of the world; it breathes of death, and has the sombre harmony of the Miserere.  And nevertheless,—­a strange thing!—­this dreaming painter, who seizes and afflicts us, is the same man who at the same time reassures and consoles us,—­without doubt, because by dint of spiritualizing our thoughts he raises them above our sufferings, by showing the consoling light of eternity to those whom he would sever from the deceitful joys of earth.”

If the picture be not overcolored by the critic’s eye, we must believe this to be the culmination of the morbidly spiritualistic tendency which we meet in Scheffer’s works.  Yet it never exists unrelieved by redeeming qualities.  Many will remember the original picture of the “Dead Christ,” which was exhibited here by an Art Union about ten years ago.  The engraving gives but a faint idea of the touching expression of the whole group.  The deathly pallor of the corpse was in strange harmony with the face of the mother which bent over it, her whole being dissolved in grief and love.  No picture of this scene recalls to us more fully the simple account in the Gospels.  The cold, wan color of the whole scene seems like that gray pall which a public grief will draw across the sky, even when the meridian sun is shining in its glory.  We have seen such days even in Boston.  No wonder that darkness covered the land to the believing disciples even until the ninth hour.

His “St. Monica,” which appeared in 1846, met with great success.  “Ruth and Naomi” is yet unknown to us, but it seems to be a subject specially adapted to his powers.  Of those works which he produced within the last twelve years, very few are yet engraved.  When thus placed before the public, we believe the popular estimate of Scheffer will be raised even higher than at present.

His pictures of Christ are of very superior merit.  His representation of the person of Jesus was not formal and conventional, but fresh in expression and feeling, and full of touching pathos and sentiment.  He has neither the youthful beauty with which the Italians represent him, nor the worn and wasted features which the early Germans often gave him, but a thoughtful, earnest, tender beauty.  The predominant expression is the love and tenderness born of suffering.  Three of his finest representations of the life of Jesus of Nazareth are, “The Christ weeping over Jerusalem,” the “Ecce Homo,” and “The Temptation.”  The last is as original in design and composition; it is noble in expression.  The two figures stand on the summit of a mountain, and the calm, still air around them gives a wonderful sense of height and solitude.  You almost feel the frost of the high, rare atmosphere.  Satan is a very powerful figure,—­not the vulgar devil, but the determined will, the unsanctified power.  The figure of Christ is simple and expressive,—­even the flow of the drapery being full of significance and beauty.  Another composition of great beauty represents a group of souls rising from earth, and soaring upwards to heaven.  The highest ones are already rejoicing in the heavenly light, while those below seem scarcely awakened from the sleep of death.  The whole picture is full of aspiration; everything seems mounting upwards.