Some subjects in art are best suited for enjoyment in rooms destined for solitary use, others for those of general resort--some touch us peculiarly in one mood, some are welcome to us in all. Of this last character 'St Catherine borne by Angels' is a specimen: the earth sinks beneath them, they fly so swiftly and yet so calmly! we are in the air too with them, and mark how small the world looks, with its burdens of wrong and suffering, as we cleave our way through the fields of ether up towards the stars; and that lovely one the spirits hold so tenderly, how still and calm is every line!--she is at peace after the storm and the agony, and for a space we lie still as she in those angel arms. Of the same class is Raphael's 'Transfiguration,' which is magnificent if we only contemplate the grouping of the figures, but truly sublime in the ideas it suggests. Flaxman's 'Mercury and Pandora' likewise, elegant and graceful in the highest degree, is peculiarly suited for generally used rooms and constant delight. But specimens crowd into our recollection for which we have not space. General sitting-rooms can bear a _variety_ of subject and suggestion--they will have a variety of inhabitants or visitors; and while bearing the impress of a certain unity, they should contain pleasure for all, and stimuli for differing minds. We would not habitually admit in them works of art which rouse too painful a class of emotions. Fuseli's picture of 'Count Ugolino in Prison,' in which the stony fixedness of despair deprives us, as we gaze, almost of the living hope within us, we could not bear to have near us habitually. That wonderfully beautiful marble of Francesca di Rimini and her lover, which appeared in the Great Exhibition last year, would come under the same law of banishment. It realised so perfectly the hopelessness of hell, that at sight of it we swooned in spirit as Dante did in reality. Life has so many stern realities for most of us, that in art we need relief, and generally desire to find renewed hope and faith through delight and gladness.