nation. But they are so nobly invented by Raffaelle, and so prodigiously magnificent, that it would have been a pity if he had not indulged himself in this piece of licentiousness, which undoubtedly he knew to be such." The artist seems indeed to have determined to give, in this piece, the utmost license to his fancy which is compatible with the severe historical style. A corresponding richness characterizes the execution: the massy parts have more solidity, the lighter are touched with a finer and more graceful pencil than is usual in the Cartoons. This latter remark applies especially to the ornaments on the pillars, which are very charmingly finished. Here, if anywhere, the artist seems to have had peculiar regard to the effect which these works would have when woven into hangings. Mr. Gunn tells us, that no one of the designs appears in the tapestry more attractive to the eye, or produces a more brilliant effect; and this he attributes in a great degree to the wonderful richness of the columns, with their twisted channels, figures, and gilded circlets; the splendour of which, he adds, is represented by the tapestry-artists with admirable correctness. The solemn character of a sanctuary, if lost in the dazzling effect of these gorgeous colonnades, is retrieved by the introduction of the lamps suspended from the ceiling, whose light is taught to counterfeit a gloom," adapted to the solemn mysteries of a great nation's worship. The third temple, though built by a prince whose zeal for God's glory was of no very genuine stamp, was splendid enough to justify the most lavish display of architectural magnificence, in any scene represented as passing within its walls. It was indeed an edifice in which -thou mightst behold, Outside and inside both, pillars and roofs, "When Herod the Great," remarks a celebrated divine, "whose magnificence served him instead of piety to prompt him to an action, if not in him religious, yet heroic at least, thought fit to pull down the temple of Zerobabel, and build one more glorious, and fit for the Saviour of the world to appear and to preach in, Josephus says, that during all the time of its building there fell not so much as a shower to * Paradise Regained. 100 PETER AND JOHN HEALING THE LAME MAN. interrupt the work, but the rain still fell by night, that it might not retard the business of the day. If this were so,' continues he, "I am not of the number of those who can ascribe such great and strange passages to chance, or satisfy my reason in assigning any other cause of this, but the regard of God himself to that place of his worship, making the common influences of heaven to stop their course, and pay a kind of homage to the rearing of so sacred a structure."* * South. |