In the angels of Giotto we see the commencement of a softer grace and a purer taste, further developed by some of his scholars. Benozzo Gozzoli and Orcagna have left in the Campo Santo examples of the most graceful and fanciful treatment. Of Benozzo's angels in the Ricardi Palace I have spoken at length. His master, Angelico (worthy the name!), never reached the same power of expressing the rapturous rejoicing of celestial beings, but his conception of the angelic nature remains unapproached, unapproachable: it is only his, for it was the gentle, passionless, refined nature of the recluse which stamped itself there. Angelico's angels are unearthly, not so much in form as in sentiment; and superhuman, not in power but in purity. In other hands, any imitation of his soft ethereal grace would become feeble and insipid. With their long robes falling round their feet, and drooping many-coloured wings, they seem not to fly or to walk, but to float along, "smooth sliding without step." Blessed blessed creatures! love us, only love us! for we dare not task your soft serene beatitude, by asking you to help us! There is more sympathy with humanity in Francia's angels: they look as if they could weep as well as love and sing. * * * * * Correggio's angels are grand and lovely, but they are like children enlarged and sublimated, not like spirits taking the form of children; where they smile it is truly--as Annibal Caracci expresses it--con una naturalezza et simplicita che innamora e sforza a ridere con loro: but the smile in many of Correggio's angel heads has something sublime and spiritual, as well as simple and natural. And Titian's angels impress me in a similar manner--I mean those in the glorious "Assumption" at Venice--with their childish forms and features, but an expression caught from beholding the face of "our Father that is in heaven:" it is glorified in fancy. I remember standing before this picture, contemplating those lovely spirits, one after another, until a thrill came over me like that which I felt when Mendelssohn played the organ--I became music while I listened. The face of one of those angels is to the face of a child just what that of the Virgin in the same picture is compared with the fairest of the daughters of earth: it is not here superiority of beauty, but mind, and music, and love kneaded, as it were, into form and colour.