notwithstanding all that is expressed, and all that is so eloquently suggested, still the character of this fine countenance is perfectly infantile. We have somewhere read of "child-worship"-The painter has here presented us with the outward and visible sign of child-worship,-or the sentiment which immediately precedes it.

Had this silent poetry been carried onward to its proper acmé, which should have been the countenance of the Saviour himself; had the same sensibility to the sacred sound of "glad tidings" been at least germinating there (even at the risk of the imputation of prematurity); could we but have traced even but what the patriarch Job calls the earliest glancings of the dawn, to have shown that the dayspring of Salvation had visited us, the picture would have been a miracle of art, worthy of its divine subject, worthy to hold a place, not only in the National Gallery of Great Britain, but an eternal place in the pictorial recollections of the tasteful, and an illustration of our motto. But here the artist, excepting in manual execution, has fallen off, and lost himself. It would seem as if the resistless Signora had not only stipulated for herself, but had further insisted upon one of her own curly-poled bambinoes being introduced as the Saviour of mankind. There is, in short, nothing at all Deific, either in the character or action of the Divine Infant.

Doubtless he is meant to be highly delighted; but he is actually laughing aloud, which is mere temporal coarseness, and cannot be regarded as worthy of the occasion; and he points in a manner which it is difficult to understand as not intended to be jeeringly, at the old woman.

Nor do the imperfections of the picture end here. The composition cuts everywhere against a sky which is somewhat raw and gloomy, in a liney and disagreeable manner, betraying the immaturity of at least this species of artistical knowledge. But, viewed apart from this circumstance, by those who can so abstract and conduct their attention, the picture is a capital piece of colouring. The dark red vest, the blue robe, and the mantle of the Madonna, brown of a purplish hue, are of the depth and richness of Titian's loom. Ample and flowing in their forms, they constitute broad masses of obscurity, which bring forth and sustain the flesh tints of the infants with the utmost perspicuity and beauty. Elizabeth wears a white hood, and a yellow robe, which robe is cast in the grandest style of drapery forms.

But the carnation tints, and the full and round forms of the children, thus brought forth into warm breadths of light, are admirable. They can scarcely be too highly commended. Juicy, and Giorgionesque, and abounding in blandishment and variety, there seems just enough of neutral grey and brown woven into the warmer lights, to enrich them in the utmost degree that is compatible with the ostensible imitation of Nature: and though exquisitely finished, they betray not the faintest signs of vain labour, or of labour at all; for even their crisped auburn hair, which is very carefully and dexterously pencilled, is touched with consummate taste, while it is entirely free from redundancy of manual display. Of the modest art which becomes charming by innocently hiding itself in its own merits, the painting of these Divine Infants affords a fine specimen, subject, however, to the deduction which is mentioned above.

Reading over what we have written, we perceive that we have not noticed that distant roofing of cottages seen betwixt the stems of some sapling willows, bounding the landscape on the right; a trifle this: they may easily be supposed to be the humble residence of the carpenter of Nazareth. Further, we perceive that we have not said quite enough of the unostentatious and gratifying facility with which Andrea handles his pencils. It may be noticed in many passages, but no where more particularly or successfully than in the oleaginous markings of that right hand of Elizabeth, which is placed on the side of her little sainted son, as if in the act of introducing him, with precisely that degree of maternal solicitude that appears proper to the occasion. That aged hand is drawn with an air of spontaneous felicity that is much to be enjoyed by a tasteful eye. Neither Michael Angelo, of whose style it reminds us, nor any other Angelo, could have done it better.

THE HOLY FAMILY VISITED BY ST. ELIZABETH AND ST. JOHN.

LODOVICO MAZZOLINI OF FERRARA.

THIS is another of the curiosities of reviving art, and the style in which it is painted corresponds so essentially with Lanzi's description of that of Mazzolini, as to place its ascription to that artist beyond all question.

After clearing his earlier biography of certain doubts, the Abaté proceeds to state, "that he did not excel in large figures, but possessed very rare merit

in those on a smaller scale" (which of course is to be understood with reference to his contemporaries and predecessors, and not to artists of subsequent ages). The time in which Mazzolini lived, is to be gathered from the circumstance that he was a pupil of Costa, who died in the year 1530.

"Baruffaldi laments that Mazzolini's manner should continue to be nearly unknown to the dilletanti. It displays a considerable degree of finish; sometimes appearing in his smallest pictures like miniature; while not only the figures, but the landscape, the architecture, and the bassi-relievi, are most carefully executed. There is a spirit and clearness in his heads, to which few of his contemporaries could attain; though they are wholly taken from the life, and not remarkably select [they are not indeed]. In particular those of his old men, which in the wrinkles and the nose sometimes borders on caricature. [In the present work, the head of St. Joseph-the oldest

is the best in the group.] The colour is of a deep tone, not so soft as that of Ercole; with the addition of some gilding, even in the drapery, but sparingly applied.

"In the Royal Gallery at Florence, a little picture of the Virgin and Holy Child, to whom St. Anna is seen presenting fruits, with figures of two other saints, has been attributed to Ferrari; but it is the work of Mazzolini, if I do not deceive myself, after comparison made with others examined at Rome."

We can scarcely doubt that the historian is here. in the right; and the observant and reflecting reader will easily trace the pedigree of the kind of merit, which we perceive in the work before us, of the Visit of St. Elizabeth, and that which Mazzolini is

here described to have possessed. It was generated by the missal painting of the middle ages, upon the beauty of the reappearing sculpture of Greece and Rome; and Mazzolini could have owed little to the instructions of Costa, unless Costa instructed him to aim at this incorporation.

The similar choice of subject helps to persuade us that Lanzi is correct in attributing the Florentine picture of the Visit of St. Anna to the Madonna and Bambino, to Mazzolini. In its spirit, it precisely resembles the work before us. The painters of those

early ages, or the devotees and churchmen who gave them commissions, frequently indulged in the most extravagant reveries of anachronism, or were altogether reckless of such matters; and in their saintly visitations or assemblages, historical or fancied, they substituted, without scruple, one holy personage for another, as might most effectually gratify their patrons or their religious partialities, or fall in with the legendary fictions in which their fancies delighted. Akenside has not touched upon this pleasure of excited imagination, or has touched but in a general way, under the head of incongruities; which he deemed worthy of ridicule, while these painted incongruities were in Italy deemed worthy of reverential regard. Yet it may not be undeserving of notice, ́ that it afforded to those who then lived, and fasted, and prayed, and were sufficiently opulent to indulge in such pleasures, the same species of gratification that poetic fiction has afforded in more liberal, or less primitive, ages.

We esteem the real subject of Mazzolini's picture, as far as scripture is concerned, to be a visit paid by St. Elizabeth and the priest Zacharias, with their