ROCCO, SCUOLA DI SAN 425

the pieces of ragged wood are tossed hither and thither in the pile upon which Isaac is bound, although this scattering of the wood is inconsistent with the scriptural account of Abraham’s deliberate procedure, for we are told of him that “he set the wood in order.” But Tintoret had probably not noticed this, and thought the tossing of the timber into the disordered heap more like the act of the father in his agony.

33. Elijah at the Brook Cherith (?). I cannot tell if I have rightly interpreted the meaning of this picture, which merely represents a noble figure couched upon the ground, and an angel appearing to him; but I think that between the dark tree on the left, and the recumbent figure, there is some appearance of a running stream; at all events, there is of a mountainous and stony place. The longer I study this master, the more I feel the strange likeness between him and Turner, in our never knowing what subject it is that will stir him to exertion. We have lately had him treating Jacob’s Dream, Ezekiel’s Vision, Abraham’s Sacrifice, and Jonah’s Prayer (all of them subjects on which the greatest painters have delighted to expend their strength), with coldness, carelessness, and evident absence of delight; and here, on a sudden, in a subject so indistinct that one cannot be sure of its meaning and embracing only two figures, a man and an angel, forth he starts in his full strength. I believe he must somewhere or another, the day before, have seen a kingfisher; for this picture seems entirely painted for the sake of the glorious downy wings of the angel,-white clouded with blue as the bird’s head and wings are with green,-the softest and most elaborate in plumage that I have seen in any of his works: but observe also the general sublimity obtained by the mountainous lines of the drapery of the recumbent figure, dependent for its dignity upon these forms alone, as the face is more than half hidden, and what is seen of it expressionless.

34. The Paschal Feast. I name this picture by the title given in the guide-books; it represents merely five persons watching the increase of a small fire lighted on a table or altar in the midst of them. It is only because they have all staves in their hands that one may conjecture this fire to be that kindled to consume the Paschal offering. The effect is of a course a firelight; and, like all mere firelights that I have ever seen, totally devoid of interest.

35. Elisha Feeding the People. I again guess at the subject; the picture only represents a figure casting down a number of loaves before a multitude; but, as Elisha has not elsewhere occurred, I suppose that these must be the barley-loaves brought from Baal-shalisha. In conception and manner of painting, this picture and the last, together with the others above mentioned, in comparison with the “Elijah at Cherith,” may be generally described as “dregs of Tintoret”: they are tired, dead, dragged out upon the canvas apparently in the heavyhearted state which a man falls into when he is both jaded with toil and sick of the work he is employed upon. They are not hastily painted, on the contrary, finished with considerably more care than several of the works upon the walls; but those, as, for instance, the “Agony in the Garden,” are hurried sketches with the man’s whole

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