time are seen, we take our stand on works only recently estimated at their true value, and first brought into light by our own immortal Flaxman. We mean the sculpture on the west front of Wells Cathedral, exhibiting, under peculiar conditions of space, the Last Judgment. Though the name of the sculptor who designed and executed these figures will perhaps never now be discovered, yet, having lived probably before Niccolo Pisano, who, born in 1200, was forty-two years of age when these sculptures are known to have been completed, he ranks equal if not superior to the great Italian master. Nor have we any reason to discredit the belief that he was a native of this country, when we take into account the marvellously beautiful drawings and miniatures scattered through Anglo-French and English works, of the origin of which there is no doubt. On the face of many of these it is evident that the cotemporary art of Italy, as regards command of drawing, and action, is far overmatched. It may be doubted whether the Italians, even fifty years later, can show such expression of the human figure, ease and animation of composition, perfection of animal life, beauty of detail,-in short, such a large range of the practice of the eye and hand,-as will be found in that wonderful volume in the British Museum, dated 1310, called 'Queen Mary's Prayerbook.' In the same way as the ballads of a people will tell their history, do these drawings, though here as effect rather than cause, bear witness to the stuff of which the English nation was already made. England was destined to be the prey of those civil wars and religious revolutions which check the arts of peace -therefore England has little to show by native hands after this period. Nevertheless, the great national under-current had set too strongly to be turned, so that if we compare the art of all nations at the period of 'Queen Mary's Prayer-book,' it is only from the English race that, however much later, the advent of a Shakspeare could have been anticipated.

Far too little is known at present of the help that would accrue to the historian by the study of these wonderful galleries and treasuries, which only the leisure of monastic life could have produced, and which in all extra-religious subjects tell of that humble class which the secluded country monk knew best. There is something unspeakably touching in the humility of these works. With very rare exceptions no artist's name is brought to light. We tell his life, his health, his industry, and something of his mind, by his patient and beautiful doings; his illness by outlines sketched forth, and awaiting the further finish of his brush; or his sudden death, where the cunning hand of

Iconography of the West Front of Wells Cathedral,' by C. R. Cockerell, R.A.

the

the workman ceases in full power, and the other side of the leaf, or the next picture in the same page, betrays another mind and style. How well these unknown limners told their tale, many of the illustrations of 'The History of our Lord' will show. The childlike spirit reigns supreme in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries: as children draw to the present day, so drew they; they gave the essentials of the story, exaggerated in action, unassisted by accessories, but unmistakeable in intention. The Lord reproving Adam and Eve is as rude in execution as it is clear in speech in the Bible de Noailles, A.D. 1000; the same subject is as beautiful in finish as it is ludicrous and mean in sentiment by the hand of Domenichino in the seventeenth century. By the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century, these works, in French, English, and Belgian MSS., assume a beauty and delicacy which render them peculiarly fascinating to the eye of taste, but the archness, simplicity, and even ingenuity of meaning begin to disappear. In a beautiful Bible of the end of the thirteenth century, in the Bibliothèque Impériale at Paris, often quoted and copied in 'The History of our Lord,' the same idea of the Seventh Day receiving the benediction of the Creator recurs. Drawing and drapery are far more beautiful, but the deeper thought of a wingless being has vanished, and an angel, with long and radiant pinions, on which the most exquisite delicacy of the brush has been bestowed, kneels before the throne.

By this time, also, symptoms of that disease, destined to find a principal antidote in the invention which superseded the illuminated MS. altogether, show themselves. Legendary matter, presented in pictures, began to corrupt eyes too unlearned to gather truth or falsehood through other means. This was a fact of momentous significance. As 'Books of the Simple,' it was better that the lowly should view our Lord with his arms red and his legs blue, as in the fantastic and barbarous, but non-heretical art of the ninth century, than see Him falling beneath the cross He enjoins us to bear, or carrying it with the help of the Virgin. The Scotch proverb

*We remark that Lady Eastlake has been criticised for confusion of ideas, in her condemnation of the art which represents our Lord as falling beneath His Cross. But the confusion lies solely with the critic. There are two views of the subject of Christ bearing His Cross: the one historical, the other moral. The historical view proves nothing, for our Lord bore probably only the transverse beam, and made that over entirely to the shoulders of Simon the Cyrenian. But the moral view is intended for a lesson to the spectator; it is worse than folly, therefore, to make Him falling beneath the Cross, which He is represented as bearing only for the purpose of our example. In truth, this falling beneath the Cross is only the legendary view adopted by the Roman Church at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and, instead of being defended, deserves the most unqualified condemnation as true neither historically nor morally.

