We must be careful to discriminate between the Conception, so styled by ecclesiastical authority, and that singular and mystical representation which is sometimes called the "Predestination of Mary," and sometimes the "Litanies of the Virgin." Collectors and writers on art must bear in mind, that the former, as a subject, dates only from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the latter from the beginning of the sixteenth. Although, as representations, so very similar, yet the intention and meaning are different. In the Conception it is the sinless Virgin in her personal character, who is held up to reverence, as the purest, wisest, holiest, of created beings. The earlier theme involves a yet more recondite signification. It is, undoubtedly, to be regarded as an attempt on the part of the artist to express, in a visible form, the idea or promise of the redemption of the human race, as existing in the Sovereign Mind before the beginning of things. They do not personify this idea under the image of Christ,--for they conceived that, as the second person of the Trinity, he could not be his own instrument,--but by the image of Mary surrounded by those attributes which were afterwards introduced into the pictures of the Conception: or setting her foot, as second Eve, on the head of the prostrate serpent. Not seldom, in a series of subjects from the Old Testament, the _pendant_ to Eve holding the apple is Mary crushing the head of the fiend; and thus the "bane and antidote are both before us." This is the proper interpretation of those effigies, so prevalent in every form of art during the sixteenth century, and which are often, but erroneously, styled the Immaculate Conception. The numerous heads of the Virgin which proceeded from the later schools of Italy and Spain, wherein she appears neither veiled nor crowned, but very young, and with flowing hair and white vesture, are intended to embody the popular idea of the _Madonna purissima_, of "the Virgin most pure, conceived without sin," in an abridged form. There is one by Murillo, in the collection of Mr. Holford; and another by Guido, which will give an idea of the treatment. Before quitting the subject of the Immaculate Conception. I must refer to a very curious picture[1] called an Assumption, but certainly painted at least one hundred years before the Immaculate Conception was authorized as a Church subject. [Footnote 1: Once in the collection of Mr. Solly, and now in the possession of Mr. Bromley of Wootten.]