Secondly, we find that the associations left in the minds of the people by the expeditions of the Crusaders and the pilgrimages to the Holy Sepulchre, rendered the Deposition and the Entombment particularly popular and impressive as subjects of art, even down to a late period.  “Ce que la vaillante epee des ayeux avait glorieusement defendu, le ciscaux des enfans aimait a le reproduire, leur piete a l’honorer.”  I think we may trace these associations in many examples, particularly in a Deposition by Raphael, of which there is a fine old engraving.  Here, in the centre, stands a circular building, such as the church at Jerusalem was always described; in front of which are seen the fainting Virgin and the mournful women:  a grand and solemn group, but poetically rather than historically treated.

* * * * *

In conclusion, I must notice one more form of the Mater Dolorosa, one of the dramatic conceptions of the later schools of art; as far as I knew, there exist no early examples.

In a picture by Guercino (Louvre), the Virgin and St. Peter lament the death of the Saviour.  The Mother, with her clasped hands resting on her knees, appears lost in resigned sorrow:  she mourns her Son.  Peter, weeping, as with a troubled grief, seems to mourn at once his Lord and Master, and his own weak denial.  This picture has the energetic feeling and utter want of poetic elevation which generally characterized Guercino.

There is a similar group by Ludovico Caracci in the Duonio at Bologna.

In a picture by Tiarini, the Madre Addolorata is seated, holding in her hand the crown of thorns; Mary Magdalene kneels before her, and St. John stands by—­both expressing the utmost veneration and sympathy.  These and similar groups are especially to be found in the later Bologna school.  In all the instances known to me, they have been painted for the Dominicans, and evidently intended to illustrate the sorrows of the Rosary.

In one of the services of the Passion Week, and in particular reference to the maternal anguish of the Virgin, it was usual to read, as the Epistle, a selection from the first chapter of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, eloquent in the language of desolation and grief.  The painters seemed to have filled their imagination with the images there presented; and frequently in the ideal Pieta the daughter of Jerusalem “sits solitary, with none to comfort her.”  It is the contrary in the dramatic version:  the devotion of the women, the solicitude of the affectionate Magdalene, and the filial reverence of St. John, whom the scriptural history associates with the Virgin in a manner so affecting, are never forgotten.

In obedience to the last command of his dying Master, John the Evangelist—­

  “He, into whose keeping, from the cross,
  The mighty charge was given—­”

  DANTE.