The subject is treated with exquisite simplicity by Francia; we have just the same personages as in the rude Greek model, but disposed with consummate grace.  Still, to represent the Child as completely undraped has been considered as a solecism.  He ought to stretch out his hands to his mother and to look as if he understood the portentous words which foretold his destiny.  Sometimes the imagination is assisted by the choice of the accessories; thus Fra Bartolomeo has given us, in the background of his group, Moses holding the broken table of the old law; and Francia represents in the same manner the sacrifice of Abraham; for thus did Mary bring her Son as an offering.  In many pictures Simeon raises his eyes to heaven in gratitude; but those painters who wished to express the presence of the Divinity in the person of Christ, made Simeon looking at the Child, and addressing him as “Lord.”

THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.

Ital. La Fuga in Egitto. Fr. La Fuite de la Sainte Famille en Egypte. Ger. Die Flucht nach AEgypten.

The wrath of Herod against the Magi of the East who had escaped from his power, enhanced by his fears of the divine and kingly Infant, occasioned the massacre of the Innocents, which led to the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt.  Of the martyred children, in their character of martyrs, I have already spoken, and of their proper place in a scheme of ecclesiastical decoration.  There is surely something very pathetic in that feeling which exalted these infant victims into objects of religious veneration, making them the cherished companions in heavenly glory of the Saviour for whose sake they were sacrificed on earth.  He had said, “Suffer little children to come unto me;” and to these were granted the prerogatives of pain, as well as the privileges of innocence.  If, in the day of retribution, they sit at the feet of the Redeemer, surely they will appeal against us, then and there;—­against us who, in these days, through our reckless neglect, slay, body and soul, legions of innocents,—­poor little unblest creatures, “martyrs by the pang without the palm,”—­yet dare to call ourselves Christians.

* * * * *

The Massacre of the Innocents, as an event, belongs properly to the life of Christ:  it is not included in a series of the life of the Virgin, perhaps from a feeling that the contrast between the most blessed of women and mothers, and those who wept distracted for their children, was too painful, and did not harmonize with the general subject.  In pictures of the Flight into Egypt, I have seen it introduced allusively into the background; and in the architectural decoration of churches dedicated to the Virgin Mother, as Notre Dame de Chartres, it finds a place, but not often a conspicuous place;[1] it is rather indicated than represented.  I should pass over the subject altogether, best pleased to be spared the theme, but that there are some circumstances connected with it which require elucidation, because we find them introduced incidentally into pictures of the Flight and the Riposo.