one harmonious
whole; and in the midst, the divinity of innocence, the Child-God,
the brightness of a spiritual power, connecting our softest earthly
affections with our highest heavenward aspirations.[1]

[Footnote 1: The inscription under a Holy Family in which the children
are caressing each other is sometimes _Delicæ meæ esse cum filiis
hominum_ (Prov. viii. 31, "My delights were with the sons of men").]

*       *       *       *       *

A Holy Family of more than six figures (the angels not included) is
very unusual. But there are examples of groups combining all those
personages mentioned in the Gospels as being related to Christ,
though the nature and the degree of this supposed relationship has
embarrassed critics and commentators, and is not yet settled.

According to an ancient tradition, Anna, the mother of the Virgin
Mary, was three times married, Joachim being her third husband: the
two others were Cleophas and Salomé. By Cleophas she had a daughter,
also called Mary, who was the wife of Alpheus, and the mother
of Thaddeus, James Minor, and Joseph Justus. By Salomé she had a
daughter, also Mary, married to Zebedee, and the mother of James Major
and John the Evangelist. This idea that St. Anna was successively the
wife of three husbands, and the mother of three daughters, all of
the name of Mary, has been rejected by later authorities; but in the
beginning of the sixteenth century it was accepted, and to that period
may be referred the pictures, Italian and German, representing a
peculiar version of the Holy Family more properly styled "the Family
of the Virgin Mary."

A picture by Lorenzo di Pavia, painted about 1513, exhibits a very
complete example of this family group. Mary is seated in the centre,
holding in her lap the Infant Christ; near her is St. Joseph. Behind
the Virgin stand St. Anna, and three men, with their names inscribed,
Joachim, Cleophas, and Salomé. On the right of the Virgin is Mary the
daughter of Cleophas, Alpheus her husband, and her children Thaddeus,
James Minor, and Joseph Justus. On the left of the Virgin is Mary the
daughter of Salome, her husband Zebedee, and her children James Major
and John the Evangelist.[1]

[Footnote 1: This picture I saw in the Louvre some years ago, but it
is not in the New Catalogue by M. Villot.]

A yet more beautiful example is a picture by Perugino in the Musée
at Marseilles, which I have already cited and described (Sacred and
Legendary Art): here also the relatives of Christ, destined to be
afterwards his apostles and the ministers of his word, are grouped
around him in his infancy. In the centre Mary is seated and holding
the child; St. Anna stands behind, resting her hands affectionately on
the shoulders of the Virgin. In front, at the feet of the Virgin, are
two boys, Joseph and Thaddeus; and near them Mary, the daughter of
Cleophas, holds the hand of her third son James Minor. To the right is
Mary Salomé, holding in her arms her son John the Evangelist, and at
her feet is her other son, James Major. Joseph, Zebedee, and other
members of the family, stand around. The same subject I have seen in
illuminated MSS., and in German prints. It is worth remarking that all
these appeared about the same time, between 1505 and 1520, and that
the subject afterwards disappeared; from which I infer that it was
not authorized by the Church; perhaps because the exact degree of
relationship between these young apostles and the Holy Family was
not clearly made out, either by Scripture or tradition.

In a composition by Parmigiano, Christ is standing at his mother's
knee; Elizabeth presents St. John the Baptist; the other little St.
John kneels on a cushion. Behind the Virgin are St. Joachim and St.
Anna; and behind Elizabeth, Zebedee and Mary Salomé, the parents of
St. John the Evangelist. In the centre, Joseph looks on with folded
hands.

*       *       *       *       *

A catalogue _raisonnée_ of the Holy Families painted by distinguished
artists including from two to six figures would fill volumes: I
shall content myself with directing attention to some few examples
remarkable either for their celebrity, their especial beauty, or for
some peculiarity, whether commendable or not, in the significance or
the treatment.

The strictly domestic conception may be said to have begun with
Raphael and Correggio; and they afford the most perfect examples
of the tender and the graceful in sentiment and action, the softest
parental feeling, the loveliest forms of childhood. Of the purely
natural and familiar treatment, which came into fashion in the
seventeenth century, the pictures of Guido, Rubens, and Murillo
afford the most perfect specimens.

1. Raphael. (Louvre, 377.) Mary, a noble queenly creature, is seated,
and bends towards her Child, who is springing from his cradle to meet
her embrace; Elizabeth presents St. John; and Joseph, leaning on his
hand, contemplates the group: two beautiful angels scatter flowers
from above. This is the celebrated picture once supposed to have been
executed expressly for Francis I.; but later researches prove it to
have been painted for Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino.[1]

[Footnote 1: It appears from the correspondence relative to this
picture and the "St. Michael," that both pictures were painted by
order of this Lorenzo de' Medici, the same who is figured in Michael
Angelo's _Pensiero_, and that they were intended as presents to
Francis I. (See Dr. Gaye's _Carteggio_, ii. 146, and also the new
Catalogue of the Louvre by F. Villot.) I have mentioned this Holy
Family not as the finest of Raphael's Madonnas, but because there is
something peculiarly animated and dramatic in the _motif_, considering
the time at which it was painted. It was my intention to have given
here a complete list of Raphael's Holy Families; but this has been
so well done in the last English edition of Kugler's Handbook, that
it has become superfluous as a repetition. The series of minute
and exquisite drawings by Mr. George Scharf, appended to Kugler's
Catalogue, renders it easy to recognize all the groups described in
this and the preceding pages.]

