glory of the morn is shed,
Like a celestial benison!
Here at the portal thou dost stand,
And with thy little hand
Thou openest the mysterious gate
Into the future's undiscovered land.
LONGFELLOW.

CHILD-LIFE IN ART.

CHAPTER I.

CHILDHOOD IN IDEAL TYPES.

If we could gather into one great gallery all the paintings of
child-life which the world has ever produced, there would be scattered
here and there some few works of a distinctly unique character, before
which we should rest so completely satisfied that we should quite forget
to look at any others. These choice gems are the work of those rare men
of genius who, looking beyond all trivial circumstances and individual
peculiarities, discovered the essential secrets of child-life, and
embodied them in ideal types. They are pictures of _childhood_, rather
than of _children_, representing those phases of thought and emotion
which are peculiar to the child as such, and which all children possess
in common. In their presence every mother spontaneously exclaims, "How
like my own little one!" because the artist has interpreted the real
child nature. Such pictures may justly take rank among the highest
productions of creative art, having proven their claim to greatness by
their unquestioned appeal to universal admiration.

In work of this kind one name alone is prominent, a name which England
is proud to claim as hers, but to which all the world pays honor,--the
name of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Prince of Child-painters. A simple-hearted
man, of sweet, kindly disposition, the great portrait-painter, bachelor
though he was, possessed in rare measure the mysterious gift of winning
the confidence of children. The great octagonal studio in Leicester
Square must have often resounded to the laughter of childish voices, as
he entertained his little patrons with the pet dogs and birds he used in
their portraits, and coaxed them into good nature with a thousand merry
tricks. Although the greater number of these little people belonged to
the most wealthy and aristocratic families in England, their pictures
do not in any way indicate their rank. Still less do they show any
distinguishing marks of the artificial age in which they lived. Dressed
in the simplest of costumes, of the sort which is never out of fashion
and always in the best taste, and posed in the natural attitudes of
unconscious grace, they are representatives of chi