Part 12 (2/2)

201 Both the men are entirely at one in their purpose They yearn for peace and justice to rule over the earth, instead of the sword; but see how differently they will say what is in their hearts to the people they address To Bewick, as more an absurdity than it was a horror: he had not seen battle-fields, still less had he read of the about heroes,--Greek, Roman, or Nore's boy went out of the village one holiday afternoon, a fine young fellow, rather drunk, with a colored ribbon in his hat; and ca, one eye, an old red coat, and a tobacco-pipe in the pocket of it That is what he has got to say, mainly So, for the pathetic side of the business, he draws you two old soldiersas bricklayers'

laborers; and for the absurd side of it, he draws a stone, sloping sideith age, in a bare field, on which you can just read, out of a long inscription, the words ”glorious victory;” but no one is there to read theainst

202 Now compare with this Botticelli's reproof of war _He_ had seen it, and often; and between noble persons;--knew the tehts went out to it;--knew the strength, the patience, the glory, and the grief of it He would fain see his Florence in peace; and yet he knows that the wisest of her citizens are her bravest soldiers

So he seeks for the ideal of a soldier, and for the greatest glory of war, that in the presence of these he o to Greece for his hero He is not sure that even her patriotic ere always right But, by his religious faith, he cannot doubt the nobleness of the soldier who put the children of Israel in possession of their pron of the consent of heaven was given by its pausing light in the valley of Ajalon Must then setting sun and risen hter? May no soldier of Christ bid the his hold of the sword: its hilt rests on his bent knee; and he kneels before the sun, not cos, and Lord of lords, who alone rulest always in eternity, and who correctest all our wanderings,--Giver of els, listen Thou a little to our bitter grief, and co, with Thy love which is so sweet!”

Is not that a little better, and a little wiser, than Bewick's jackass?

Is it not also better, and wiser, than the sneer of reat men are e, forsooth, can make almanacs, and know that the earth turns round Joshua indeed! Let us have no more talk of the old-clothes-man'

All Bewick's si

203 I pass to the attack uilt of wealth

So I had at first written; but I should rather have written, the appeal ainst the cruelty of wealth, then first attaining the power it hasinterest had been confined, until this fifteenth century, with contempt and malediction, to the profession, so styled, of usurers, or to the Jews Theintroduced it as a convenient and pleasant practice a Christians also; and insisted that it was decorous and proper even a respectable merchants In the view of the Christian Church of their day, they ht more reasonably have set themselves to defend adultery[AX] However, they appointed Dr John Eck, of Ingoldstadt, to hold debates in all possible universities, at their expense, on the allowing of interest; and as these Augsburgers had in Venice their special mart, Fondaco, called of the Germans, their new notions came into direct collision with old Venetian ones, and were much hindered by them, and all the more, because, in opposition to Dr John Eck, there was preaching on the other side of the Alps The Franciscans, poor themselves, preached mercy to the poor: one of them, Brother Marco of San Gallo, planned the 'Mount of Pity' for their defense, and the ainst the German Fondaco The dispute burned far on towards our own times You perhaps have heard before of one Antonio, a merchant of Venice, who persistently retained the then obsolete practice of lending ht him into with the usurers But you perhaps did not before knohy it was the flesh, or heart of flesh, in hiainst this newly risen demon of authorized usury, Holbein and Botticelli went out to war together Holbein, as we have partly seen in his designs for the Dance of Death, struck with all his soldier's strength[AY] Botticelli uses neither satire nor reproach He turns altogether away froainst then which, of all his work, in praying to her Son in heaven for pity upon the poor: ”For these are also my children”[AZ]

Underneath, are the seven works of Mercy; and in theof the Mount of Pity: in the distance lies Italy, mapped in cape and bay, with the cities which had founded mounts of pity,--Venice in the distance, chief Little seen, but engraved with the roup of two sel of Victory crowning hiel of Victory, observe, with assurance; although there is no legend claiel from any other of those which adorn with crowns of flowers the nameless crowds of the blessed For Botticelli has other ways of speaking than by written legends I know by a glance at this angel that he has taken the action of it from a Greek coin; and I know also that he had not, in his own exuberant fancy, the least need to copy the action of any figure whatever So I understand, as well as if he spoke to entleel's; and to know that it is a temporal victory which it crowns

206 And now farther, observe, that this classical learning of Botticelli's, received by hiives not only greater dignity and gentleness, but far wider range, to his thoughts of Reformation As he asks for pity from the cruel Jew to the _poor_ Gentile, so he asks for pity froht_ Gentile Nay, for eneral brought back the Greek ino, as pre-Christian; nor only as pre-Christian, but as the foundation of Christianity But chiefly Botticelli, with perfect grasp of the Mosaic and classic theology, thought over and seized the harave the conception of that great choir of the prophets and sibyls, of which Michael Angelo,it in the Sistine Chapel, in great part lost the nified the aspect

207 For, indeed, all Christian and heathen elo only a vehicle for the display of his oers of drawing li resolved, and n lay in variety of difficult attitude, he flings the naked bodies about his ceiling with an upholsterer's ingenuity of appliance to the corners they could fit, but with total absence of any legibleNor do I suppose that one person in a million, even of those who have some acquaintance with the earlier masters, takes patience in the Sistine Chapel to conceive the original design But Botticelli's iven to hiian, even more than as a painter; and the moment when he came to Rome to receive it, you may hold for the crisis of the Reformation in Italy The main effort to save her priesthood was about to be made by her wisest Reformer,--face to face with the head of her Church,--not in contest with him, but in the humblest subjection to hiht, and s to work, not under hiest and worthiest norelli There is evidently entire fellowshi+p in thought between Botticelli and Perugino They two together plan the whole; and Botticelli, though the ino the principal place, the end of the chapter, on which is to be the assuino's favorite subject, done with his central strength; assuredly the crowning work of his life, and of lovely Christian art in Europe

Michael Angelo painted it out, and drew devils and dead bodies all over the wall instead But there rened by Botticelli to lead up to this lost one

209 He came, I said, not to attack, but to restore the Papal authority

To show the power of inherited honor, and universal claim of divine law, in the Jewish and Christian Church,--the law delivered first by Moses; then, in final grace and truth, by Christ

He designed twelve great pictures, each containing soroups of smaller ones scarcely to be counted

Twelve pictures,--six to illustrate the giving of the law by Moses; and six, the ratification and completion of it by Christ Event by event, the jurisprudence of each dispensation is traced from dawn to close in this correspondence

1 Covenant of Circumcision

2 Entrance on his Ministry by Moses

3 Moses by the Red Sea

4 Delivery of Law on Sinai

5 Destruction of Korah

6 Death of Moses

7 Covenant of Baptism