X. THE SHRINE OF THE SLAVES 369

established authority and subordination-the greater saint blessed by the lesser, when the lesser is in the higher place of authority, and all the common and natural glories and delights of the world made holy by its influence: field, and earth, and mountain, and sea, and bright maiden’s grace, and old men’s quietness,-all in one music of moving peace-the very procession of them in their multitude like a chanted hymn-the purple standards drooping in the light air that yet can lift St. George’s gonfalon;* and the angel Michael alighting-himself seen in vision instead of his statue-on the Angel’s tower, sheathing his sword.

206. What I have to say respecting the picture that closes the series, the martyrdom and funeral, is partly saddening, partly depreciatory, and shall be reserved for another place.¹ The picture itself has been more injured and repainted than any other (the face of the recumbent figure entirely so); and though it is full of marvellous passages, I hope that the general traveller will seal his memory of Carpaccio in the picture last described.

* It is especially to be noted with Carpaccio, and perhaps more in this than any other of the series, that he represents the beauty of religion always in animating the present world, and never gives the charm to the clear far-away sky which is so constant in Florentine sacred pictures.

¹ [This, however, was not done.]

XXIV.2 A

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