Preston Church, near Brighton, was discovered the outline of a group of figures, representing St. Michael, fully draped, and with large wings, bearing the balance; in each scale a human soul. The scale containing the beato is assisted by a figure fully draped, but so ruined that it is not possible to say whether it represents the Virgin, or the guardian saint of the person who caused the fresco to be painted. I am told that in the old churches of Cornwall, and of the towns on the south coast, which had frequent intercourse with France, effigies of St. Michael occur frequently, both in painting and sculpture. On the old English coin, thence called an angel, we have the figure of St. Michael, who was one of the patron saints of our Norman kings.

I must now trust to the reader to contemplate the figures of St. Michael, so frequent and so varied in Art, with reference to these suggestions; and leaving for the present this radiant Spirit, this bright similitude of a primal and universal faith, we turn to his angelic companions.

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Egyptian hieroglyphic of the Genius of Good overcoming Evil. (v. p. 108 )

ST. GABRIEL.

Lat. Sanctus Gabriel. Ital. San Gabriello, San Gabriele, L'Angelo Annunziatore. Fr. St. Gabriel.

"I am GABRIEL, that stand in the presence of God.”—Luke, i. 19.

IN those passages of Scripture where the Angel Gabriel is mentioned by name, he is brought before us in the character of a Messenger only, and always on important occasions. In the Old Testament he is sent to Daniel to announce the return of the Jews from captivity, and to explain the vision which prefigures the destinies of mighty empires. His contest with the Angel of the kingdom of Persia, when St. Michael comes to his assistance, would be a splendid subject in fit hands; I do not know that it has ever been painted. In the New Testament the mission of Gabriel is yet more sublime: he first appears to the high priest Zacharias, and foretells the birth of John the Baptist,—a subject which belongs especially to the life of that saint. Six months later, Gabriel is sent to announce the appearance of the Redeemer of mankind.'

In the Jewish tradition, Gabriel is the guardian of the celestial treasury. Hence, I presume, Milton has made him chief guardian of Paradise:

"Betwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel sat,
Chief of the angelic guards, awaiting night."

As the Angel who announced the birth of Christ, he has been venerated as the Angel who presides over child-birth. He foretells the birth of Samson, and, in the apocryphal legends, he foretells to Joachim the birth of the Virgin. In the East, he is of great importance. Mahomet selected him as his immediate teacher and inspirer, and he became the great protecting angel of Islamism: hence between Michael, the protector of the Jews and Christians, and Gabriel, the protector of

"The stone on which stood the angel Gabriel when he announced to the most Blessed Virgin the great mystery of the Incarnation," is among the relics enumerated as existing in the church of the Santa Croce at Rome.

the Moslem, there is supposed to exist no friendly feeling,—rather the

reverse.

In the New Testament, Gabriel is a much more important personage than Michael; yet I have never met with any picture in which he figures singly as an object of worship. In devotional pictures he figures as the second of the three Archangels-" Secondo fra i primi," as Tasso styles him; or in his peculiar character as the divine messenger of grace," l'Angelo annunziatore." He then usually bears in one hand a lily or a sceptre; in the other a scroll on which is inscribed, " AVE MARIA, GRATIA PLENA!"1

The subject called the ANNUNCIATION is one of the most frequent and most important, as it is one of the most beautiful, in the whole range of Christian Art. It belongs, however, to the history of the Virgin, where I shall have occasion to treat it at length; yet as the Angel Gabriel here assumes, by direct scriptural testimony, a distinct name and personality, and as the dignity and significance proper to a subject so often unworthily and perversely treated depend very much on the character and deportment given to the celestial messenger, I shall make a few observations in this place with respect to the treatment of the angel, only reserving the theme in its general bearing for future consideration.

In the early representations of the Annunciation it is treated as a religious mystery, and with a solemn simplicity and purity of feeling, which is very striking and graceful in itself, as well as in harmony with the peculiar manner of the divine revelation. The scene is generally a porch or portico of a temple-like building; the Virgin stands (she is very seldom seated, and then on a kind of raised throne); the angel stands before her, at some distance: very often, she is within the portico; he is without. Gabriel is a majestic being, generally robed in white, wearing the tunic and pallium à l'antique, his flowing hair bound by a jewelled tiara, with large many-coloured wings, and bearing the sceptre of sovereignty in the left hand, while the right is extended in

2 In Paradise he sings for ever the famous salutation:

"Cantando Ave Maria gratia plena

Dinanzi a lei le sue ali distese."

DANTE, Par. 32.

the act of benediction as well as salutation: "Hail! thou that art highly favoured! Blessed art thou among women!" He is the principal figure the attitude of the Virgin, with her drapery drawn over her head, her eyes drooping, and her hands folded on her bosom, is always expressive of the utmost submission and humility. So Dante introduces the image of the lowly Virgin receiving the angel as an illustration of the virtue of Humility:

"Ed avea in atto impressa esta favella
'Ecce ancilla Dei !""-

and Flaxman has admirably embodied this idea, both in the lofty angel with outspread arms, and the kneeling Virgin. Sometimes the angel

floats in, with his arms crossed over his bosom, but still with the air of a superior being, as in this beautiful figure after Lorenzo Monaco, from a picture in the Florence Gallery.

The two figures are not always in the same picture; it was a very general custom to place the Virgin and the Angel, the "Annunziata " and the "Angelo annunziatore," one on each side of the altar, the place of the Virgin being usually to the right of the spectator; sometimes the figures are half-length: sometimes, when placed in the same picture, they are in two separate compartments, a pillar, or some other ornament, running up the picture between them; as in many old altar-pieces, where the two figures are placed above or on each side of the Nativity, or the Baptism, or the Marriage at Cana, or some other scene from the life and miracles of our Saviour. This subject does not appear on the sarcophagi; the earliest instance I have met with is in the mosaic series over the arch in front of the choir in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, at Rome, executed in the fifth century. Here we have two successive moments represented together. In the first the angel is sent. on his mission, and appears flying down from heaven; the earliest instance I have seen of an angel in the act of flight. In the second group the Virgin appears seated on a throne; two angels stand behind her, supposed to represent her guardian angels, and the angel Gabriel stands in front with one hand extended. The dresses are classical, and there is not a trace of the mediæval feeling, or style, in the whole composition.

In the Greek pictures, the Angel and the Virgin both stand; and in the Annunciation of Cimabue the Greek formula is strictly adhered to. I have seen pictures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in which Gabriel enters as a princely ambassador, with three little angels bearing up his mantle behind: in a picture in the collection of Prince Wallerstein, one meek and beautiful angel bears up the rich robes of the majestic archangel, like a page in the train of a sovereign prince. But from the beginning of the fourteenth century we perceive a change of feeling, as well as a change of style: the veneration paid to the Virgin demanded another treatment. She becomes not merely the principal person, but the superior being; she is the "Regina angelorum," and the angel bows to her, or kneels before her, as to a queen.' Thus in the

See the Ursuline Manual. "When an angel anciently appeared to the patriarchs or prophets, he was received with due honour as being exalted above them, both by nature and grace; but when an archangel visited Mary, he was struck with her superior dignity and VOL. I.

R