but when I am told it is the “Vergine gloriosa, del Re Eterno Madre, Figliuola, e Sposa,” I look instantly for something far beyond what I see expressed.  All Murillo’s Virgins are so different from each other, that it is plain the artist did not paint from any preconceived idea of his own mind, but from different originals; they are all impressed with that general air of truth, nature, and common life, which stamps upon them a peculiar and distinct character.

Andrea del Sarto, who is in style as in character the very reverse of Murillo, fascinated me at first by his enchanting colouring, and the magical aerial depths of his chiaro-oscuro; but on a further acquaintance with his works, I was struck by the predominance of external form and colour over mind and feeling.  His Virgins look as if they had been born and bred in the first circles of society, and have a particular air of elegance, an artificial grace, an attraction, which may be entirely traced to exterior; to the cast of the features, the contour of the form, the disposition of the draperies, the striking attitudes, and, above all, the divine colouring:  beauty and dignity, and powerful effect, we always find in his pictures:  but no moral pathos—­no poetry—­no sentiment—­above all, a strange and total want of devotional expression, simplicity and humility.  His Virgin with St. Francis and St. John, which hangs behind the Venus in the Tribunes, is a wonderful picture; and there are two charming Madonnas in the Borghese Palace at Rome.  In the first we are struck by the grouping and colouring; in the last, by a certain graceful lengthiness of the limbs and fine animated drawing in the attitudes.  But we look in vain for the “sacred and the sweet,” for heart, for soul, for countenance.

Andrea del Sarto had, in his profession, great talents rather than genius and enthusiasm.  He was weak, dissipated, unprincipled; without elevation of mind or generosity of temper; and that his moral character was utterly contemptible, is proved by one trait in his life.  A generous patron who had relieved him in his necessity, afterwards entrusted him with a considerable sum of money, to be laid out in certain purchases; Andrea del Sarto perfidiously embezzled the whole, and turned it to his own use.  This story is told in his life, with the addition that “he was persuaded to it by his wife, as profligate and extravagant as himself.”

Carlo Dolce’s gentle, delicate, and melancholy temperament, are strongly expressed in his own portrait, which is in the Gallery of Paintings here.  All his pictures are tinged by the morbid delicacy of his constitution, and the refinement of his character and habits.  They have exquisite finish, but a want of power, degenerating at times into coldness and feebleness; his Madonnas are distinguished by regular feminine beauty, melancholy, devotion, or resigned sweetness:  he excelled in Mater Dolorosa.  The most beautiful of his Virgins is in Pitti Palace, of which picture there is a duplicate in the Borghese Palace at Rome.