joy and adoration towards the principal group.  Lower down on the right of the throne are eighteen, and on the left twenty-two, of the principal patriarchs, apostles, saints, and martyrs, among whom the worthies of Angelico’s own community, St. Dominick and St. Peter Martyr, are of course conspicuous.  At the foot of the throne kneel on one side St. Augustine, St. Benedict, St. Charlemagne, the royal saint; St. Nicholas; and St. Thomas Aquinas holding a pen (the great literary saint of the Dominican order, and author of the Office of the Virgin); on the left we have a group of virgins, St. Agnes, St. Catherine with her wheel, St. Catherine of Siena, her habit spangled with stars; St. Cecilia crowned with her roses, and Mary Magdalene, with her long golden hair.[1] Beneath this great composition runs a border or predella, in seven compartments, containing in the centre a Pieta, and on each side three small subjects from the history of St. Dominick, to whom the church, whence it was taken, is dedicated.  The spiritual beauty of the heads, the delicate tints of the colouring, an ineffable charm of mingled brightness and repose shed over the whole, give to this lovely picture an effect like that of a church hymn, sung at some high festival by voices tuned in harmony—­“blest voices, uttering joy!”

[Footnote 1:  See “Legends of the Monastic Orders,” and “Sacred and Legendary Art,” for an account of all these personages.]

In strong contrast with the graceful Italian conception, is the German “Coronation,” now in the Wallerstein collection. (Kensington Pal.) It is supposed to have been painted for Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, either by Hans Hemling, or a painter not inferior to him.  Here the Virgin is crowned by the Trinity.  She kneels, with an air of majestic humility, and hands meekly folded on her bosom, attired in simple blue drapery, before a semicircular throne, on which are seated the Father and the Son, between them, with outspread wings, touching their mouths, the Holy Dove.  The Father a venerable figure, wears the triple tiara, and holds the sceptre; Christ, with an expression of suffering, holds in his left hand a crystal cross; and they sustain between them a crown which they are about to place on the head of the Virgin.  Their golden throne is adorned with gems, and over it is a glory of seraphim, with hair, faces, and plumage, all of a glowing red.  The lower part of this picture and the compartments on each side are filled with a vast assemblage of saints, and martyrs, and holy confessors:  conspicuous among them we find the saints most popular in Flanders and Burgundy—­St. Adrian, St. George, St. Sebastian, St. Maurice, clad in coats of mail and crowned with laurel, with other kingly and warlike personages; St. Philip, the patron of Philip the Good; St. Andrew, in whose honour he instituted the order of the Golden Fleece:  and a figure in a blue mantle with a ducal crown, one of the three kings of Cologne, is supposed to represent Duke Philip himself.  It is, impossible by any description to do justice to this wonderful picture, as remarkable for its elaborate workmanship, the mysticism of the conception, the quaint elegance of the details, and portrait-like reality of the faces, as that of Angelico for its spiritual, tender, imaginative grace.