2. Correggio. Mary holds the Child upon her knee, looking down upon
him fondly. Styled, from the introduction of the work-basket, _La
Vierge au Panier_. A finished example of that soft, yet joyful,
maternal feeling for which Correggio was remarkable. (National Gal.
23.)

3. Pinturicchio. In a landscape, Mary and Joseph are seated together;
near them are some loaves and a small cask of wine. More in front the
two children, Jesus and St. John, are walking arm in arm; Jesus holds
a book and John a pitcher, as if they were going to a well. (Siena
Acad.)

4. Andrea del Sarto. The Virgin is seated on the ground, and holds the
Child; the young St. John is in the arms of St. Elizabeth, and Joseph
is seen behind. (Louvre, 439.) This picture, another by the same
painter in the National Gallery, a third in the collection of Lord
Lansdowne, and in general all the Holy Families of Andrea, may
be cited as examples of fine execution and mistaken or defective
character. No sentiment, no action, connects the personages either
with each other, or with the spectator.

5. Michael Angelo. The composition, in the Florence Gallery, styled
a Holy Family, appears to me a signal example of all that should be
avoided. It is, as a conception, neither religious nor domestic; in
execution and character exaggerated and offensive, and in colour hard
and dry.

Another, a bas-relief, in which the Child is shrinking from a
bird held up by St. John, is very grand in the forms: the mistake
in sentiment, as regards the bird, I have pointed out in the
Introduction. (Royal Academy.) A third, in which the Child leans
pensively on a book lying open on his mother's knee, while she looks
out on the spectator, is more properly a _Mater Amabilis_.

There is an extraordinary fresco still preserved in the Casa
Buonarotti at Florence, where it was painted on the wall by Michael
Angelo, and styled a Holy Family, though the exact meaning of the
subject has been often disputed. It appears to me, however, very
clear, and one never before or since attempted by any other artist.
(This fresco is engraved in the _Etruria Pittrice_.) Mary is seated
in the centre; her Child is reclining on the ground between her knees;
and the little St. John holding his cross looks on him steadfastly.
A man coming forward seems to ask of Mary, "Whose son is this?" She
most expressively puts aside Joseph with her hand, and looks up, as
if answering, "Not the son of an earthly, but of a heavenly Father!"
There are five other figures standing behind, and the whole group is
most significant.

6. Albert Durer. The Holy Family seated under a tree; the Infant is
about to spring from the knee of his mother into the outstretched arms
of St. Anna; Joseph is seen behind with his hat in his hand; and to
the left sits the aged Joachim contemplating the group.

7. Mary appears to have just risen from her chair, the Child bends
from her arms, and a young and very little angel, standing on tiptoe,
holds up to him a flower--other flowers in his lap:--a beautiful old
German print.

8. Giulio Romano. (_La Madonna del Bacino_.) (Dresden Gal.) The Child
stands in a basin, and the young St. John pours water upon him from
a vase, while Mary washes him. St. Elizabeth stands by, holding
a napkin; St. Joseph, behind, is looking on. Notwithstanding the
homeliness of the action, there is here a religious and mysterious
significance, prefiguring the Baptism.

9. N. Poussin. Mary, assisted by angels, washes and dresses her Child.
(Gal. of Mr. Hope.)

10. V. Salimbeni.--An Interior. Mary and Joseph are occupied by the
Child. Elizabeth is spinning. More in front St. John is carrying two
puppies in the lappet of his coat, and the dog is leaping up to him.
(Florence, Pitti Pal.) This is one out of many instances in which
the painter, anxious to vary the oft-repeated subject, and no longer
restrained by refined taste or religious veneration, has fallen into
a most offensive impropriety.

11. Ippolito Andreasi. Mary, seated, holds the Infant Christ between
her knees; Elizabeth leans over the back of her chair; Joseph leans on
his staff behind the Virgin; the little St. John and an angel present
grapes, while four other angels are gathering and bringing them.
A branch of vine, loaded with grapes, is lying in the foreground.
Christ looks like a young Bacchus; and there is something mannered and
fantastic in the execution. (Louvre, 38.) With this domestic scene is
blended a strictly religious symbol, "_I am the vine_."

