Ecce Homo, by Correggio, in our National Gallery, is treated in
a very peculiar manner with reference to the Virgin, and is, in fact,
another version of _Lo Spasimo_, the fourth of her ineffable sorrows.
Here Christ, as exhibited to the people by Pilate, is placed in the
distance, and is in all respects the least important part of the
picture, of which we have the real subject in the far more prominent
figure of the Virgin in the foreground. At sight of the agony and
degradation of her Son, she closes her eyes, and is on the point
of swooning. The pathos of expression in the half-unconscious face
and helpless, almost lifeless hands, which seem to seek support, is
particularly fine.

THE CRUCIFIXION.

"Verum stabas, optima Mater, juxta crucem Filli tui, non solum
corpore, sed mentis constatia."

This great subject belongs more particularly to the Life of Christ. It
is, I observe, always omitted in a series of the Life of the Virgin,
unless it be the Rosary, in which the "Vigil of the Virgin by the
Cross" is the fifth and greatest of the Seven Sorrows.

We cannot fail to remark, that whether the Crucifixion be treated as a
mystery or as an event, Mary is always an important figure.

In the former case she stands alone on the right of the cross, and St.
John on the left.[1] She looks up with an expression of mingled grief
and faith, or bows her head upon her clasped hands in resignation. In
such a position she is the idealized Mater Dolorosa, the Daughter of
Jerusalem, the personified Church mourning for the great Sacrifice;
and this view of the subject I have already discussed at length.

[Footnote 1: It has been a question with the learned whether the
Virgin Mary, with St. John, ought not to stand on the left of the
cross, in allusion to Psalm cxlii. (always interpreted as prophetic
of the Passion of Christ) ver. 4: "_I looked on my right hand, and be
held, but there was none who would know me._"]

On the other hand, when the Crucifixion is treated as a great
historical event, as a living scene acted before our eyes, then the
position and sentiment given to the Virgin are altogether different,
but equally fixed by the traditions of art. That she was present, and
near at hand, we must presume from the Gospel of St. John, who was an
eye-witness; and most of the theological writers infer that on this
occasion her constancy and sublime faith were even greater than her
grief, and that her heroic fortitude e