TREES IN ARCHITECTURE 193 



The reader will recollect that doves were the 

 intermediaries that declared the will of Zeus 

 that his oracle should be the oaks of Dodona. 

 It was a dove that was sent out by Noah to 

 find if the waters of the Deluge were abating, 

 and returning, after being sent a second time, 

 she brought an olive-leaf in her mouth. The 

 reader's thoughts have already passed, in all 

 probability, to the New Testament, where, 

 again, the dove is the form of the Divine ap- 

 pearance. And does he know the story, it is 

 often told in mediaeval art, of the budding of 

 Joseph's rod, by which it was made known 

 that he was to be the husband of Mary? 

 Once more thought will have passed on to one 

 of the favourite subjects of Christian art, both 

 for the sculptor and the painter, the Annuncia- 

 tion, in which the Holy Spirit appears in the 

 form of a dove, and the Angel Gabriel carries 

 a lily in his hand. So do the old forms per- 

 sist, though with a new, a deeper meaning. 



We can parallel, also, in art, the difference 

 between the earlier and the later conception 

 of paradise, which, at the close of our second 

 chapter, we traced in literature. The old 

 motive, of the tree or pillar of life, with 

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