CHRIST BLESSING LITTLE CHILDREN.

"And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. "But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not for of such is the kingdom of God.

"Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them."-Mark x. 13-16.

PERSPICUITY, or that quality which conveys ideas to the mind with entire clearness and precision, is one of the highest excellencies in the communication of thought, either through the medium of art, literature, or discourse. This quality was possest in perfection by the august person who forms the central object in this picture. The perfect morality he taught, the practice of which confers the highest attainable excellence and happiness on human nature, was conveyed to the head and heart by language and images the most intelligible and impressive. To the unlettered and ignorant it was equally comprehensive, instructive, and delightful.

Thus, nothing could be more beautiful, and at the same time more impressive, than the symbol which enforces the moral inculcated in this picture, that of purity of heart and conduct. Mr. West has here told the incident and moral of the piece with all the corresponding perspicuity the pencil is capable of, so that a spectator, who had even never read the description of it, would recognize the great teacher impressing on his auditory some important truth drawn from the early age of innocence. In accomplishing this object, the painter has exhibited one of the best tests of a great and commanding talent; he has carried the subject impressively to the mind, though it is a subject unaided by the explanatory appearance of passionate emotion; an amenity that soothes the mind to an agreeable complacency, and a calm dignity that elevates it, are its presiding attributes. The secondary objects are in unison with the chief in producing these effects, which belong to the gracefully simple and dignified forms of a column, and the noble diagonal line of all the figures, except three on the left hand, which obviate the formality it would otherwise present; the drapery too, in an eminent degree, is characteristically accordant with the subject. That of the male figures has a graceful involution and dignified amplitude of fold suitable to the gravity of the wearer. Those of the female and children are as appropriately light and elegant. As the action and expression of all the other figures should carry the attention of the spectator with more impressive force to the main personage, the significant countenances, action and expression of the figures in this piece, are all subordinate to this purpose. Their attention, admiration, or earnest conversation induced by the divine discourse of the Saviour, are so many beautiful luminous rays, converging to the more luminous focus of the picture's expression.

This admirable picture was the joint purchase of four of the Governors of the Foundling Hospital, who gratuitously presented it as an appropriate Altar-piece for the Chapel of that charitable establishment, where it is now deposited.

R. H.

THE CAPTIVE.

"It is thou, thrice sweet and gracious Goddess, addressing myself to LIBERTY, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change no tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled Gracious Heaven! cried I, kneeling down upon the last step but one in my ascent grant me but health, thou great Bestower of it, and give me but this fair Goddess as my companion-and shower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them.

-"I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door, to take his picture.

"I beheld his body half-wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish in thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood he had seen no sun, no moon in all that time-nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice:-his children

"But here my heart began to bleed-and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.

"He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the farthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed a little calender of small sticks were laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle- He gave a deep sigh-I saw the iron enter into his soul I burst into tears not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn."- Sterne's Sentimental Journey.

I could

A SUBJECT of this mournful nature, is perhaps more difficult of expression than most which employ the pencil of the historic painter, as it requires a deviation from those forms of grace and dignity, which are the constant objects of his study, into novel, broken, and, if I may allowed the phrase, decrepid forms, yet so as not only to avoid presenting what is offensive, but to stamp on the mind a powerful impression of the pathetic. These difficulties are here overcome, and the impression effected, by the delineation of forms involved and angular. The drapery is as judiciously divested of broad masses; for the elegant simplicity of such masses would detract from the due delineation of the haggard, neglected, care-worn wretch, whose spirit and whose frame are sunk down by years of hopelessness, the wreck of all that is mentally happy and corporeally vigorous in human nature. "The iron that appears to enter his soul," inflicts a sympathetic pang of sorrow and pity in our own; and the dejection of our feelings confers an eulogy on the Painter, more honourable to his talent than any that could arise from the critical eloquence of a Wincklemann or a Reynolds. What particularly strikes the feelings, while it tells in the most complete manner the story of the prisoner's former condition and present misery, is the size of the bones, contrasted with the shrinking and, as it were, daily waste of the muscles: the living flesh seems departing, and the skeleton already anticipating its grave.

R. H.