not any minor circumstance more
indicative of the _intense_ difference between the mediaeval and the
Renaissance spirit, than the mode in which this god is represented.

I have above said, that all great European art is rooted in the
thirteenth century; and it seems to me that there is a kind of central
year about which we may consider the energy of the middle ages to be
gathered; a kind of focus of time which, by what is to my mind a most
touching and impressive Divine appointment, has been marked for us by
the greatest writer of the middle ages, in the first words he utters;
namely, the year 1300, the "mezzo del cammin" of the life of Dante. Now,
therefore, to Giotto, the contemporary of Dante, and who drew Dante's
still existing portrait in this very year, 1300, we may always look for
the central mediaeval idea in any subject: and observe how he represents
Cupid; as one of three, a terrible trinity, his companions being Satan
and Death; and he himself "a lean scarecrow, with bow, quiver, and
fillet, and feet ending in claws,"[155] thrust down into Hell by
Penance, from the presence of Purity and Fortitude. Spenser, who has
been so often noticed as furnishing the exactly intermediate type of
conception between the mediaeval and the Renaissance, indeed represents
Cupid under the form of a beautiful winged god, and riding on a lion,
but still no plaything of the Graces, but full of terror:

"With that the darts which his right hand did straine
Full dreadfully he shooke, that all did quake,
And clapt on hye his coloured winges twaine,
That all his many it afraide did make."

His _many_, that is to say, his company; and observe what a company it
is. Before him go Fancy, Desire, Doubt, Danger, Fear, Fallacious Hope,
Dissemblance, Suspicion, Grief, Fury, Displeasure, Despite, and Cruelty.
After him, Reproach, Repentance, Shame,

"Unquiet Care, and fond Unthriftyhead,
Lewd Losse of Time, and Sorrow seeming dead,
Inconstant Chaunge, and false Disloyalty,
Consuming Riotise, and guilty Dread
Of heavenly vengeaunce; faint Infirmity,
Vile Poverty, and lastly Death with infamy."

Compare these two pictures of Cupid with the Love-god of the
Renaissance, as he is represented to this day, confused with angels, in
every faded form of ornament and allegory, in our furniture, our
literature, and our minds.

Sec. LXXXVII. _Second side._ Gluttony. A woman in a turban, with a
jewelled cup in her right h