incomprehensibility but the Divine kindness, never letting hope be extinguished in the world, or leaving man to the conviction. that earth is his eternal grave. Interpret it as we may, there

can be no doubt that a power to touch that mightiest chord in the human breast which vibrates in response to the infinite is a characteristic of the greatest art.

Unity, in nature and in art, he takes to be typical of the Divine comprehensiveness. Separation, isolation, "self-dependence," are indications of imperfection; connection and brotherhood are significant of perfection in the things combined, and "typical of that unity which we attribute to God." It is a unity not of absolute oneness, but of universality-the indwelling spirit of a vast comprehensiveness. It is the unity, in human creatures, of sympathy, of mutual help, of affection; their coworking and army fellowship; their delight in receiving and imparting benefits. It is not "the dead and cold peace. of undisturbed stones and solitary mountains; but the living peace of trust, and the living power of support; of hands that hold each other and are still." The unity of matter, in its noblest form, is exemplified in the human body, the temple of the human spirit; in its lower forms, it is "the sweet and strange affinity which gives " to matter "the glory of its orderly elements, and the fair variety of change and assimilation that turns the dust into the crystal, and separates the waters that be above the firmament from the waters that be beneath." It is in obedience to this law that winds and waves move in companies, that nature's forms and forces work, and walk, and cling together. The presence of unity always inspires order and beauty, and if it be totally absent there is no beauty. "The appearance of some species of unity is, in the most determined sense of the word, essential to the perfection of beauty in lines, colors, or forms." Out of the necessity of unity arises that of variety, for unity without variety would be dead uniformity. He urgently inculcates that variety

for its own sake, mere novelty and changefulness, can claim no place in art. "It will be found that they are the weak'est-minded and the hardest-hearted men that most love vari-. ety and change." The noble variety is that "which accomplishes unity, or makes it perceived." When it performs this service "its operation is found to be very precious" in connection with unity of subjection, unity of sequence, unity of membership; "for although things in all respects the same may, indeed, be subjected to one influence, yet the power of the influence, and their obedience to it, are best seen by varied operation of them on their individual differences; as in clouds and waves there is a glorious unity of rolling, wrought out by the wild and wonderful differences of their absolute forms, which differences, if removed, would leave in them only multitudinous and petty repetition, instead of the majestic oneness of shared passion." In great works of art the most impressive and sublime effects are produced when specialities of passion and character are represented as under the influence of one great thought. In a fresco by Angelico, for example, we behold the spirits in prison listening to Christ, each individualized, yet "the intense, fixed, statue-like silence of ineffable adoration" imprinting one solemn thought on the faces of all, as they kneel "side by side, the hands lifted, and the knees bowed, and the lips trembling together." Unity in variety, both in nature and in every kind of art, from groups in sculpt-1 ure to airs in music, is an indispensable element of power and beauty.

Repose, a third constituent of beauty, he views as typical of Divine permanence. "As opposed to passion, change, fulness, or laborious exertion, repose is the especial and separating characteristic of the eternal mind and power. It is the 'I am' of the Creator opposed to the 'I become' of all creatures; it is the sign alike of the supreme knowledge which is incapable of surprise, the supreme power which is incapable of labor, the

supreme volition which is incapable of change; it is the stillness of the beams of the eternal chambers laid upon the variable waters of ministering creatures." Having noted the impressive influence upon the mind of the appearance of quiet. permanence in massy forms of crag and mountain, and "the lulling effect of all nighty sight and sound," he points out with finest accuracy of observation that repose, in rocks, in stones, in trees, demands for its expression "the implied capability of its opposite, energy." Having seen a great rock bounding down the mountain-side, we feel its repose as it rests immovably in the fern. Scattered rocks may fail to impress us, but we are sensible of their restfulness when Wordsworth tells us that they "lie couched around us like a flock of sheep." True repose is not that of the bough, hewn square for threshold or lintel, but that of the living branch, bearing with queenlike case its drapery of leaf and blossom in the summer air.

Then follows one of those passages, not uncommon in this volume, which require but the form of verse to be recognized as Christian hymns replete with elevated and lovely poetry. The passage is peculiarly endeared to me, for it was on it my eye fell when, in a bookseller's shop in Edinburgh, I for the first time took a volume of Ruskin's into my hand.

