I have said that by the choice of scenery alone we may often, if not always, judge how far an artist has penetrated his subject, what emotion in treating it he meant to excite. No subjects can elucidate this with so much perspicuity as those generally distinguished by the name of Madonnas: subjects stamped with a mystery of religion, and originally contrived under the bland images of maternal fondness to subdue the heart. In examining the considerable number of those by Raffaello, we find generally some reciprocal feature of filial and parental love, "the charities of father, son, and mother," sometimes varied by infant play and female caresses, sometimes dignified by celestial ministry and homage; the endearments of the nursery selected and embodied by forms more charming than exalted, less beautiful than genial--accordingly the choice of scenery consists seldom in more than a pleasing accompaniment: the flower and the shrub, the rivulet and grove, enamel the seat or embower the repose of the sacred pilgrims under the serenity of a placid sky, expanded or breaking through trees, or sheltering ruins; whilst in those surrounded by domestic scenery, a warm recess veils the mother, now hiding her darling from profane aspect, now pressing him to her bosom, or contemplating in silent rapture his charms displayed on her lap--accompaniments and actions, though appropriate, without allusion to the mysterious personages they profess to exhibit--to discriminate them the chair, the window, the saddle on which Joseph sits in one, the flowers which he kneeling presents in another, the cradle, the bath, are called on. Raffaello was less penetrated by a devout than by an amorous principle; his design was less to stamp maternal affection with the seal of religion than to consecrate the face he adored; his Holy Families, with one exception, are the apotheosis of his Fornarina. This exception, as it proves what had been advanced of the rest, so it proves likewise that the omission of its beauties in them was more a matter of choice than want of comprehension. Than the face and attitude of the Madonna of Versailles, known from a print by Edelinck, copied by Giac. Frey, nature and art combined never offered to the sense and heart a more exalted sentiment, or more correspondent forms. The face still, indeed, offers his favourite lines, lines not of supreme beauty, but they have assumed a sanctity which is in vain looked for in all its sister faces: serious without severity, pure without insipidity, humble though majestic, charming and modest at once, and without affectation graceful: face and figure unite what we can conceive of maternal beauty, equally poised between effusion of affection and the mysterious sentiment of superiority in the awful Infant, whom she bends to receive from his slumbers.