most uniformly
excluded.

Next in order, as accessory figures, appear some one or two or more of
the martyrs, confessors, and virgin patronesses, with their respective
attributes, either placed in separate niches and compartments on each
side, or, when admitted within the sacred precincts where sits the
Queenly Virgin Mother and her divine Son, standing, in the manner
of councillors and officers of state on solemn occasions, round an
earthly sovereign, all reverently calm and still; till gradually this
solemn formality, this isolation of the principal characters, gave way
to some sentiment which placed them in nearer relation to each other,
and to the divine personages. Occasional variations of attitude and
action were introduced--at first, a rare innovation; ere long, a
custom, a fashion. For instance;--the doctors turn over the leaves
of their great books as if seeking for the written testimonies to the
truth of the mysterious Incarnation made visible in the persons of the
Mother and Child; the confessors contemplate the radiant group with
rapture, and seem ready to burst forth in hymns of praise; the martyrs
kneel in adoration; the virgins gracefully offer their victorious
palms: and thus the painters of the best periods of art contrived to
animate their sacred groups without rendering them too dramatic and
too secular.

Such, then, was the general arrangement of that religious subject
which is technically styled "The Madonna enthroned and attended by
Saints." The selection and the relative position of these angelic and
saintly accessories were not, as I have already observed, matters of
mere taste or caprice; and an attentive observation of the choice and
disposition of the attendant figures will often throw light on the
original significance of such pictures, and the circumstances under
which they wore painted.

Shall I attempt a rapid classification and interpretation of these
infinitely varied groups? It is a theme which might well occupy
volumes rather than pages, and which requires far more antiquarian
learning and historical research than I can pretend to; still by
giving the result of my own observations in some few instances, it may
be possible so to excite the attention and fancy of the reader, as
to lead him further on the same path than I have myself been able to
venture.

* * * * *

We can trace, in a large class of these pictures, a general
religious significance,