of angels streaming either way from the ethereal Dove
sweeps into a ruined hut, a few mean chairs its only furniture, the mean
plaster dropping from the bare brick pilasters; without, Joseph at work
unheeding, amid piles of worthless timber flung here and there. So in
the 'Adoration of the Magi' the mother wonders with a peasant's wonder
at the jewels and gold. Again, the 'Massacre of the Innocents' is one
wild, horror-driven rush of pure motherhood, reckless of all in its
clutch at its babe. So in the splendour of his 'Circumcision' it is from
the naked child that the light streams on the High Priest's brow, on the
mighty robe of purple and gold held up by stately forms like a vast
banner behind him. The peasant mother to whose poorest hut that first
stir of child-life has brought a vision of angels, who has marvelled at
the wealth of precious gifts which a babe brings to her breast, who has
felt the sword piercing her own bosom also as danger threatened it, on
whose mean world her child has flung a glory brighter than glory of
earth, is the truest critic of Tintoret.

What Shakespere was to the national history of England in his great
series of historic dramas, his contemporary Tintoret was to the history
of Venice. It was perhaps from an unconscious sense that her annals were
really closed that the Republic began to write her history and her
exploits in the series of paintings which covers the walls of the Ducal
Palace. Her apotheosis is like that of the Roman Emperors; it is when
death has fallen upon her that her artists raise her into a divine form,
throned amid heavenly clouds and crowned by angel hands with the laurel
wreath of victory. It is no longer St. Mark who watches over Venice, it
is Venice herself who bends from heaven to bless boatman and senator. In
the divine figure of the Republic with which Tintoret filled the central
cartoon of the Great Hall every Venetian felt himself incarnate. His
figure of 'Venice' in the Senate Hall is yet nobler; the blue sea-depths
are cleft open, and strange ocean-shapes wave their homage and yet more
unearthly forms dart up with tribute of coral and pearls to the feet of
the Sea Queen as she sits in the silken state of the time with the
divine halo around her. But if from this picture in the roof the eye
falls suddenly on the fresco which fills the close of the room, we can
hardly help reading the deeper comment of Tintoret on the glory of the
State. The Sala del Consigli