n of these two ideals as the subject of this picture.
The Knight, clothed in bright armour and gay raiment, bearing no
relation at all to the clothes worn in 1500, rests upon his shield
beneath the slight shade of a very slender tree. In his dream there
appear to him two figures, both of whom claim his knightly allegiance
for life: one, a young and lovely girl in a bright coloured dress with
flowers in her hair, tempts him to embrace a life of mirth, of

Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles,
Nods and Becks and wreathed Smiles.

The other resembles the same poet's

Pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure.

She holds sword and book, symbols of stern action and wise
accomplishment. Which the knight will choose we are not told, perhaps
because Raphael himself never had to make the choice. He was too gifted
and too fond of work to be tempted from it by anything whatever. Always
joyous and always successful, he was able to paint any subject, sacred,
profane, ancient, or modern, so long as it was a happy one. He was
too busy and too gay to feel pain and sorrow, as Botticelli felt them,
and to paint sad subjects. To him the visible world was good and
beautiful, and the invisible world lovely and happy likewise. His
Madonnas are placid or smiling mothers. The fat and darling babies
they hold are indeed divine but not awesome. Yet the extraordinary
sweetness of expression, nobility of form, and beauty of colouring
in the Madonnas make you almost hold your breath when you look at them.

In the 'Knight's Dream' there is a simple beauty in the pose and
grouping of the figures. You can hardly fancy three figures better
arranged for the purpose of the subject. There is something inevitable
about them, which is the highest praise due to a mastery of design
in the art of composition. Raphael's surpassing gift was in fitting
beautiful figures into any given space, so that it seems as though
the space had been made to fit the figures, instead of the figures
to fit the space. You could never put his round Madonnas into a square
frame. The figures would look as wrong as in a round frame they look
right. If you were to cut off a bit of the foreground in any of his
pictures and add the extra piece to the sky, you would make the whole
look wrong, whereas perhaps you might add on a piece of sky to Hubert
van Eyck's 'Three Maries' without spoiling the effect.

[Illustration: THE KNIGHT