greatest of the long line of artists who had loved Art as the means granted
them of serving God upon earth. The manly vigor of his conceptions, the
tender and holy purity of his imagination, the delicate strength of his
fancy, are not to be discovered in the few pictures that bear his name at
Manchester. His pictures are to be fairly seen only at Venice, where, in
out-of-the-way churches, over tawdry altars, his colors gleam undimmed
by time, and the faces of his Virgins look down with a still celestial
sweetness. But there is one picture here, by a Venetian contemporary
of John Bellini, before which we shall do well to pause. It is a St.
Catharine, by Cima da Conegliano. It is the picture of a noble woman, full
of fortitude, serenity, and faith. The richness of the color of her dress,
her calm dignity, the composure of her attitude, recall to mind and make
her the worthy companion of the beautiful St. Barbara of the church of
Santa Maria Formosa. It is well to look at her, for we are coming to those
days when such saints as these were no longer painted; but in their places
whole tribes of figures with faces twisted into every trick of sentimental
devotion, imbecile piety, and pretended fervor.

But before this time, somewhere about the middle of the fifteenth century,
the fashion of painting pictures upon panel for private purposes, though as
yet religious subjects were principally chosen for treatment, had already
begun; and we find the masters of the early part of the sixteenth century
represented with tolerable fulness at Manchester. English collectors have
long had a passion for Raphael, and England is almost as rich in his works
in oils as Italy herself. Italy, however, keeps his frescos; and may she
long keep them! There are more than thirty works ascribed to Raphael
hanging on the walls of the Exhibition. Many of them are of doubtful
genuineness; many of them have been restored.

It is impossible to trace in these pictures the progress of Raphael's