THE REPOSE OF FAITH.

But that which in lifeless things ennobles them by seeming to indicate life, ennobles higher creatures by indicating the exaltation of their earthly vitality into a Divine vitality; and raising the life of sense into the life of faith faith, whether we receive it in the sense of adherence to resolution, obedience to law, regardfulness of promise, in which from all time it has been the test, as the shield, of the true being and life of man; or in the still higher sense of trustfulness in the presence, kindness, and Word of God, in which form it has been exhibited under the Christian dispensation. For, whether in one or other form-whether the faithfulness of men whose path is chosen and portion fixed, in the following and receiving of that path and portion, as in the Thermopyla camp; or the happier faithfulness of children in the good giving of their father, and of subjects

in the conduct of their King, as in the "Stand still and see the salvation of God" of the Red Sea shore-there is rest and per.cefulness, the "standing still," in both, the quietness of action determined, of spirit unalarmed, of expectation unimpatient: beautiful even when based only, as of old, on the self-command and self-possession, the persistent dignity or the uncalculating love, of the creature; but more beautiful yet when the rest is one of humility instead of pride, and the trust no more in the resolution we have taken, but in the hand we hold.

Repose he pronounces "the most unfailing test of beauty," and says "that all art is great in proportion to the appearance of it." We may trust to it to lead us to the mightiest masters. By its light "three colossal images are seen standing up side by side, looming in their great rest of spirituality above the whole world-horizon-Phidias, Michael Angelo, and Dante; and then, separated from their great religious thrones only by less fulness and earnestness of faith, Homer and Shakspeare." Universally in art you may apply the test of repose, to unveil the good, and detect the bad. "Everything of evil is betrayed and winnowed away by it; glitter, confusion, or glare of color; inconsistency of thought; forced expression; evil choice of subject; redundance of materials, pretence, overcharged decoration, or excessive division of parts; and this in everything. In architecture, in music, in acting, in dancing, in whatsoever art, great or mean, there are yet degrees of greatness or meanness entirely dependent on this single quality of repose." As an instance of treatment in which the law of repose is disregarded, he names the famous group of Laocoon struggling convulsively with the serpents; and, as an instance of its perfect observance, the Theseus of the Elgin marbles. But the most deeply impressive, and at the same time most delicately and richly instructive, of the illustrations he gives of repose in art is that which follows: "In the Cathedral of Lucca, near the entrance-door of the north transept, there is a monument by Jacopo della Quercia to Ilaria di Caretto, the wife of Paolo Guinigi. She is lying on a simple couch, with a hound at her

feet; not on the side, but with the head laid straight and simply on the hard pillow, in which, let it be observed, there is no effort at deceptive imitation of pressure. It is understood as a pillow, but not mistaken for one. The hair is bound in a flat braid over the fair brow, the sweet and arched eyes are closed, the tenderness of the loving lips is set and quiet; there is that about them which forbids breath; something which is not death nor sleep, but the pure image of both. The hands are not lifted in prayer, neither folded; but the arms are laid at length upon the body, and the hands cross as they fall. The feet are hidden by the drapery, and the forms of the limbs concealed, but not their tenderness."

Symmetry, the quality of beauty next considered, is somewhat dubiously pronounced to be the type of Divine justice. On this quality of beauty and symbol of moral perfection he says comparatively little. He will not dogmatically affirm that the charm of symmetry is due to its expressing abstract justice, but asserts "that it is necessary to the dignity of every form." Its nature is to be distinguished from that of proportion. "Symmetry is the opposition of equal quantities to each. other; proportion the connection of unequal quantities with each other. The property of a tree sending out equal boughs on opposite sides is symmetrical; its sending out shorter and smaller toward the top, proportional. In the human face, its balance of opposite sides is symmetry; its division upward, proportion." The agreeableness of symmetry is felt in the balance and arrangement of the opposite stars or sides in ornamental designs; "which orderly balance and arrangement are essential to the perfect operation of the more earnest and solemn qualities of the Beautiful, as being heavenly in their nature, and contrary to the violence and disorganization of sin; so that the seeking of them, and submission to them, are characteristic of minds that have been subjected to high moral discipline, and constant in all the great religious painters, to the