of the subject untouched
in the former lecture, and it seems to me of no inferior interest.

[Footnote 1: The vapor over the pool of Anger in the 'Inferno,' the
clogging stench which rises from Caina, and the fog of the circle
of Anger in the 'Purgatorio' resemble, indeed, the cloud of the
Plague-wind very closely,--but are conceived only as supernatural.
The reader will no doubt observe, throughout the following lecture,
my own habit of speaking of beautiful things as 'natural,' and of
ugly ones as 'unnatural.' In the conception of recent philosophy,
the world is one Kosmos in which diphtheria is held to be as
natural as song, and cholera as digestion. To my own mind, and the
more distinctly the more I see, know, and feel, the Earth, as
prepared for the abode of man, appears distinctly ruled by agencies
of health and disease, of which the first may be aided by his
industry, prudence, and piety; while the destroying laws are
allowed to prevail against him, in the degree in which he allows
himself in idleness, folly, and vice. Had the point been distinctly
indicated where the degrees of adversity necessary for his
discipline pass into those intended for his punishment, the world
would have been put under a manifest theocracy; but the declaration
of the principle is at least distinct enough to have convinced all
sensitive and earnest persons, from the beginning of speculation in
the eyes and mind of Man: and it has been put in my power by one
of the singular chances which have always helped me in my work when
it was in the right direction, to present to the University
of Oxford the most distinct expression of this first principle
of mediaeval Theology which, so far as I know, exists in
fifteenth-century art. It is one of the drawings of the Florentine
book which I bought for a thousand pounds, against the British
Museum, some ten or twelve years since; being a compendium of
classic and mediaeval religious symbolism. In the two pages of it,
forming one picture, given to Oxford, the delivery of the Law on
Sinai is represented on the left hand, (_contrary to the Scriptural
narrative_, but in deeper expression of the benediction of the
Sacred Law to all nations,) as in the midst of bright and calm
light, the figure of the Deity being supported by luminous and
level clouds, and attended by happy angels: while opposite, on the
right hand, the worship of the Golden Calf is symbolized by a
single decorated pillar, with the calf