over the mother and John float light golden rings. All the tones are flower-like and clear. A harmonious glow irradiates it, which, partaking of a spiritual as well as a material nature, constitutes the peculiarity of this work, and defies all attempts at reproduction.

There is an interesting legend about this picture: There was an aged hermit whose life was saved, after a great storm, by a vinedresser's daughter, Mary, and in his gratitude, the pious old hermit predicted that in some way Mary would be greatly honored above other women. Soon after the old hermit died, and Mary married a cooper. Years after, Raphael, accompanied with a band of his students, was wandering through the country in search of a model for a Madonna, and found his way into the secluded valley where the cooper was merrily hammering his casks. One who tells the legend describes "Mary, his wife, sitting in a chair on the porch of the little vine-grown cottage, tenderly nursing her second child, while the eldest played

with some sticks by her side. The child had just fastened two twigs together in the shape of a cross, and was showing it to his mother when the painter came upon the scene. At the very first sight Raphael perceived the beauty and grace of the group, and exclaimed that there was the model he had so long sought in vain. As there was no sketching material at hand, he drew the picture on the head of the cask the cooper was finishing, to the wonder and admiration of his pupils and the honest workman. When the sketch was finished, he paid the cooper liberally for the barrel head, and carried it away. And thus the old hermit's prayer was answered, for Mary had sat as a model for one of the loveliest Madonnas the world has ever seen. Unfortunately the picture is painted on canvas, and spoils this beautiful legend, but, if not true, it is at least, as the Italians say, 'ben trovata,' or happily imagined."

Raphael's Madonnas have the peculiarity that they are not distinctively national. They are not Italians whom he paints, but

ity; a faint suggestion of Italian or Spanish. or Flemish nature pervades their forms. Raphael alone could give to his Madonnas that universal human loveliness, and that beauty which is a possession common to the European nations compared with other

races.

His "Sistine Madonna" soars above us as our ideal of womanly beauty; and yet, strange to say, despite this universality, she gives to each individual the impression that, owing to some special affinity, he has the privilege of wholly understanding her. Shakespeare's and Goethe's feminine creations inspire the same feeling. The "Sistine Madonna," with the Virgin standing on the clouds in the midst of myriads of cherubs' heads, St. Sextus kneeling on the left, and St. Barbara on the right, was painted in 1518 for the Benedictine Monastery at Piacenza, from which it was purchased in 1754 by Augustus III, elector of Saxony, for forty thousand dollars. It was received at Dresden with great joy, the throne of Saxony being displaced in order to give this divine product of genius a fitting home. Passavant says, "It was the last Virgin created by the genius of Raphael; and, as if he had forseen that this Madonna would be his last, he made it an apotheosis." It is interesting to sit in the Dresden Gallery alone, before the "Sistine Madonna," which has the face of the beloved Margherita, and note the hush that comes over the threshold. They seem to enter into the feelings of the artist, and it is said that many a poor and lonely woman, bent with years, has wept before this painting. The eyes of the Virgin look at you, but they do not see you. The eyes are thinking,-looking back into her past with her mysteries; looking forward, perchance, into a veiled, but significant future. These eyes, once seen, are never forgotten, and you go again and again to look at them.

Another well-known work of Raphael is "St. Cecelia," listening to the singing of a choir of angels above, her eyes raised to heaven in ecstasy. A musical instrument is slipping from her hands while she listens, entranced, to playing so much more wonderful than her own. On her right are St. Paul and St. John; on her left, Mary Magdalene, with St. Augustine. Cecelia was a

rich and noble Roman lady who lived in the third century. She was married at sixteen to Valerian, who, with his brother, Tiburtius, was converted to Christianity by her prayers. Both these men were beheaded because they refused to sacrifice to idols, and Cecelia was shortly after condemned to death by the prefect of Rome. She was shut up in her own bath room, and blazing fires kindled, that the hot vapor might destroy her; but she was kept alive, says the legend, "for God sent a cooling shower which tempered the heat of the fire." The prefect then sent a man to her palace, to behead her, but he left her only half killed. The Christians found her bathed in her own blood, and during three days she still preached and taught, like a doctor of the church, with such sweetness and eloquence that four hundred pagans were converted. On the third day she was visited by Pope Urban I, to whose care she tenderly committed the poor whom she nourished.

Raphael was now loaded with honors. Henry VIII urged him to visit England, and become attached to his court. Francis I was eager to make him court painter of France. But he remained in Rome, and after the artist shut himself up in his palace, and applied himself so closely to his books and pictures that people said he was melancholy. He now undertook the paintings in the loggia of the Farnesina Palace, choosing for his subject the fable of Cupid and Psyche. He had time only to make cartoons for the greater part of this work, while pupils executed them. The paintings were criticised, and it was said that the talent of Raphael was declining. Hurt by such an unwarrantable opinion, Raphael gladly accepted an order from Cardinal Giuliano de'Medici for a "Transfiguration" for the cathedral at Narbonne. This "Transfiguration" now in the Vatican, is in two sections. In the upper portion Christ has risen into the air above Mount Tabor, and has appeared to Peter, James, and John on the mount. At this moment the voice is heard, saying, "This is my beloved Son: hear him." At the foot of the mount, an afflicted father, followed by a crowd of people, has brought his demoniac boy to the apostles to be healed. The disciples point. to the Saviour as the only one who has