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The Headship of Christ and The Rights of the Christian People
The Headship of Christ and The Rights of the Christian People Author:Hugh Miller Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE LITEEAKY CHAKACTEE OF KNOX. It is one of the main distinctions of works produced by the master minds, whether in literature or the fine arts, that they co... more »ntain a large amount of thought. There are books of no great bulk which it seems scarce possible to exhaust, and pictures which, after one has looked at them for hours together, appear just as fresh and new as at first when one comes to look at them again. The works of Hogarth are scarcely less remarkable for vigour and condensation of thought than the work's of Shakspeare ; nor is Sir David "Wilkie a less fascinating author than Sir Walter Scott, or a less masterly delineator of character. Both these great artists,—the living and the dead one,—Hogarth and Sir David,—have shown how possible it is for men of genius to think vigorously upon canvas ; and that a clear, readable, condensed style may be attained in painting as certainly as in writing. One never tires of their productions. They tell admirable stories in so admirable a manner, that the oftener we peruse them the better we are pleased; and almost every story has its morai. There is, however, one of the most readable of Sir David's pictures which contains what we have been inclined to think a gross historical error, and belies the character of a very great man. His " Knox Preaching before the Lords of the Congregation" is unquestionably a splendid composition,;—full of thought and sentiment, but the main figure is defective. It represents not the powerful and persuasive orator, whose unmatched eloquence led captive the great minds of the country, but the mere fanatical leader of an unthinking rabble. It reminds us of the narrow-minded heresiarch described by Hume and Gilbert Stuart,—not of the vigorous- thoughted worthy apostrophized by the noble Milton as " Knox...« less