The picture of Rubens, which we oppose to Tintoretto, was painted for the church of St. Walburgha at Antwerp, after his return from Italy, and has been minutely described, and as exquisitely criticised by Reynolds: "Christ," he says, "is nailed to the cross, with a number of figures exerting themselves to raise it. The invention of throwing the cross obliquely from one corner of the picture to the other, is finely conceived; something in the manner of Tintoretto:" so far Reynolds. In Tintoretto it is the cross of one of the criminals that they attempt to raise, who casts his eye on Christ already raised. The body of Christ is the grandest, in my opinion, that Rubens ever painted; it seems to be imitated from the Torso of Apollonius, and that of the Laocoon. How far it be characteristic of Christ, or correspondent with the situation, I shall not here enquire; my object is the ruling tone of the whole, and of this the criticism quoted says not a word, though much of local colour and gray and ochry balance. Would so great a master of tone as Reynolds have forgot this master-key, if he had found it in the picture? The fact is, the picture has no other than the painter's usual tone: Rubens came to his work with gay technic exultation, and, by the magic of his palette, changed the terrors of Golgotha to an enchanted garden and clusters of flowers. Rembrandt, though on a smaller scale of size and composition, concentrated the tremendous moment in one flash of pallid light. It breaks on the body of Christ, shivers down his limbs, and vanishes on the armour of a crucifix; the rest is gloom. Of Paolo Veronese, who was by far the most intemperate and florid of ornamental masters, the political allegories on the platfonds and compartments of the Ducal Palace, and the religious legends painted in the refectories of the convents, or as altar-pieces in the churches of Venice, differ materially in tone and style. Those were painted for the Senate, these for the people; and the superior orders were supposed to be better judges of real grandeur and propriety, than monastic ignorance and the bigoted and vulgar majority of the crowds that thronged the churches.