The figure of Eve in Raphael’s design (the one engraved by Marc Antonio) is exquisitely statuesque as well as exquisitely beautiful. In the moment that she presents the apple to Adam she looks—perhaps she ought to look—like the _Venus Vincitrice_ of the antique time; but I am not sure; and, at all events, the less of the classical sentiment the better. [Illustration] ADAM. I have seen no statue of Adam; but surely he is a fine subject, either alone or as the companion of Eve; and the Miltonic type is here all-sufficient, combining the heroic ideal of Greek art with something higher still— “Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure,” whence true authority in men—in fact, essential manliness. Goethe had the idea that Adam ought to be represented with a spade, as the progenitor of all who till the ground, and partially draped with a deerskin, that is, after the Fall; which would be well: but he adds that Adam should have a child at his feet in the act of strangling a serpent. This appears to me objectionable and ambiguous; if admissible at all, the accessory figure would be a fitter accompaniment for Eve. [Illustration] ANGELS. Angels, properly speaking, are neither winged men nor winged children. Wings, in ancient art, were the symbols of a divine nature; and the early Greeks, who humanised their gods and goddesses, and deified humanity through the perfection of the forms, at first distinguished the divine and the human by giving wings to all the celestial beings; thus lifting them above the earth. Our religious idea of angels is altogether different. Give to the child-form wings, in other words, give to the child-nature, innocent, and pure, the adjuncts of wisdom and power, and thus you realise the idea of the angel as Raphael conceived it. It is so difficult to imagine in the adult form the union of perfect purity and perfect wisdom, the absence of experience and suffering, and the capacity of thinking and feeling, a condition of being in which all conscious _motive_ is lost in the _impulse_ to good, that it remains a problem in art. The angels of Angelico da Fiesole, who are not only winged, but convey the idea of movement only by the wings, not by the limbs, are exquisite, as fitted to minister to us in heaven, but hardly as fitted to keep watch and ward for us on earth— “Against foul fiends to aid us militant.” The feminine element always predominates in the conception of angels, though they are supposed to be masculine: I doubt whether it ought to be so. While these sheets are going through the press, I find the following beautiful passage relative to angels in the last number of “Fraser’s Magazine”:—