Some subjects in art are best suited for enjoyment in rooms destined for solitary use, others for those of general resort--some touch us peculiarly in one mood, some are welcome to us in all. Of this last character 'St Catherine borne by Angels' is a specimen: the earth sinks beneath them, they fly so swiftly and yet so calmly! we are in the air too with them, and mark how small the world looks, with its burdens of wrong and suffering, as we cleave our way through the fields of ether up towards the stars; and that lovely one the spirits hold so tenderly, how still and calm is every line!--she is at peace after the storm and the agony, and for a space we lie still as she in those angel arms. Of the same class is Raphael's 'Transfiguration,' which is magnificent if we only contemplate the grouping of the figures, but truly sublime in the ideas it suggests. Flaxman's 'Mercury and Pandora' likewise, elegant and graceful in the highest degree, is peculiarly suited for generally used rooms and constant delight. But specimens crowd into our recollection for which we have not space. General sitting-rooms can bear a _variety_ of subject and suggestion--they will have a variety of inhabitants or visitors; and while bearing the impress of a certain unity, they should contain pleasure for all, and stimuli for differing minds. We would not habitually admit in them works of art which rouse too painful a class of emotions. Fuseli's picture of 'Count Ugolino in Prison,' in which the stony fixedness of despair deprives us, as we gaze, almost of the living hope within us, we could not bear to have near us habitually. That wonderfully beautiful marble of Francesca di Rimini and her lover, which appeared in the Great Exhibition last year, would come under the same law of banishment. It realised so perfectly the hopelessness of hell, that at sight of it we swooned in spirit as Dante did in reality. Life has so many stern realities for most of us, that in art we need relief, and generally desire to find renewed hope and faith through delight and gladness.
In rooms where we need care to please only ourselves, we can follow our own tastes more entirely and freely. In them, shall we not have a Madonna whose 'eyes are homes of silent prayer?'--a copy of De la Roche's 'Christ,' so touching in its sad and noble serenity? or some bust or engraving of poet or hero, which shall be to us as a biography, never failing to stimulate us in the best direction? Or shall we have a copy of that fine Mercury, who stands resting lightly on the earth with one foot, and raised, outstretched arms, in the act of ascending from it--the embodiment of aspiration? All these things are symbols of noble thought, and they may belong to us as easily now as a copy of Bacon or Shakspeare. Here is great cause for rejoicing. Fantastic furniture, old china, and such-like things, will one day be superseded in drawing-rooms, just as the old, barbarously-coloured 'Noahs' and 'Abrahams' of the cottage may now easily be by pictures in better perspective and purer taste. Then there will be danger of crowding rooms with good things--a great mistake also: an ornament should have a simple background, should 'shew like metal on a sullen ground.' Rooms, from temptations of wealth or taste, should never become mere pretty curiosity-shops. Forbearance and self-control are necessary in this as in all things. 'To gild refined gold' is worse than useless.