perspective. The imagination delights in
distance, and feels imprisoned where there is no opening in an
inclosure.

The principal lines of this composition run diagonally from corner to
corner, intersecting in the centre. Some of these are so clearly
defined that we can easily trace them. One extends from the uplifted
right hand of the Duchess across the slanting line of her bodice and
along the lower edge of the child's frock. The lines of her left arm
run parallel with this. In the other direction the uplifted arms of
the baby, as well as the edge of the curtain, indicate the lines which
cross these.

IX

HOPE

We have naturally come to think of Reynolds as chiefly a portrait
painter. It was, indeed, by his work in portraiture that his name
ranks among the great masters. Yet he made various interesting
excursions into other fields. We may see what charming fancy pictures
he sometimes painted in Cupid as Link Boy and The Strawberry Girl.
Historical pictures he also attempted, but not so successfully.
Religious and allegorical subjects he tried occasionally, and it is to
illustrate his work of this kind that our picture of Hope is chosen.

The figure is a part of a large decorative scheme for a stained
window. The central compartment is devoted to the subject of the
Nativity, and shows a group of the Virgin mother with the Christ child
in the manger, Joseph and the angels. In imitation of Correggio's
famous painting of the same subject, called the _Notte_, the light of
the picture proceeds from the Babe. Two smaller compartments on either
side are filled with shepherds coming to worship. Below is a series of
seven panels, containing the figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and
the four cardinal virtues--Temperance, Justice, Fortitude, and
Prudence.

This plan of subjects was made by Reynolds early in 1778, to meet an
order from New College, Oxford, for a window design to be executed for
their chapel. Hope was one of the first figures that he painted, and
in 1779 he was ready to exhibit, at the Royal Academy, the Nativity,
with Faith, Hope, and Charity.

The three fundamental elements of Christian character have been
associated together ever since the fifteenth chapter of first
Corinthians was written. Artists and poets have had a fashion of
personifying them as allegorical figures. Certain symbols have even
been invented to correspond to each--the cross for faith, the anchor
for hope, and the heart fo