THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.

Ital. L’ Adorazione del Pastori. Fr. L’Adoration des Bergers. Ger. Die Anbetung der Hirten.

The story thus proceeds:—­When the angels were gone away into heaven, the shepherds came with haste, “and found Mary, and Joseph, and the young Child lying in a manger.”

Being come, they present their pastoral offerings—­a lamb, or doves, or fruits (but these, considering the season, are misplaced); they take off their hats with reverence, and worship in rustic fashion.  In Raphael’s composition, the shepherds, as we might expect from him, look as if they had lived in Arcadia.  In some of the later Italian pictures, they pipe and sing.  It is the well-known custom in Italy for the shepherds of the Campagna, and of Calabria, to pipe before the Madonna and Child at Christmas time; and these Piffereri, with their sheepskin jackets, ragged hats, bagpipes, and tabors, were evidently the models reproduced in some of the finest pictures of the Bolognese school; for instance, in the famous Nativity by Annibale Caracci, where a picturesque figure in the corner is blowing into the bagpipes with might and main.  In the Venetian pictures of the Nativity, the shepherds are accompanied by their women, their sheep, and even their dogs.  According to an old legend, Simon and Jude, afterwards apostles, were among these shepherds.

When the angels scatter flowers, as in compositions by Raphael and Ludovico Caracci, we must suppose that they were not gathered on earth, but in heaven.

The Infant is sometimes asleep:—­so Milton sings—­

  “But see the Virgin blest
  Hath laid her Babe to rest!”

In a drawing by Raphael, the Child slumbers, and Joseph raises the coverlid, to show him to a shepherd.  We have the same idea in several other instances.  In a graceful composition by Titian, it is the Virgin Mother who raises the veil from the face of the sleeping Child.

* * * * *

From the number of figures and accessories, the Nativity thus treated as an historical subject becomes capable of almost endless variety; but as it is one not to be mistaken, and has a universal meaning and interest, I may now leave it to the fancy and discrimination of the observer.

THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

Ital. L’ Adorazione de’ Magi.  L’ Epifania. Fr. L’Adoration des Rois Mages. Ger. Die Anbetung der Weisen aus dem Morgenland.  Die heiligen drei Koenige.  Jan. 6.

This, the most extraordinary incident in the early life of our Saviour, rests on the authority of one evangelist only.  It is related by St. Matthew so briefly, as to present many historical and philosophical difficulties.  I must give some idea of the manner in which these difficulties were elucidated by the early commentators, and of the notions which prevailed in the middle ages relative to the country of the Three Kings, before it will be possible to understand or to appreciate the subject as it has been set before us in every style of art, in every form, in every material, from the third century to the present time.