In those passages of Scripture where the Angel Gabriel is mentioned by name, he is brought before us in the character of a Messenger only, and always on important occasions. In the Old Testament he is sent to Daniel to announce the return of the Jews from captivity, and to explain the vision which prefigures the destinies of mighty empires. His contest with the Angel of the kingdom of Persia, when St. Michael comes to his assistance, would be a splendid subject in fit hands; I do not know that it has ever been painted. In the New Testament the mission of Gabriel is yet more sublime: he first appears to the high priest Zacharias, and foretells the birth of John the Baptist,—a subject which belongs especially to the life of that saint. Six months later, Gabriel is sent to announce the appearance of the Redeemer of mankind.[89] In the Jewish tradition, Gabriel is the guardian of the celestial treasury. Hence, I presume, Milton has made him chief guardian of Paradise:— Betwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel sat, Chief of the angelic guards, awaiting night. As the Angel who announced the birth of Christ, he has been venerated as the Angel who presides over childbirth. He foretells the birth of Samson, and, in the apocryphal legends, he foretells to Joachim the birth of the Virgin. In the East, he is of great importance. Mahomet selected him as his immediate teacher and inspirer, and he became the great protecting angel of Islamism: hence between Michael, the protector of the Jews and Christians, and Gabriel, the protector of the Moslem, there is supposed to exist no friendly feeling—rather the reverse. In the New Testament, Gabriel is a much more important personage than Michael; yet I have never met with any picture in which he figures singly as an object of worship. In devotional pictures he figures as the second of the three Archangels—‘Secondo fra i primi,’ as Tasso styles him; or in his peculiar character as the divine messenger of grace, ‘_l’Angelo annunziatore_.’ He then usually bears in one hand a lily or a sceptre; in the other a scroll on which is inscribed, ‘AVE MARIA, GRATIA PLENA!’[90] The subject called the ANNUNCIATION is one of the most frequent and most important, as it is one of the most beautiful, in the whole range of Christian Art. It belongs, however, to the history of the Virgin, where I shall have occasion to treat it at length; yet as the Angel Gabriel here assumes, by direct scriptural testimony, a distinct name and personality, and as the dignity and significance proper to a subject so often unworthily and perversely treated depend very much on the character and deportment given to the celestial messenger, I shall make a few observations in this place with respect to the treatment of the angel, only reserving the theme in its general bearing for future consideration.