ot the kind we look for from a man who stood
five feet eleven in his stockings, and wore his own gray hair. Strangely
enough, Shenstone had the _physique_ of a ploughman or a prize-fighter,
and with it the fine, sensitive brain of a woman; a Greek in his
refinements, and a Greek in indolence. I hope he gets on better in the
other world than he ever did in this.

ON THE RELATION OF ART TO NATURE.

IN TWO PARTS.

PART II.

The repulsive ugliness of the early Christian paintings was not the
consequence of any break in the tradition. There was no reason why the
graceful drawing of the human figure should not have been transmitted,
as well as the technical procedures and the pigments. Nor was effort
wanting: these pictures were often very elaborate and splendid in
execution. But it is clear that grace and resemblance to anything
existing, so far from being aimed at, were intentionally avoided. Even
as late as the thirteenth century we find figures with blue legs and red
bodies,--the horses in a procession blue, red, and yellow. Any whim of
association, or fanciful color-pattern, was preferred to beauty or
correctness. Likeness to actual things seemed to be regarded, indeed, as
an unavoidable evil, to be restricted as far as possible. The problem
was, to show God's omnipresence in the world, especially His appearance
on the earth as man, and His abiding presence in holy men and women as
an inspiration obliterating their humanity. But so long as the divine
and the human are looked upon as essentially opposed, their union can be
by miracle only, and the first thought must be to keep prominent this
miraculousness, and guard against confusion of this angelic existence
with every-day reality. The result is this realm of ghosts, at home
neither in heaven nor on earth, neither presuming to be spirit nor
condescending to be body, but hovering intermediate. But the more
strongly the antithesis is felt, the nearer the thought to end this
remaining tenderness for the gross and unspiritual,--to drop this
ballast of earth, and rise into the region of heavenly realities. Upon a
window of Canterbury Cathedral, beneath a representation of the miracle
of Cana, is the legend,--_"Lympha dat historiam, vinum notat
allegoriam."_ But if the earthly is there only for the sake of this
heavenly transmutation,--if the miracle, and the miracle alone, shows
God's purpose accomplished,--then all things must be miraculous, for all
else may be