ch they suppose is to stand for Mount
Tabor, think the group above profane, and the group below horrible. Such
as these, with a courage quite superior to all artistic criticism, and
undazzled by the accumulated fame of five centuries, venture on a fiat
which reminds one of nothing so much as Voltaire's ridicule of Hamlet,
and his denunciation of that _barbare_, that _imbecile de Shakespeare_,
who would not write so as to be appreciated by a French critic.

Now, in looking at the Transfiguration (and I hope the reader, if the
original be far off, will at least have a good print before him while
going over these following remarks), we must bear in mind that it is not
an historical but a devotional picture--that the intention of the
painter was not to represent a scene, but to excite religious feelings
by expressing, so far as painting might do it, a very sublime idea,
which it belongs to us to interpret.

I can best accomplish this, perhaps, by putting down naturally my own
impressions, when I last had the opportunity of studying this divine
picture.

If we remove to a certain distance from it, so that the forms shall
become vague, indistinct, and only the masses of colour and the light
and shade perfectly distinguishable, we shall see that the picture is
indeed divided as if horizontally, the upper half being all light, and
the lower half comparatively all dark. As we approach nearer, step by
step, we behold above, the radiant figure of the Saviour floating in mid
air, with arms outspread, garments of transparent light, glorified
visage upturned as in rapture, and the hair uplifted and scattered as I
have seen it in persons under the influence of electricity. On the
right, Moses; on the left, Elijah; representing, respectively, the old
law and the old prophecies, which both testified of Him. The three
disciples lie on the ground, terror-struck, dazzled. There is a sort of
eminence or platform, but no perspective, no attempt at real locality,
for the scene is revealed as in a vision, and the same soft transparent
light envelops the whole. This is the spiritual life, raised far above
the earth, but not yet in heaven. Below is seen the earthly life, poor
humanity struggling helplessly with pain, infirmity, and death. The
father brings his son, the possessed, or, as we should now say, the
epileptic boy, who ofttimes falls into the water or into the fire, or
lies grovelling on the earth, foaming and gnashing his teeth; the