From these specimens of invention exerted in the more numerous compositions of this _sublime_ cycle, let me fix your attention for a few moments on the powers it displays in the single figures of the Prophets, those organs of embodied sentiment: their expression and attitude, whilst it exhibits the unequivocal marks of inspired contemplation in all, and with equal variety, energy, and delicacy, stamps character on each; exhibits in the occupation of the present moment the traces of the past and hints of the future. Esaiah, the image of _inspiration_, sublime and lofty, with an attitude expressive of the sacred trance in which meditation on the Messiah had immersed him, starts at the voice of an attendant genius, who seems to pronounce the words, "to us a child is born, to us a son is given." Daniel, the humbler image of eager _diligence_, transcribes from a volume held by a stripling, with a gesture natural to those who, absorbed in the progress of their subject, are heedless of convenience; his posture shows that he had inspected the volume from which now he is turned, and shall return to it immediately. Zachariah personifies _consideration_; he has read, and ponders on what he reads. _Inquiry_ moves in the dignified activity of Joel, hastening to open a sacred scroll, and to compare the scriptures with each other. Ezechiel, the fervid feature of _fancy_, the seer of resurrection, represented as on the field strewn with bones of the dead, points downward and asks, "can these bones live?" the attendant angel, borne on the wind that agitates his locks and the prophet's vestments, with raised arm and finger, pronounces, they shall rise: last, Jeremiah, subdued by _grief_ and exhausted by lamentation, sinks in silent woe over the ruins of Jerusalem. Nor are the sibyls, those female oracles, less expressive, less individually marked--they are the echo, the counterpart of the prophets; Vigilance, Meditation, Instruction, Divination, are personified. If the artist who, absorbed by the uniform power and magnitude of execution, saw only breadth and nature in their figures, must be told that he has discovered the least part of their excellence; the critic who charges them with affectation, can only be dismissed with our contempt.