he is at peace
after the storm and the agony, and for a space we lie still as she in
those angel arms. Of the same class is Raphael's 'Transfiguration,'
which is magnificent if we only contemplate the grouping of the
figures, but truly sublime in the ideas it suggests. Flaxman's
'Mercury and Pandora' likewise, elegant and graceful in the highest
degree, is peculiarly suited for generally used rooms and constant
delight. But specimens crowd into our recollection for which we have
not space. General sitting-rooms can bear a _variety_ of subject and
suggestion--they will have a variety of inhabitants or visitors; and
while bearing the impress of a certain unity, they should contain
pleasure for all, and stimuli for differing minds. We would not
habitually admit in them works of art which rouse too painful a class
of emotions. Fuseli's picture of 'Count Ugolino in Prison,' in which
the stony fixedness of despair deprives us, as we gaze, almost of the
living hope within us, we could not bear to have near us habitually.
That wonderfully beautiful marble of Francesca di Rimini and her
lover, which appeared in the Great Exhibition last year, would come
under the same law of banishment. It realised so perfectly the
hopelessness of hell, that at sight of it we swooned in spirit as
Dante did in reality. Life has so many stern realities for most of us,
that in art we need relief, and generally desire to find renewed hope
and faith through delight and gladness.

In rooms where we need care to please only ourselves, we can follow
our own tastes more entirely and freely. In them, shall we not have a
Madonna whose 'eyes are homes of silent prayer?'--a copy of De la
Roche's 'Christ,' so touching in its sad and noble serenity? or some
bust or engraving of poet or hero, which shall be to us as a
biography, never failing to stimulate us in the best direction? Or
shall we have a copy of that fine Mercury, who stands resting lightly
on the earth with one foot, and raised, outstretched arms, in the act
of ascending from it--the embodiment of aspiration? All these things
are symbols of noble thought, and they may belong to us as easily now
as a copy of Bacon or Shakspeare. Here is great cause for rejoicing.
Fantastic furniture, old china, and such-like things, will one day be
superseded in drawing-rooms, just as the old, barbarously-coloured
'Noahs' and 'Abrahams' of the cottage may now easily be by pictures in
better perspective and purer ta