X. THE SHRINE OF THE SLAVES 347

time, every Venetian painter had been trained to represent only slow and dignified motion, and not till fifty years later, under classic influence, came the floating and rushing force of Veronese and Tintoret.

And I am confirmed in this impression by the figure of the stag in the distance, which does not run freely, and by the imperfect gallop of St. George’s horse in the first subject.

177. But there are many deeper questions respecting this St. Jerome subject than those of artistic skill. The picture is a jest indeed; but is it a jest only? Is the tradition itself a jest? or only by our own fault, and perhaps Carpaccio’s, do we make it so?

In the first place, then, you will please to remember, as I have often told you, Carpaccio is not answerable for himself in this matter. He begins to think of his subject, intending, doubtless, to execute it quite seriously. But his mind no sooner fastens on it than the vision of it comes to him as a jest, and he is forced to paint it. Forced by the fates,-dealing with the fate of Venice and Christendom. We must ask of Atropos, not of Carpaccio, why this picture makes us laugh; and why the tradition it records has become to us a dream and a scorn. No day of my life passes now to its sunset, without leaving me more doubtful of all our cherished contempts, and more earnest to discover what root there was for the stories of good men, which are now the mocker’s treasure.

178. And I want to read a good “Life of St. Jerome.” And if I go to Mr. Ongania’s I shall find, I suppose, the autobiography of George Sand, and the life of-Mr. Sterling, perhaps; and Mr. Werner, written by my own master,¹ and which indeed I’ve read, but forget now who either Mr. Sterling or Mr. Werner was; and perhaps, in religious literature, the life of Mr. Wilberforce and of Mrs. Fry; but not the smallest scrap of information about St. Jerome.

¹ [Carlyle’s Life of John Sterling (1851) and Essay on the Life and Writings of Werner (1828), now included in the first volume of Carlyle’s Miscellanies.]

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