ss trunks, and obelisks
upside-down, has been the last effort of his expiring sensation, in the
grasp of corrupt and altogether victorious Death. And you have thus, in
Gainsborough as compared with Raphael, a sweet, sacred, and living
simplicity, set against an impure, profane, and paralyzed knowledge.

152. But, next, let us consider the reverse conditions.

Let us take instance of contrast between faultful and treacherous
ignorance, and divinely pure and fruitful knowledge.

In the place of honor at the end of one of the rooms of your Royal
Academy--years ago--stood a picture by an English Academician, announced
as a representation of Moses sustained by Aaron and Hur, during the
discomfiture of Amalek. In the entire range of the Pentateuch, there is
no other scene (in which the visible agents are mortal only) requiring
so much knowledge and thought to reach even a distant approximation to
the probabilities of the fact. One saw in a moment that the painter was
both powerful and simple, after a sort; that he had really sought for a
vital conception, and had originally and earnestly read his text, and
formed his conception. And one saw also in a moment that he had chanced
upon this subject, in reading or hearing his Bible, as he might have
chanced on a dramatic scene accidentally in the street. That he knew
nothing of the character of Moses,--nothing of his law,--nothing of the
character of Aaron, nor of the nature of a priesthood,--nothing of the
meaning of the event which he was endeavoring to represent, of the
temper in which it would have been transacted by its agents, or of its
relations to modern life.

153. On the contrary, in the fresco of the earlier scenes in the life of
Moses, by Sandro Botticelli, you know--not 'in a moment,' for the
knowledge of knowledge cannot be so obtained; but in proportion to the
discretion of your own reading, and to the care you give to the picture,
you _may_ know,--that here is a sacredly guided and guarded learning;
here a Master indeed, at whose feet you may sit safely, who can teach
you, better than in words, the significance of both Moses' law and
Aaron's ministry; and not only these, but, if he chose, could add to
this an exposition as complete of the highest philosophies both of the
Greek nation, and of his own; and could as easily have painted, had it
been asked of him, Draco, or Numa, or Justinian, as the herdsman of
Jethro.

154. It is rarely that we can point to an op