ter another reads as consecutive
sonnets bearing on continuous themes. The events depicted as a matter of
course fall into accustomed routine; they almost of necessity begin with
_The Annunciation_ and end with _The Ascension_. Yet Overbeck, while
inspired was not enslaved by his predecessors; often are presented novel
and even bold conceptions, as in _The Massacre of the Innocents_ (1843)
and _Barabbas released and borne in Triumph_ (1849). Such designs prove
an intellect neither servile nor sterile. Certain other compositions are
marred by affectation and sentimentality, traits of morbid moods
increasing with years, and which contrast strangely with the healthiness
and robustness of the great old masters. Fitly have been chosen to
illustrate these pages _The Naming of St. John_ (1843), _Christ Healing
the Sick_ (1843), _Christ's Entry into Jerusalem_ (1849), _The
Entombment_ (1844), and _The Resurrection_ (1848). Two other
illustrations, _Christ in the Temple_ and Christ _falling under the
Cross_ show variations on the Gospel series. Overbeck may be compared to
certain fastidious writers who mature by endless emendations and
finishing touches; he loved to recur oft and again to favourite texts,
changing attitudes, adding or subtracting figures, episodes, or
accessories. His lifelong compositions are as a peopled world of the
elect and precious: many of the characters we claim as old
acquaintances; the figures come, go, and return again, changed, yet
without a break in personal identity. They move round a common centre;
Christ is their life; they are in soul and body Christian.

These "Gospels" have taken a permanent place in the world's Christian
Art. If not wholly worthy of so large and grand a theme, they yet
scarcely suffer from comparison with like efforts by other artists. They
have hardly less of unction and holiness than Fra Angelico's designs,
while undoubtedly they display profounder science and art. That they
have nothing in common with the Bible of Gustave Dore is much to their
praise; on the other hand, that they lack the inventive fertility and
the imaginative flight of the Bible of Julius Schnorr indicates that
they fall short of universality. These Gospels, it may also be said,
pertain not to the Church militant, but to the Church triumphant; not to
the world at large, but to a select company of believers. They teach the
passive virtues--patience, resignation, long-suffering, and so far
realise the pain