olly_ of La Fontaine.

RELIGIOUS NOUVELLETTES.

I shall notice a class of very singular works, in which the spirit of
romance has been called in to render religion more attractive to certain
heated imaginations.

In the fifteenth century was published a little book of _prayers_,
accompanied by _figures_, both of a very uncommon nature for a religious
publication. It is entitled _Hortulus Animae, cum Oratiunculis aliquibus
superadditis quae in prioribus Libris non habentur_.

It is a small octavo _en lettres gothiques_, printed by John Grunninger,
1500. "A garden," says the author, "which abounds with flowers for the
pleasure of the soul;" but they are full of poison. In spite of his fine
promises, the chief part of these meditations are as puerile as they are
superstitious. This we might excuse, because the ignorance and
superstition of the times allowed such things: but the _figures_ which
accompany this work are to be condemned in all ages; one represents
Saint Ursula and some of her eleven thousand virgins, with all the
licentious inventions of an Aretine. What strikes the ear does not so
much irritate the senses, observes the sage Horace, as what is presented
in all its nudity to the eye. One of these designs is only ridiculous:
David is represented as examining Bathsheba bathing, while Cupid
hovering throws his dart, and with a malicious smile triumphs in his
success. We have had many gross anachronisms in similar designs. There
is a laughable picture in a village in Holland, in which Abraham appears
ready to sacrifice his son Isaac by a loaded blunderbuss; but his pious
intention is entirely frustrated by an angel urining in the pan. In
another painting, the Virgin receives the annunciation of the angel
Gabriel with a huge chaplet of beads tied round her waist, reading her
own offices, and kneeling before a crucifix; another happy invention, to
be seen on an altar-piece at Worms, is that in which the Virgin throws
Jesus into the hopper of a mill, while from the other side he issues
changed into little morsels of bread, with which the priests feast the
people. Matthison, a modern traveller, describes a picture in a church
at Constance, called the Conception of the Holy Virgin. An old man lies
on a cloud, whence he darts out a vast beam, which passes through a dove
hovering just below; at the end of a beam appears a large transparent
egg, in which egg is seen a child in swaddling clothes with a glory
rou