early times, had assigned to her, the supernatural endowments which lifted her above angels and men:—­all these were to be combined into one glorious type of perfection.  Where shall we seek this highest, holiest impersonation!  Where has it been attained, or even approached?  Not, certainly, in the mere woman, nor yet in the mere idol; not in those lovely creations which awaken a sympathetic throb of tenderness; nor in those stern, motionless types,—­which embody a dogma; not in the classic features of marble goddesses, borrowed as models; nor in the painted images which stare upon us from tawdry altars in flaxen wigs and embroidered petticoats.  But where?

Of course we each form to ourselves some notion of what we require; and these requirements will be as diverse as our natures and our habits of thought.  For myself, I have seen my own ideal once, and only once, attained:  there, where Raphael—­inspired if ever painter was inspired—­projected on the space before him that wonderful creation which we style the Madonna di San Sisto (Dresden Gal.); for there she stands—­the transfigured woman, at once completely human and completely divine, an abstraction of power, purity, and love, poised on the empurpled air, and requiring no other support; looking out, with her melancholy, loving mouth, her slightly dilated, sibylline eyes, quite through the universe, to the end and consummation of all things;—­sad, as if she beheld afar off the visionary sword that was to reach her heart through HIM, now resting as enthroned on that heart; yet already exalted through the homage of the redeemed generations who were to salute her as Blessed.  Six times have I visited the city made glorious by the possession of this treasure, and as often, when again at a distance, with recollections disturbed by feeble copies and prints, I have begun to think, “Is it so indeed? is she indeed so divine? or does not rather the imagination encircle her with a halo of religion and poetry, and lend a grace which is not really there?” and as often, when returned, I have stood before it and confessed that there is more in that form and face than I had ever yet conceived.  I cannot here talk the language of critics, and speak of this picture merely as a picture, for to me it was a revelation.  In the same gallery is the lovely Madonna of the Meyer family:  inexpressibly touching and perfect in its way, but conveying only one of the attributes of Mary, her benign pity; while the Madonna di San Sisto is an abstract of all.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Expression is the great and characteristic excellence of Raphael more especially in his Madonnas.  It is precisely this which all copies and engravings render at best most imperfectly; and in point of expression the most successful engraving of the Madonna di San Sisto is certainly that of Steinla.]

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The poets are ever the best commentators on the painters.  I have already given from the great “singers of high poems” in the fourteenth century their exposition of the theological type of the Madonna.  Now, in some striking passages of our modern poets, we may find a most beautiful commentary on what I have termed the moral type.