o do justice to the more modern painters, are seldom found in their
works. The only excuse that can be made for those great artists, is
their living in an age when it was the custom to mix the ludicrous with
the serious, and when poetry as well as painting gave in to this
fashion."

Many of the compositions of Rembrandt indicate not only a refined
taste, but the greatest sensibility and feeling. For example, the small
etchings of the "Burial of Christ," and the "Return from Jerusalem;"
these, from their slightness, may lay me under the same category as the
old Greek, who, having a house to sell, carried in his pocket one of the
bricks as a sample; yet, being his own indications, I have given them.
It is worth while to compare the "Entombment" with the same subject by
Raffaelle, in the Crozat Collection. The whole arrangement is treated in
the finest taste of the Italian school. The other design has been always
a favourite with the admirers of Rembrandt. The feeling character of the
youthful Saviour is admirably portrayed. Holding his mother's hand, he
is cheering her on her tiring journey, looking in her face with an
expression of affection and solace; while she is represented with
downcast eyes, fatigued and "pondering in her mind" the import of the
words he had addressed to her, "How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not
that I must be about my Father's business?" And even here we can almost
excuse the introduction of the little dog, who, running before the
group, is looking back, giving a bark of joy at their having found the
object of their solicitude. The background is conceived in the finest
spirit of Titian.

These are the touches of nature that, like the expressions of our own
immortal Shakspere, however slight, and though dressed in modern garb or
familiar language, reach the innermost sensibilities of the human heart.

[Illustration: THE ENTOMBMENT]

[Illustration: THE RETURN FROM JERUSALEM]

The character and costume of the people, as well as the scenery of those
subjects taken from Holy Writ, have been a matter of investigation both
by artists and writers upon art; for although the events related in the
New Testament are not of so ancient a date as those of the heathen
writers, yet the mind seems to require that the style should be neither
classic nor too strictly local. Hence, though the costume represented in
the Venetian pictures is no doubt nearer the truth than that made use of
by Raffaelle and othe