hand) in Mr. Heseltine's collection and the panels already referred to in that of Mrs Mond, all belonging to his later years. The former shows the use Botticelli made of gold to give a sunny sheen between the spectator and distant hillside.

V

In reviewing the subjects chosen by Sandro for his pictures, one is struck by certain characteristic omissions. With the exception of a most perfunctory and even grotesque panel of Christ rising from the Sepulchre, forming part of the S. Barnabas predella, of the doubtful "Pieta" at Munich, which may have been partially executed by Sandro after Savonarola's great sermons in Holy Week, and the figure of Christ thrice introduced as an afterthought into the first of the Sixtine frescoes; Botticelli has only painted the central figure of Christian art as an infant. Twice only has he introduced the figure of God the Father into his work, and then without distinction. His devotional pictures represent a very young Madonna, with a chubby but thoughtful child, and, where there are other figures, either an aged patriarchal Joseph, or one or more attendant or messenger angels, winged in the later work, and certain saints. His favourite amongst these was Augustine.

But Botticelli is at his best when he escapes from conventionality of subject, and is able to give wing to a lyrical imagination comparable to that of Shelley. He is one of those who feel the wind of the spirit blowing out toward new worlds. He loved the wind, and all things that the wind caresses, trees, draperies, floating hair, and the naked body. Also he loved the light and hated darkness. He had inspired moments when he beheld that the old order of the mediæval world had passed already away, and the hearts of men were turning to the pure worship of living incarnate loveliness—the mystery of a re-born and immortal pleasure, Venus Anadyomene, beheld with mystic sight. But in that age it was a prophetic vision, and his own eyes failed him. He died in a time of darkness. For four centuries his visions were forgotten, to be beheld again by us with a renewal of the wonder and aspiration, the passionate desire for freedom and for beauty, out of which they came.

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