thout clamour and womanish noises sad, silent, and with
a modest grief, deep as the waters of the abyss, but smooth as the
face of a pool; full of love, and patience, and sorrow, and hope!"
To suppose that this noble creature lost all power over her emotions,
lost her consciousness of the "high affliction" she was called to
suffer, is quite unworthy of the grand ideal of womanly perfection
here placed before us. It is clear, however, that in the later
representations, the intense expression of maternal anguish in the
hymn of the Stabat Mater gave the key to the prevailing sentiment.
And as it is sometimes easier to faint than to endure; so it was
easier for certain artists to express the pallor and prostration of
insensibility, than the sublime faith and fortitude which in that
extremest hour of trial conquered even a mother's unutterable woe.

That most affecting moment, in which the dying Saviour recommends his
Mother to the care of the best beloved of his disciples, I have never
seen worthily treated. There are, however, some few Crucifixions in
which I presume the idea to have been indicated; as where the Virgin
stands leaning on St. John, with his sustaining arm reverently round
her, and both looking up to the Saviour, whose dying face is turned
towards them. There is an instance by Albert Durer (the wood-cut
in the "Large Passion"); but the examples are so few as to be
exceptional.

* * * * *

THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS, and the DEPOSITION, are two separate
themes. In the first, according to the antique formula, the Virgin
should stand; for here, as in the Crucifixion, she must be associated
with the principal action, and not, by the excess of her grief,
disabled from taking her part in it. In the old legend it is said,
that when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus wrenched out the nails
which fastened the hands of our Lord to the cross, St. John took them
away secretly, that his mother might not see them--"_affin que la
Vierge Marie ne les veit pas, crainte que le coeur ne lui amolist_."
And then, while Nicodemus drew forth the nails which fastened his
feet, Joseph of Arimathea sustained the body, so that the head and
arms of the dead Saviour hung over his shoulder. And the afflicted
Mother, seeing this, arose on her feet and she took the bleeding hands
of her Son, as they hung down, and clasped them in her own, and kissed
him tenderly. And then, indeed, she sank to the earth, beca