about the poetry of poetry, but it would be the blankest prose for all that. For art generally in its relation to emotion consists in the apprehension and enjoyment of the same by means of the imagination, which in poetry displays passion in its conceptions, and satisfies us in their expression, whether that expression be lyrical, or conveyed in epical events, or dramatic action. As a presentment of the inward life of soul, however, in painting the mouth, eye, and pose, do not alone suffice; we must have the total objective realization in its concreteness to make valid and vouch for such ideality. The main thing, then, in a picture is that it present to us a situation, the scene of some action. And closely associated with this we have the primary law of _intelligibility._ In this respect religious subjects possess the supreme advantage, that they are universally known. The annunciation of the angel, the adoration of the shepherds or of the three kings, the repose in the flight to Egypt, the crucifixion, burial, resurrection, no less than the legends of the saints, were well known subjects with the public, for whom such pictures were painted, albeit to our own generation the stories of the martyrs are removed to some distance. For a particular church, for example, it was mainly the biography of its patrons or its guardian saints which was represented. Consequently it was not always the painters themselves who selected such subjects; particular circumstances rendered such selection inevitable for particular altars, chapels, and cloisters, so that the place where they are exhibited in itself contributes to their elucidation. And this is, in part, necessary, for in painting we do not find speech, words, and names, by which interpretation of poetry may be materially assisted to say nothing of all its other means. And in the same way in a royal residence, council-hall, or parliament-building, scenes of great events, important situations taken from the history of the state, city, and building in which they are found are there, and receive a just recognition in the place for which they were originally painted. It is hardly likely, for instance, that in painting a picture for one of our palaces an artist would select a subject borrowed from English or Chinese history, or from the life of King Mithridates. It is otherwise in picture galleries, where we have all kinds of subjects brought together that we could wish to buy or possess as examples of fine works of art. In such a case, of course, the peculiar relation of any picture to a definite locale, no less than its intelligibility, so far as it is thereby promoted, disappears. The same thing is true of the private collection. The collector brings together just what he can get; the principle is that of a public gallery, and his love of art or caprice may extend in other directions.