sked in all these cases is, what
is the object, as well as what is the subject. Is it to teach, to
improve, to soften the mind by human love and sympathy, or to excite
it to a just and _hopeful_ indignation, for therein is a source of
pleasure? The rule of tragedy should be applicable here. Undoubtedly,
we receive pleasure from tragic representations. Isolated, barbarism,
cruelty would be intolerably disgusting. But in every good tragedy,
there are always good and lovely characters with whom we can
sympathise. We are bettered by thus uniting ourselves with what is
lovely; and are content to take at second-hand, and thus feel only in
a safe degree, the distresses to which, as human nature ourselves, we
are liable. In pictured representation, however, we have to guard
against the too vivid, and at the same time too permanent, as being a
fixed expression, which, by the art and power of language, we are not
allowed to dwell upon too exclusively; and relief is offered in change
and diversity. There are some very judicious remarks upon disgusting
subjects in "An Essay on the Choice of Subjects in Painting," read, we
believe, some years ago, by Mr Duncan, at the Institution at Bath. We
remember an account in the Essay of a very ridiculous burlesque (it is
not intended so to be) of some of the horrific legends of the Italian
schools. The picture was exhibited in the chapel of Johanna Southcote,
at Newington Butts, near London. St Johanna was represented in a
sky-blue dress, leading the devil with a long chain, like a
dancing-bear, surrounded by adoring angels. Is not this doubtful? "I
add, that, excepting man, that King of Nature, whose head presents to
a painter the subject that is most interesting for character, grace,
dignity, and expression of the whole mind, of which it is the mirror,
no animal, dead or alive, affords, in any one part of its frame,
whatever care may be taken in the execution, more than a subject for a
study, or will by any means form what can be called a picture." This
surely is not quite true. There is a very fine picture of a lioness,
dimly seen at the mouth of her den, in grim repose, that is very
grand. One colour pervades the whole--there is nothing forced; but the
very colour is of the stealthiness of the animal's nature; it is so
dim, that the animal is not strikingly discoverable, but grows out
upon the sight, and we feel the sense of danger with the knowledge of
security. And surely this is the sub