ved somewhat from it (as, I
repeat, nearly all great art is) into the poetical one. It is only the
bloody crucifixes and gilded virgins and other such lower forms of
imagery (by which, to the honour of the English Church, it has been
truly claimed for her, that "she has never appealed to the madness or
dulness of her people,") which belong to the realistic class in strict
limitation, and which properly constitute the type of it.

There is indeed an important school of sculpture in Spain, directed to
the same objects, but not demanding at present any special attention.
And finally, there is the vigorous and most interesting realistic school
of our own, in modern times, mainly known to the public by Holman Hunt's
picture of the Light of the World, though, I believe, deriving its first
origin from the genius of the painter to whom you owe also the revival
of interest, first here in Oxford, and then universally, in the cycle of
early English legend,--Dante Rossetti.

56. The effect of this realistic art on the religious mind of Europe
varies in scope more than any other art power; for in its higher
branches it touches the most sincere religious minds, affecting an
earnest class of persons who cannot be reached by merely poetical
design; while, in its lowest, it addresses itself not only to the most
vulgar desires for religious excitement, but to the mere thirst for
sensation of horror which characterises the uneducated orders of
partially civilised countries; nor merely to the thirst for horror, but
to the strange love of death, as such, which has sometimes in Catholic
countries showed itself peculiarly by the endeavour to paint the images
in the chapels of the Sepulchre so as to look deceptively like corpses.
The same morbid instinct has also affected the minds of many among the
more imaginative and powerful artists with a feverish gloom which
distorts their finest work; and lastly--and this is the worst of all its
effects--it has occupied the sensibility of Christian women,
universally, in lamenting the sufferings of Christ, instead of
preventing those of His people.

57. When any of you next go abroad, observe, and consider the meaning
of, the sculptures and paintings, which of every rank in art, and in
every chapel and cathedral, and by every mountain path, recall the
hours, and represent the agonies, of the Passion of Christ: and try to
form some estimate of the efforts that have been made by the four arts
of el