Of Correggio's larger pictures, I think the Madonna di San Georgio pleased me most. The Virgin is seated on a throne, holding the sacred Infant, who extends his arms and smiles out upon the world he has come to save. On the right stands St. George, his foot on the dragon's head; behind him St. Peter Martyr; on the left, St. Geminiano and St. John the Baptist. In the front of the picture two heavenly boys are playing with the sword and helmet of St. George, which he has apparently cast down at the foot of the throne. All in this picture is grand and sublime, in the feeling, the forms, the colouring, the expression. But what, says a wiseacre of a critic, rubbing up his school chronology, what have St. Francis, and St. George, and St. John the Baptist, to do in the same picture with the Virgin Mary? Did not St. George live nine hundred years after St. John? and St. Francis five hundred years after St. George? and so on. Yet this is properly no anachronism--no violation of the proprieties of action, place, or time. These and similar pictures, as the St. Jerome at Parma, and Raffaelle's Madonna, are not to be considered as historical paintings, but as grand pieces of lyrical and sacred poetry. In this particular picture, which was an altarpiece in the church of Our Lady at Parma, we have in St. George the representation of religious magnanimity; in St. John, religious enthusiasm; in St. Geminiani, religious munificence; in St. Peter Martyr, religious fortitude; and these are grouped round the most lovely impersonation of innocence, chastity, and heavenly love. Such, as it appears to me, is the true intention and signification of this and similar pictures. But in the "Notte" (the Nativity) the case is different. It is properly an historical picture; and if Correggio had placed St. George, or St. Francis, or the Magdalene, as spectators, we might then exclaim at the absurdity of the anachronism; but here Correggio has converted the literal representation of a circumstance in sacred history into a divine piece of poetry, when he gave us that emanation of supernatural light, streaming from the form of the celestial Child, and illuminating the extatic face of the virgin mother, who bends over her infant undazzled; while another female draws back, veiling her eyes with her hand, as if unable to endure the radiance. Far off, through the gloom of night, we see the morning just breaking along the eastern horizon--emblem of the "day-spring from on high." This is precisely one of those pictures of which no copy or engraving could convey any adequate idea; the sentiment of maternity (in which Correggio excelled) is so exquisitely tender, and the colouring so inconceivably transparent and delicate. I suppose it is a sort of treason to say that in the Madonna di San Francisco, the face of the virgin is tinctured with affectation; but such was and _is_ my impression.