12. Murilio. Mary is in the act of swaddling her Child (Luke ii, 7),
while two angels, standing near him, solace the divine Infant with
heavenly music. (Madrid Gal.)

13. Rubens. Mary, seated on the ground, holds the Child with a
charming maternal expression, a little from her, gazing on him with
rapturous earnestness, while he looks up with responsive tenderness in
her face. His right hand rests on a cross presented by St. John, who
is presented by St. Elizabeth. Wonderful for the intensely natural and
domestic expression, and the beauty of the execution. (Florence, Pitti
Pal.)

14. D. Hopfer. Within the porch of a building, Mary is seated on one
side, reading intently. St. Anna, on the other side, holds out her
arms to the Child, who is sitting on the ground between them; an angel
looks in at the open door behind. (Bartsch., viii. 483.)

15. Rembrandt. (_Le Ménage du Menuisier_.) A rustic interior. Mary,
seated in the centre, is suckling her Child. St. Anna, a fat Flemish
grandame, has been reading the volume of the Scriptures, and bends
forward in order to remove the covering and look in the Infant's face.
A cradle is near. Joseph is seen at work in the background. (Louvre.)

16. Le Brun. (_The Benedicite_.) Mary, the Child, and Joseph, are
seated at a frugal repast. Joseph is in the act of reverently saying
grace, which gives to the picture the title by which it is known.[1]

[Footnote 1: Louvre, Ecole Française 57. There is a celebrated
engraving by Edelinck.]

*       *       *       *       *

It is distinctly related that Joseph brought up his foster-Son as a
carpenter, and that Jesus exercised the craft of his reputed father.
In the Church pictures, we do not often meet with this touching
and familiar aspect of the life of our Saviour. But in the small
decorative pictures painted for the rich ecclesiastics, and for
private oratories, and in the cheap prints which were prepared for
distribution among the people, and became especially popular during
the religious reaction of the seventeenth century, we find this
homely version of the subject perpetually, and often most pleasingly,
exhibited. The greatest and wisest Being who ever trod the earth was
thus represented, in the eyes of the poor artificer, as ennobling
and sanctifying labour and toil; and the quiet domestic duties
and affections were here elevated, and hallowed, by religious
associations, and adorned by all the graces of Art. Even where
the artistic treatment was not first-rate, was not such as the
painters--priests and poets as well as painters--of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries would have lent to such themes,--still if the
sentiment and significance were but intelligible to those especially
addressed, the purpose was accomplished, and the effect must have been
good.

I have before me an example in a set of twelve prints, executed in the
Netherlands, exhibiting a sort of history of the childhood of Christ,
and his training under the eye of his mother. It is entitled _Jesu
Christi Del Domini Salvatoris nostri Infantia_, "The Infancy of our
Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ;" and the title-page is surrounded
by a border composed of musical instruments, spinning-wheels,
distaffs, and other implements, of female industry, intermixed with
all kinds of mason's and carpenter's tools. To each print is appended
a descriptive Latin verse; Latin being chosen, I suppose, because the
publication was intended for distribution in different countries, and
especially foreign missions, and to be explained by the priests to the
people.

1. The figure of Christ is seen in a glory surrounded by cherubim, &c.

2. The Virgin is seated on the hill of Sion. The Infant in her lap,
with outspread arms, looks up to a choir of angels, and is singing
with them.

3. Jesus, slumbering in his cradle, is rocked by two angels, while
Mary sits by, engaged in needlework.[1]

[Footnote 1: The Latin stanza beneath, is remarkable for its elegance,
and because it has been translated by Coleridge, who mentions that he
found the print and the verse under it in a little inn in Germany.

Dormi, Jesu, mater ridet,
Quæ tam dulcem somnum videt,
Dormi, Jesu, blandule!
Si non dormis mater plorat,
Inter fila cantans orat,
Blande, veni, somnule!

Sleep, sweet babe! my cares beguiling,
Mother sits beside thee smiling,
Sleep, my darling, tenderly!
If thou sleep not, mother mourneth,
Singing as her wheel she turneth"
Come, soft slumber, balmily!"]

4. The interior of a carpenter's shop. Joseph is plying his work,
while Joachim stands near him. The Virgin is measuring linen, and St.
Anna looks on. Two angels are at play with the Infant Christ, who is
blowing soap-bubbles.

5. While Mary is preparing the family meal, and watching a pot which
is boiling on the fire, Joseph is seen behind chopping wood: more
in front, Jesus is sweeping together the chips, and two angels are
gathering them up.

6. Mary is reeling off a skein of thread; Joseph is squaring a plank;
Jesus is picking up the chips, assisted by two angels.

7. Mary is seated at her spinning-wheel; Joseph, assisted by Jesus, is
sawing through a large beam; two angels looking on.

8. Mary is spinning with a distaff; behind, Joseph is sawing a beam,
on which Jesus is standing above; and two angels are lifting a plank.

