"The character corresponding with that of Christ," says a critic and a painter,[25] "is a mixture of the characters of Jupiter and Apollo, allowing only for the accidental expression of the moment." What magic shall amalgamate the superhuman airs of Rhea's and Latona's sons with sufferings and resignation? The critic, in his exultation, forgot the leading feature of his master--humility. Whatever be the ideal form of Christ, the Saviour of mankind, extending his arm to relieve the afflicted, the hopeless, the dying, is a subject that comes home to the breast of every one who calls himself after his name:--the artist is in the sphere of adoration with the Christian. A great and beneficent character, eminently exerting unknown healing powers over the family of disease and pain, claims the participation of every feeling man, though he be no believer:--the artist is in the sphere of sentiment with the Deist or Mahometan. But a mean man marked with the features of a mean sect, surrounded by a beggarly ill-shaped rabble and stupid masks--is probably a juggler that claims the attention of no one. The Resurrection of Christ derives its interest from its rapidity, the Ascension from its slowness. In the Resurrection, the hero, like a ball of fire, shoots up resistless from the bursting tomb, and scatters terror and astonishment,--what apprehension could not dream of, what the eye had never beheld, and tongue had never uttered, blazes before us,--tumultuous agitation rends the whole. Such is the spirit of the Resurrection by Raffaelle. The Ascension is the last of many similar scenes: no longer with the rapidity of a conqueror, but with the calm serenity of triumphant power, the hero is borne up in splendour, and gradually vanishes from those who, by repeated visions, had been taught to expect whatever was amazing. Silent and composed, with eyes more absorbed in adoration than wonder, they followed the glorious emanation, till addressed by the white-robed messengers of their departed King. 105. We are more impressed by Gothic than by Greek mythology, because the bands are not yet rent which tie us to its magic: he has a powerful hold of us, who holds us by our superstition or by a theory of honour. 106. The east expands, the north concentrates images. 107. Disproportion of parts is the element of hugeness,--proportion, of grandeur; all Oriental, all Gothic styles of Architecture, are huge; the Grecian alone, is grand. 108. The female, able to invigorate her taste without degenerating into a pedant, sloven or virago, may give her hand to the man of elegance, who scorns to sacrifice his sense to the presiding phantoms of an effeminate age. 109. The collector who arrogates not to himself the praise bestowed on his collections, and the reader who fancies himself not the author of the beauties he recites to an admiring circle--are not the last of men.