Shortly after Sandro Botticelli had painted that distinctly pagan
picture, "The Birth of Venus," he equalized matters, eased
conscience and silenced the critics, by producing a beautiful
Madonna, surrounded by a circle of singing angels. Yet George Eliot
writes that there were wiseacres who shook their heads and said:
"This Madonna is the work of some good monk--only a man who is
deeply religious could put that look of exquisite tenderness and
sympathy in a woman's face. Some one is trying to save Sandro's
reputation, and win him back from his wayward ways."

In the lives of Botticelli and Rembrandt there is a close
similarity. In temperament as well as in experience they seem to
parallel each other. In boyhood Botticelli and Rembrandt were dull,
perverse, wilful. Both were given up by teachers and parents as
hopelessly handicapped by stupidity. Botticelli's father, seeing
that the boy made no progress at school, apprenticed him to a
metalworker. The lad showed the esteem in which he held his parent
by dropping the family name of Filipepi and assuming the name of
Botticelli, the name of his employer.

Rembrandt's father thought his boy might make a fair miller, but
beyond this his ambition never soared. Botticelli and Rembrandt were
splendid animals. The many pictures of Rembrandt, painted by
himself, show great physical vigor and vital power.

The picture of Botticelli, by himself, in the "Adoration of the
Magi," reveals a powerful physique and a striking personality. The
man is as fine as an Aztec, as strong and self-reliant as a cliff-
dweller. Character and habit are revealed in the jaw--the teeth of
the Aztecs were made to grind corn in the kernel, and as long as