and Child) a plain resemblance to the typical treatment of a well-known subject—­the Adoration of the Magi.  You remember how when the three Wise Men of the East—­always thought of in the Middle Ages as Kings—­had followed the star which led them to the manger where Christ was born, they brought Him gold and frankincense and myrrh as offerings.  This beautiful story was a favourite one in the Middle Ages, often represented in sculpture and painting.  One King always kneels before the Virgin and Child, presenting his gift, whilst the other two stand behind with theirs in their hands.  The standing Kings and the kneeling Richard in our picture, are grouped in just the same relation to the divine Infant as the three Magi.  The imitation of the type is clear.  There was a special reason for this, in that the birthday of Richard fell upon January 6, the feast of the Epiphany, when the Wise Men did homage to the Babe.  The picture, by reminding us of the three Wise Men, commemorated the birthday of the King as well as his coronation, the two chief dates of his life.

You have some idea now of the train of thought which this fourteenth-century painter endeavoured to express in his picture commemorative of the coronation of a King.  A medieval coronation was a very solemn ceremony indeed, and the picture had to be a serious expression of the great traditions of the throne of England, suggested by the figures of St. Edward and St. Edmund, and of hope for future good to the realm, to ensue from the blessings of the Virgin and Child upon the young King.  Religious feeling is dominant in this picture, and if from it you could turn to others of like date, you would find the same to be true.  The meaning was the main thing thought of.  When Giotto painted his scenes from the life of St. Francis, his first aim was that the stories should be well told and easily grasped by all who looked at them.  Their beauty was of less importance.  This difference between the aim of art in the Middle Ages and in our own day is fundamental.  If you begin by picking to pieces the pictures of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries because the drawing is bad, the colouring crude, and the grouping unnatural, you might as well never look at them at all.  Putting faults and old fashions aside to think of the meaning of the picture, we shall often be rewarded by finding a soul within, and the work may affect us powerfully, notwithstanding its simple forms and few strong colours.

Nevertheless, after the painter had planned his picture so as to convey its message and meaning, he did try to make it beautiful to look upon, and he often succeeded.  In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it was beauty of outline and a pleasant patching together of bright colours for which the painters strove, both in pictures and in manuscripts.  If you think of this picture for a moment as a coloured pattern, you will see how pretty it is.  The blue wings against the gold background make a hedge for the angel