Sometimes, even where the throne and the attendant saints and angels
show the group to be wholly devotional and exalted, we find the
sentiment varied by a touch of the dramatic,--by the introduction
of an action; but it must be one of a wholly religious significance,
suggestive of a religious feeling, or the subject ceases to be
properly _devotional_ in character.

There is a picture by Botticelli, before which, in walking up the
corridor of the Florence Gallery, I used, day after day, to make an
involuntary pause of admiration. The Virgin, seated in a chair of
state, but seen only to the knees, sustains her divine Son with one
arm; four angels are in attendance, one of whom presents an inkhorn,
another holds before her an open book, and she is in the act of
writing the Magnificat, "My soul doth magnify the Lord!" The head of
the figure behind the Virgin is the portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici
when a boy. There is absolutely no beauty of feature, either in
the Madonna, or the Child, or the angels, yet every face is full of
dignity and character.

In a beautiful picture by Titian (Bel. Gal., Vienna. Louvre, No.
458), the Virgin is enthroned on the left, and on the right appear St.
George and St. Laurence as listening, while St. Jerome reads from his
great book. A small copy of this picture is at Windsor.

* * * * *

The old German and Flemish painters, in treating the enthroned
Madonna, sometimes introduced accessories which no painter of the
early Italian school would have descended to; and which tinge with a
homely sentiment their most exalted conceptions. Thus, I have seen
a German Madonna seated on a superb throne, and most elaborately
and gorgeously arrayed, pressing her Child to her bosom with a truly
maternal air; while beside her, on a table, is a honeycomb, some
butter, a dish of fruit, and a glass of water. (Bel. Gal., Vienna.)
It is possible that in this case, as in the Virgin suckling her Child,
there may be a religious allusion:--"_Butter and honey shall he eat_,"
&c.

THE MATER AMABILIS.

_Ital._ La Madonna col Bambino. La Madonna col celeste suo figlio.
_Fr._ La Vierge et l'enfant Jesus. _Ger._ Maria mit dem Kind.

There is yet another treatment of the Madonna and Child, in which the
Virgin no longer retains the lofty goddess-like exaltation given to
her in the old time. She is brought nearer to our sympathies. She
is not seated in a chair of state with the