aujourd'hui, l'image de la mère de Dieu est noire à Naples, comme à
Einsiedeln en Suisse. Elle unit ainsi le jour et la nuit, la joie avec
la tristesse, le soleil et la lune (chaleur, humidité), le terrestre et
le céleste."

This fragment is, perhaps, rather too long; but I think your readers will
consider it too beautiful to abridge. The late G. Higgins, in his
_Anacalepsis_ (ii. 100.), has some observations to the same purport, and
points out the resemblance of some of the old Italian paintings of the
Virgin and Child to Egyptian representations of Isis and the infant Horus.

Many of these ideas have been taken up by the free-masons, and are typified
and symbolised in their initiatory ceremonies.

J.B. DITCHFIELD.

* * * * *

OUTLINE IN PAINTING.

A correspondent (J.O.W.H.) at p. 318. of Vol. i. asks a question on the
subject of outline in painting; instancing the works of Albert Durer and
Raffaelle as examples of defined, and those of Titian, Murillo, &c., of
indefined outline. He wishes to know whether there is "a right and a wrong
in the matter, apart from anything which men call taste?"

The subject generally is a curious one, and has interested me for some
time; as experiments exhibit several singular phenomena resulting from the
interference and diffraction of rays of light in passing by the outline of
a material body. As a matter of fact, I believe I may say, that there is no