IV. THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MARY FROM THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD TO THE ASSUMPTION.

THE ASSUMPTION AND CORONATION.

THE DEATH AND ASSUMPTION Of THE VIRGIN Lat.

The latter in particular, under the title of "the Assumption," became the visible expression of a dogma of faith then universally receivednamely, the exaltation and deification of the Virgin in the body as well as in the spirit.

THE LEGEND OF THE DEATH AND ASSUMPTION OF THE MOST GLORIOUS VIRGIN MARY.

This legend of the Death and Assumption of the Virgin has afforded to the artists seven distinct scenes.

6. Her Assumption, where she rises triumphant and glorious, "like unto the morning" ("quasi aurora consurgens").

In a compartment above is the Assumption.

But in the Assumption properly so called, we have the moment wherein the soul of the Virgin is reunited to her body, which, at the command of Christ, rises up from the tomb.

I am not sure that such figures are properly styled the Assumption; they rather exhibit in an ideal form the glorification of the Virgin, another version of the same idea expressed in the Incoronata.

But when the Assumption is presented to us as the final scene of her life, and expresses, as it were, a progressive actionwhen she has left the empty tomb, and the wondering, weeping apostles on the earth below, and rises "like the morning" ("quasi aurora surgens") from the night of the grave,then we have the Assumption of the Virgin in its dramatic and historical form, the final act and consummation of her visible and earthly life.

But when the Assumption is presented to us as the final scene of her life, and expresses, as it were, a progressive actionwhen she has left the empty tomb, and the wondering, weeping apostles on the earth below, and rises "like the morning" ("quasi aurora surgens") from the night of the grave,then we have the Assumption of the Virgin in its dramatic and historical form, the final act and consummation of her visible and earthly life.

The end of the chapel is filled up by the Assumption of the Virgin, the tomb being seen below, surrounded by the apostles; and above it the Virgin, as she floats into heaven, is in the act of loosening her girdle, which St. Thomas, devoutly kneeling, stretches out his arms to receive.

We now proceed to other examples of the treatment of the Assumption.

This is, perhaps, one of the earliest instances of the Assumption applied as a grand piece of scenic decoration; at all events we have nothing in this luxuriant composition of the solemn simplicity of the older conception.

In the Assumption at Venice, a picture of world-wide celebrity, and, in its way, of unequalled beauty, we have another signal departure from all the old traditions.

More beautiful, and, indeed, quite unusually poetical for Rubens, is the small Assumption in the Queen's Gallery, a finished sketch for the larger picture.

In another Assumption by Rubens, one of the women exhibits the miraculous flowers in her apron, or in a cloth, I forget which; but the whole conception, like too many of his religious subjects, borders on the vulgar and familiar.

We must be careful to distinguish in his pictures (and all similar pictures painted after 1615) between the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception; it is a difference in sentiment which I have already pointed out.

The small finished sketch by Guido in our National Gallery is an Assumption and Coronation together: the Madonna is received into heaven as Regina Angelorum.

The fine large Assumption in the Munich Gallery may be regarded as the best example of Guido's manner of treating this theme.

His picture in the Bridgewater Gallery, often styled an Assumption, is an Immaculate Conception.

The Coronation of the Virgin follows the Assumption.

At any rate he had not the spirit which can combat such treatment as he received at the Princess's, where the pieces in which he appeared were "thrown" on to the stage with every mark of assumption that he was not going to be a success.

"What is it, anyhow?" "That," said Viushin again, with a comical assumption of learning, "is the celebrated 'Jamuk chi a la Poosteretsk,' the national dish of the Koraks, made from the original recipe of His High Excellency Oollcot Ootkoo Minyegeetkin, Grand Hereditary Taiyon and Vwisokee Prevoskhodeetelstvo" "Hold on!"