There is a picture by Botticelli, before which, in walking up the corridor of the Florence Gallery, I used, day after day, to make an involuntary pause of admiration. The Virgin, seated in a chair of state, but seen only to the knees, sustains her divine Son with one arm; four angels are in attendance, one of whom presents an inkhorn, another holds before her an open book, and she is in the act of writing the Magnificat, "My soul doth magnify the Lord!" The head of the figure behind the Virgin is the portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici when a boy. There is absolutely no beauty of feature, either in the Madonna, or the Child, or the angels, yet every face is full of dignity and character. In a beautiful picture by Titian (Bel. Gal., Vienna. Louvre, No. 458), the Virgin is enthroned on the left, and on the right appear St. George and St. Laurence as listening, while St. Jerome reads from his great book. A small copy of this picture is at Windsor. * * * * * The old German and Flemish painters, in treating the enthroned Madonna, sometimes introduced accessories which no painter of the early Italian school would have descended to; and which tinge with a homely sentiment their most exalted conceptions. Thus, I have seen a German Madonna seated on a superb throne, and most elaborately and gorgeously arrayed, pressing her Child to her bosom with a truly maternal air; while beside her, on a table, is a honeycomb, some butter, a dish of fruit, and a glass of water. (Bel. Gal., Vienna.) It is possible that in this case, as in the Virgin suckling her Child, there may be a religious allusion:--"_Butter and honey shall he eat_," &c. THE MATER AMABILIS. _Ital._ La Madonna col Bambino. La Madonna col celeste suo figlio. _Fr._ La Vierge et l'enfant Jesus. _Ger._ Maria mit dem Kind. There is yet another treatment of the Madonna and Child, in which the Virgin no longer retains the lofty goddess-like exaltation given to her in the old time. She is brought nearer to our sympathies. She is not seated in a chair of state with the accompaniments of earthly power; she is not enthroned on clouds, nor glorified and star-crowned in heaven; she is no longer so exclusively the VERGINE DEA, nor the VIRGO DEI GENITRIX; but she is still the ALMA MATER REDEMPTORIS, the young, and lovely, and most pure mother of a divine Christ. She is not sustained in mid-air by angels; she dwells lowly on earth; but the angels leave their celestial home to wait upon her. Such effigies, when conceived in a strictly ideal and devotional sense, I shall designate as the MATER AMABILIS.