[25] Not the “sole bidder,” as Allan Cunningham and others have inferred.  If this were so, in “making the pounds guineas,” Mr. Lane would be bidding against himself, a thing which occasionally occurs at auctions, but is not recommended.  We have failed to find any other account of this transaction than that supplied to Nichols for his second edition of 1782, pp. 225-7, by Mr. Lane himself, which is summarized above.  Cunningham seems to have derived his information from the same source; but he strangely transforms it.  We can but surmise that he followed Ireland’s transcript, in which the highest bid is given as L110, instead of L120—­a rather unfortunate mistake, for it appears to have misled a good many people.

THE MADONNA OF THE ROCKS

(LEONARDO DA VINCI)

THEOPHILE GAUTIER

The engraving has popularized the Vierge aux Rochers,[26] that composition that exhales the strange and mysterious grace of the master.  In a strange spot, a kind of grotto bristling with stalactites and sharply pointed rocks, the holy Virgin presents the little Saint John to the Infant Jesus, who blesses him with uplifted finger.  An angel with a proud and charming face,—­a celestial hermaphrodite having something of the young maiden and the youth but superior to either in his ideal beauty,—­accompanies and supports the little Jesus like a page of the great household who watches over the child of the king with mingled respect and protection.  Hair of a thousand crisp curls frames that face so aristocratic and distinguished.  Certainly this angel occupies a very high rank in the hierarchy of the sky; he should, at least, possess a throne, a dominion, or a principality.  The Infant Jesus draws himself up in a pose that shows great knowledge of foreshortening, and is a marvel of roundness and fine modelling.  The Virgin is of that charming Lombard type in which under chaste innocence appears that malicious playfulness which da Vinci excels in rendering.  The colour of this majestic picture has blackened, particularly in the shadows, but it has lost nothing of its harmony, and perhaps it is more ideally poetic than if it had kept its original freshness and the natural tones of life.  Doubts have been raised regarding this picture.  Some critics have wished to see here merely a composition by Leonardo executed by a strange hand, or even simply the copy of another canvas painted for the chapel of the Conception of the church of the Franciscans in Milan.  But none other than Leonardo could have drawn such firm and pure contours or carried this model through those learned grades that give to the body the roundness of sculpture with all the softness of skin, or rendered his favourite types so superbly and delicately....

[Illustration:  THE MADONNA OF THE ROCKS.
        L. da Vinci.]