subsequent finish which might have been bestowed
upon them. This awkwardness and ungainliness,
both of the general grouping and of the
individual attitudes of each of the persons
represented, is indeed very striking and
distressing. The figure of the Saviour is being
carried towards the spectator, down an incline,
composed apparently of long shallow steps.
It is supported by three persons; one—the face
only indicated—sustaining the head and chest
from behind; two others, one on each side,
supporting the main weight of the body by
means of a linen cloth passed under the lower
limbs. The dead figure is thus held up in a
nearly perpendicular position, unreposeful and
unseemly, the position of the legs and feet
conveying the idea that they are dangling, and
catching against the ground as the body is
dragged along. There is nothing of tenderness
or feeling in the action of either of the
figures which support the weight of the dead
Saviour, nor even, as it seems to the writer,
of truthfulness in action. The picture is a
fragment, and a very unpleasant fragment,
appealing only to the artist, and to him alone,
by any possibility, proving of the slightest
interest. To those thus initiated, it will be
seen that there is in the drawing—the head
of the Saviour, for instance—considerable
indication of power. This head of the Saviour
is, indeed, in all respects, in form, in pose,
and in expression, exceedingly beautiful. The
upper part of the figure, too, is finely and
subtly drawn. The professional artist will
be able to detect other instances of fine
expression of individual form: as in the female
figure to the right of the spectator. He will,
moreover, see a certain gracefulness in this
same figure, and much expression of nervous
force and energy in the strained look of the
arms and hands by which the weight of the
corpse is sustained. It is probably because of
these things, because of a certain swing in
the lines of these two figures which support
the body of the Saviour, and because of the
strong grasping action of the hands, and other
indications of a feeling for drawing, that this
picture has been ascribed to Michael Angelo;
but its internal evidence is far from convincing,
and there is much in the look of the whole
composition more suggestive of an early German
than of an Italian origin. Be the picture
by whomsoever it may, it is a very unpleasant
picture, and capable of affording gratification
only to the strictly professional spectator.

As a curiosity; as a picture affording in its
very incompleteness some sort of evidence as
to the manner in which the painters of a
particular time prepared their work; and as a
specimen of art containing some passages of
technical merit; this purchase may be
pronounced to have been one on which the public
money has been well expended. But this is
surely all that can be granted. That it is a
beautiful or attractive work seems, to the
humble individual who writes these lines, a
judgment entirely impossible to be sustained.

But perhaps the most important of the
recent additions to the national collection is
the new Rembrandt, Christ Blessing Little
Children. It was purchased for no less a sum
than seven thousand pounds, and occupies
what used to be, in the days of the old Royal
Academy, the place of honour in the great
room.

In this picture there is much that is
calculated to set every man who looks at it
thinking. He will think when he first looks
at it what an ugly and repulsive picture it is,
and he will in all probability go on thinking so,
until the happy moment arrives when he gets
up from his seat before it and goes away.
It is a picture calculated in an eminent
degree to depress the mind of the spectator.
The order of things adhered to, is low and
squalid, every person represented is of the
commonest and most vulgar type. I suppose
that no representation of the Saviour has ever
been attempted, into which so little of elevation
and grandeur has been infused. There
is nothing actually repulsive about this figure,
indeed, there is some expression of kindliness
and patience about the features, but
the type is most disastrously common. The
figure is that of a much older man than we
ordinarily see represented in pictures of Christ,
and is short and ungainly in a painful degree.
The hands are thick and ponderous, and the
foot which is shown is so coarse and ugly that
one can hardly bring oneself to look at it.
There is no relief from the distressing vulgarity
which pervades this picture. The women who
bring their children—nay, the children, too
—are coarse hideous boors, entirely without
any touch of beauty or sentiment. There is
no charm of colour in the picture, which is full
of hot browns and reds, nor any of that magic
of effect which we look for in the works of
Rembrandt, and which we count upon to cover
the multitude of his sins against what we call
the "Beautiful."

But when all this has been said, and a great
deal more might be added to prove what a
disheartening work of art this is to sit before
for half an hour, it is only fair to add that it
is a picture which may be considered as having
some right to appear in our national collection,
though not perhaps to occupy a post of high
honour in it.

In the first place, as far as internal evidence
goes, there seems no very special reason to
conclude that it is other than a genuine
Rembrandt, though assuredly it is not one of his
finest works. The very faults of the picture
are the faults of Rembrandt. It is well known
that the very lowest standard of form and
beauty we can conceive, must be accepted
before we proceed to criticise this master at
all, and this should be always borne in mind in
approaching his work. It is said of some
people that they have certain qualifications,
connected with the senses, which specially fit
them for pursuits of various kinds. Of one
we say that he has an eye for colour, and of
another that he has an ear for harmony.
Rembrandt possessed a special fitness for the