says,

says, 'One lie makes twenty:' human sentimentalities once substituted for the simplicity of the Gospel soon brought in other false spirits stronger than they. Nothing can be truer than the fact which this work steadily exemplifies, viz. that the interests of Christian art and the integrity of Scripture are indissolubly united. Art, truly understood, is inveterately Protestant. Her inherent laws offer one constant appeal against all adulteration of the Truth. Legend never approaches the Person of our Saviour except to degrade it, or to set up a rival in importance to it. Either of these proceedings is prejudicial to art. As the natural development of this pernicious tendency there arose those ecclesiastical series of types and subjects, executed by hand in the fourteenth century, and printed by block machinery in the fifteenth, to which frequent reference is made in 'The History of our Lord.' Nothing we see in art appears more significant of the impending Reformation than the wide dissemination of these childish works, with their strained when not utterly irrelevant subjects, their often hideous art, and their worse than barren text. And as we are struck with the intrusion of false matter, so are we constantly reminded of the absence of anything like new versions even of the old subjects, which new minds might have been expected to supply. Those higher meanings and deeper feelings-the thought in the stillness of the night, the suggestion in the devotions of the day-have very seldom left their impress here. Art walked in the triumph of her beauty through the length and breadth of Italy, but she walked hand in hand with convention and routine. Historically speaking, she tells wondrous little of the real habits and modes of life of the grand Italian race, because, historically speaking, she tells too much of that which closed the sources of religious inspiration and repressed the evidences of individual character. This accounts for the little hold which the so-called great Italian masters have over the unlearned eye. For those who have little comprehension of the glorious language of Art herself, what is there else to read in them? They appeal to exquisite taste, but seldom to religious feeling, or domestic sympathy. Nevertheless, when permitted by circumstances to refer to the only original source of Christian art, the greatest Italian master sufficiently vindicates his sense of its power. Raphael's Cartoons are a remarkable example of this. One of the most corrupt and worldly of men that ever filled the Papal throne, desired the History of Peter and Paul, in the form of tapestry, to swell the pomp of the Vatican chapel. Raphael was commissioned to prepare the designs. This was a subject still, in an historical sense, comparatively unknown in the tradi

tions of art. The approaches to the sacred Well-spring were therefore undefiled by the hoof of the camel and other unclean animals. That Raphael took his conceptions of the Cartoons direct from Scripture is a fact written on most of these masterpieces of his genius, which owe their grandeur and impressiveness in great measure to their faithful adherence to the text.

With all admiration for the glories of the Italian art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it is impossible not to speculate on the services it might have rendered to mankind if it had been as much for the interests of the Roman Church to refer her painters to the inexhaustible treasury of Holy Writ, as it was the reverse. As it is, we conclude this article with the conviction that the highest capacity of Christian art, as the equal triumph of spiritual feeling and mechanical skill, is a moral power which has not yet been fully developed.

ART. VII.-Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners appointed to Enquire into the Revenues and Management of certain Colleges and Schools, and the Studies pursued and the Instruction given therein. With an Appendix and Evidence. Presented by command of Her Majesty to both Houses of Parliament. London, 1864.

TH

THIS Report together with the documents appended to it must be considered the most important and valuable contribution to Educational science which has been made in modern times.

The public school is a product of the English soil. It is strongly marked with the impress of the English mind, and in its turn has had no slight influence in moulding the national character. No original, no counterpart, nor copy of it is to be found abroad; and it bears no resemblance to any foreign institution, under whatever denomination, where boys are assembled for the purpose of education. The Commissioners have subjected to the most searching investigation the constitution and management of our principal public schools, and their Report presents an account of what is called public education, at once comprehensive and minute, and intelligible to all, if indeed the system can be made fully intelligible to those who have no personal experience of its working.

In the first instance, the Commissioners addressed to the several authorities of the nine Foundations to which their attention was

specially

specially directed,* a uniform series of printed questions, embracing every variety of subject affecting the interests or the management of the respective schools. They subsequently paid personal visits to each, and examined orally the masters, tutors, and others who could throw light upon any of the subjects of inquiry. They also called before them young members of the Universities, whose recollections of school must be still fresh, and whose knowledge on some points more accurate and full than that of their elders. At a later period of the investigation they were induced by an alleged case of hardship to examine a number of little boys to elicit from them an exact account of the present system of fagging. They have thus collected an immense mass of information relating to the management of the several schools, the course of instruction, the moral training, the discipline, the treatment of the boys, their sports, their social relations with each other-in a word, every particular, great and small, from the constitution of the governing body, the revenue, and its application, down to the cut of the boys' coats, and the colour of their neckcloths.

Moreover, to ascertain the efficiency of the teaching, they have obtained the evidence of tutors at the University and of the several boards, who examine candidates for admission into the civil and military service. Nor have their labours ended here. As it is their task not only to discover faults but to suggest remedies, they have consulted several eminent persons who, for various reasons, may be presumed to have valuable advice to offer. They have also extended their enquiries to other places of education more recently founded, such as Marlborough, Cheltenham, and Wellington, where attempts have been made to improve and enlarge the received scheme of instruction; and further, their Chairman Lord Clarendon has availed himself of the opportunity afforded by his mission to Berlin towards the close of the year 1861, to obtain from the Minister of Public Instruction an exact account of the methods adopted in Prussia.

The result of all this diligence is a volume containing a couple of very able Reports, together with two volumes of evidence, and another of Appendix. The first of the Reports is general. It comprises the particulars in which all public schools resemble each other, and the suggestions for improvement which the Commissioners believe to be equally applicable to all; the second

* The Commissioners are the Earls of Clarendon and Devon, Lord Lyttelton, Hon. E. B. Twistleton, Sir Stafford H. Northcote, Bart., Rev. W. H. Thompson, M.A., H. Halford Vaughan, Esq., M.A. The schools are Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Charterhouse, St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors', Harrow, Rugby, Shrewsbury. We give the names of both Commissioners and schools in the order in which they stand in the Royal Commission.

Vol. 116.-No. 231.

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