I pass over, for the present, the grandest, the most important mission of an angel, the announcement brought by Gabriel to the blessed Virgin. I shall have to treat it fully hereafter. The angel who appears to Joseph in a dream, and the angel who commands him to flee into Egypt, was in both cases probably the same angel who hailed Mary as blessed above all women; but we are not told so; and according to some commentators it was the guardian angel of Joseph who appeared to him. In these and other scenes of the New Testament, in which angels are described as direct agents, or merely as a chorus of ministering attendants, they have the usual form, enhanced by as much beauty, and benignity, and aërial grace as the fancy of the artist could bestow on them. In the Nativity they are seen hovering on high, pouring forth their song of triumph; they hold a scroll in their hands on which their song is written; in general there are three angels; the first sings, Gloria in excelsis Deo! the second, Et in terra pax! the third, Hominibus bonæ voluntatis! but in some pictures the three angels are replaced by a numerous choir, who raise the song of triumph in the skies, while others are seen kneeling round and adoring the Divine Infant.

The happiest, the most beautiful, instance I can remember of this particular treatment is the little chapel in the Riccardi Palace at Florence. This chapel is in the form of a Greek cross, and the frescoes are thus disposed:

The walls 1, 2, and 3, are painted with the journey of the Wise Men, who, with a long train of attendants mounted on horseback and gorgeously apparelled, are seen travelling over hill and dale led by the guiding star. Over the altar was the Nativity (now removed); on each side (4, 5,) is seen a choir of angels, perhaps fifty in number, rejoicing over the birth of the Redeemer: some kneel in adoration, with arms folded over the bosom, others offer flowers; some come dancing forward with flowers in their hands or in the lap of their robe; others sing and make celestial music: they have glories round their heads, all inscribed alike, "Gloria in excelsis Deo." The naïve grace, the beautiful devout expression, the airy movements of these lovely beings, melt the soul to harmony and joy. The chapel having been long shut up, and its existence scarcely remembered, these paintings are in excellent preservation; and I saw nothing in Italy that more impressed me with admiration of the genuine feeling and piety of the old masters. The choral angels of Angelico da Fiesole already described are not more pure in sentiment, and are far less animated, than these.1

But how different from both is the ministry of the angels in some of the pictures of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both German and Italian! The Virgin Mary is washing her Divine Infant; angels dry the clothes, or pour out water: Joseph is planing a board, and angels assist the Infant Saviour in sweeping up the chips. In a beautiful little Madonna and Child, in Prince Wallerstein's collection, an angel is playing with the Divine Infant, is literally his play-fellow; a very graceful idea, of which I have seen but this one instance.

In the Flight into Egypt, an angel often leads the ass. In the Riposo, a subject rare before the fifteenth century, angels offer fruit and flowers, or bend down the branches of the date tree, that Joseph may gather the fruit; or weave the choral dance, hand in hand, for the delight of the Infant Christ, while others make celestial music, as in Vandyck's beautiful picture in Lord Ashburton's collection. After the Temptation, they minister to the Saviour in the wilderness, and spread for him a table of refreshment

For several curious and interesting particulars relative to these subjects, see the "Legends of the Madonna," pp. 247. 256.

It is not said that angels were visibly present at the baptism of Christ; but it appears to me that they ought not therefore to be supposed absent, and that there is a propriety in making them attendants on this solemn occasion. They are not introduced in the very earliest examples, those in the catacombs and sarcophagi; nor yet in the mosaics of Ravenna; because angels were then rarely figured, and instead of the winged angel we have the sedge-crowned river god, representing the Jordan. In the Greek formula, they are required to be present "in an attitude of respect:" no mention is made of their holding the garments of our Saviour; but it is certain that in Byzantine Art, and generally from the twelfth century, this has been the usual mode of representing them. According to the Fathers, our Saviour had no guardian angel; because he did not require one: notwithstanding the sense usually given to the text, "He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone," the angels, they affirm, were not the guardians, but the servants, of Christ; and hence, I presume, the custom of representing them, not merely as present, but as ministering to him during the baptism. The gates of San Paolo (tenth century) afford the most ancient example I have met with of an angel holding the raiment of the Saviour: there is only one angel. Giotto introduces two graceful angels kneeling on the bank of the river, and looking on with attention. The angel in Raphael's composition bows his head, as if awe-struck by the divine recognition of the majesty of the Redeemer; and the reverent manner in which he holds the vestment is very beautiful. Other examples will here suggest themselves to the reader, and I shall resume the subject when treating of the life of our Saviour.