9. Joseph is seen building up the framework of a house, assisted by an
angel; Jesus is boring a hole with a large gimlet: an angel helps him;
Mary is winding thread.

10. Joseph is busy roofing in the house; Jesus, assisted by the
angels, is carrying a beam of wood up a ladder; below, in front, Mary
is carding wool or flax.

11. Joseph is building a boat, assisted by Jesus, who has a hammer
and chisel in his hand: two angels help him. The Virgin is knitting
a stocking; and the new-built house is seen in the background.

12. Joseph is erecting a fence round a garden; Jesus, assisted by
the angels, is fastening the palings together; while Mary is weaving
garlands of roses.

Justin Martyr mentions, as a tradition of his time, that Jesus
assisted his foster-father in making yokes and ploughs. In
Holland, where these prints were published, the substitution of
the boat-building seems very natural. St. Bonaventura, the great
Franciscan theologian, and a high authority in all that relates to
the life and character of Mary, not only described her as a pattern
of female industry, but alludes particularly to the legend of the
distaff, and mentions a tradition, that, when in Egypt, the Holy
Family was so reduced by poverty, that Mary begged from door to door
the fine flax which she afterwards spun into a garment for her Child.

*       *       *       *       *

As if to render the circle of maternal duties, and thereby the
maternal example, more complete, there are prints of Mary leading her
Son to school. I have seen one in which he carries his hornbook in
his hand. Such representations, though popular, were condemned by the
highest church authorities as nothing less than heretical. The Abbé
Méry counts among the artistic errors "which endanger the faith
of good Christians," those pictures which represent Mary or Joseph
instructing the Infant Christ; as if all learning, all science,
divine and human, were not his by intuition, and without any earthly
teaching, (v. Théologie des Peintres.) A beautiful Holy Family,
by Schidone, is entitled, "The Infant Christ learning to read"
(Bridgewater Gal.); and we frequently meet with pictures in which the
mother holds a book, while the divine Child, with a serious intent
expression, turns over the leaves, or points to the letters: but I
imagine that these, and similar groups, represent Jesus instructing
Mary and Joseph, as he is recorded to have done. There is also a
very pretty legend, in which he is represented as exciting the
astonishment, of the schoolmaster Zaccheus by his premature wisdom.
On these, and other details respecting the infancy of our Saviour, I
shall have to say much more when treating of the History of Christ.




THE DISPUTE IN THE TEMPLE.

_Ital._ La Disputa nel Tempio. _Fr._ Jésus au milieu des Docteurs.


The subject which we call the Dispute in the Temple, or "Christ
among the Doctors," is a scene of great importance in the life of
the Redeemer (Luke ii. 41, 52). His appearance in the midst of the
doctors, at twelve years old, when he sat "hearing them and asking
them questions, and all who heard him were astonished at his
understanding and his answers," has been interpreted as the first
manifestation of his high character as teacher of men, as one come
to throw a new light on the prophecies,--

"For trailing clouds of glory had he come
From heaven, which was his home;"

and also as instructing as that those who are to become teachers of
men ought, when young, to listen to the voice of age and experience;
and that those who have grown old may learn lessons of wisdom
from childish innocence. Such is the historical and scriptural
representation. But in the life of the Virgin, the whole scene changes
its signification. It is no longer the wisdom of the Son, it is the
sorrow of the Mother which is the principal theme. In their journey
home from Jerusalem, Jesus has disappeared; he who was the light of
her eyes, whose precious existence had been so often threatened, has
left her care, and gone, she knows not whither. "No fancy can imagine
the doubts, the apprehensions, the possibilities of mischief, the
tremblings of heart, which the holy Virgin-mother feels thronging in
her bosom. For three days she seeks him in doubt and anguish." (Jeremy
Taylor's "Life of Christ.") At length he is found seated in the temple
in the midst of the learned doctors, "hearing them, and asking them
questions." And she said unto him, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with
us? behold, I and thy father have sought thee sorrowing." And he said
unto them, "How is it that ye sought me? Wise ye not that I must be
about my Father's business?"

Now there are two ways of representing this scene. In all the earlier
pictures it is chiefly with reference to the Virgin Mother: it is one
of the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary. The Child Jesus sits in the
temple, teaching with hand uplifted; the doctors round him turn over
the leaves of their great books, searching the law and the prophets.
Some look up at the young inspired Teacher--he who was above the law,
yet came to obey the law and fulfil the prophecies--with amazement.
Conspicuous in front, stand Mary and Joseph, and she is in act to
address to him the tender reproach, "I and thy father have sought
thee sorrowing." In the early examples she is a principal figure, but
in later pictures she is seen entering in the background; and where
the scene relates only to the life of Christ, the figures of Joseph
and Mary are omitted altogether, and the Child teacher becomes the