In one account of our Saviour's agony in the garden of Gethsemane, it is expressly said that an angel "appeared unto him out of heaven, strengthening him;" therefore, where this awful and pathetic subject has been attempted in Art, there is propriety in introducing a visible angel. Notwithstanding the latitude thus allowed to the imagination, or perhaps for that very reason, the greatest and the most intelligent painters have here fallen into strange errors, both in conception and in taste. For instance, is it not a manifest impropriety to take the

Scripture phrase in a literal sense, and place a cup in the hand of the angel? Is not the word cup here, as elsewhere, used as a metaphor, signifying the destiny awarded by Divine will, as Christ had said before, "Ye shall drink of my cup," and as we say, "his cup overflowed with blessings?" The angel, therefore, who does not bend from heaven to announce to him the decree he knew full well, nor to present the cup of bitterness, but to strengthen and comfort him, should not bear the cup; --still less the cross, the scourge, the crown of thorns, as in many pictures.

Where our Saviour appears bowed to the earth, prostrate, half swooning with the anguish of that dread moment, and an angel is seen sustaining him, there is a true feeling of the real meaning of Scripture ; but even in such examples the effect is often spoiled by an attempt to render the scene at once more mystical and more palpable. Thus a painter equally remarkable for the purity of his taste and deep religious feeling, Niccolò Poussin, has represented Christ, in his agony, supported in the arms of an angel, while a crowd of child-angels, very much like Cupids, appear before him with the instruments of the Passion; ten or twelve bear a huge cross; others hold the scourge, the crown of thorns, the nails, the sponge, the spear, and exhibit them before him, as if these were the images, these the terrors, which could overwhelm with fear and anguish even the human nature of such a Being! It seems to me also a mistake, when the angel is introduced, to make him merely an accessory (as Raphael has done in one of his early pictures), a little figure in the air to help the meaning: since the occasion was worthy. of angelic intervention, in a visible shape, bringing divine solace, divine sympathy, it should be represented under a form the most mighty and the most benign that Art could compass; - but has it been so? I can recollect no instance in which the failure has not been complete. If it be said that to render the angelic comforter so superior to the sorrowing and prostrate Redeemer would be to detract from His dignity as the principal personage of the scene, and thus violate one of the first rules of Art, I think differently- I think it could do so only in unskilful hands. Represented as it ought to be, and might be, it would infinitely

The picture is, I suspect, not by Poussin, but by Stella. There is another, similar, by Guido; Louvre, 1057.

enhance the idea of that unimaginable anguish which, as we are told, was compounded of the iniquities and sorrows of all humanity laid upon Him. It was not the pang of the Mortal, but the Immortal, which required the presence of a ministering spirit sent down from heaven to sustain him.

In the Crucifixion, angels are seen lamenting, wringing their hands, averting or hiding their faces. In the old Greek crucifixions, one angel bears the sun, another the moon, on each side of the cross :

"dim sadness did not spare,

That time, celestial visages."

Michael Angelo gives us two un-winged colossal-looking angel heads, which peer out of heaven in the background of his Crucifixion in a manner truly supernatural, as if they sympathised in the consummation, but in awe rather than in grief.

Angels also receive in golden cups the blood which flows from the wounds of our Saviour. This is a representation which has the authority of some of the most distinguished and most spiritual among the old painters, but it is to my taste particularly unpleasing and unpoetical. Raphael, in an early picture, the only crucifixion he ever painted, thus introduces the angels; and this form of the angelic ministry is a mystical version of the sacrifice of the Redeemer not uncommon in Italian and German pictures of the sixteenth century.

As the scriptural and legendary scenes in which angels form the poetical machinery will be discussed hereafter in detail as separate subjects, I shall conclude these general and preliminary remarks with a