nd feelingless as they are, have
been worked with care, because the principal effect of the tomb depends
on them. But the effigy of the Doge, of which nothing but the side is
visible, has been utterly neglected; and the ingenuity of the sculptor
is not so great, at the best, as that he can afford to be slovenly.
There is, indeed, nothing in the history of Foscari which would lead us
to expect anything particularly noble in his face; but I trust,
nevertheless, it has been misrepresented by this despicable carver; for
no words are strong enough to express the baseness of the portraiture. A
huge, gross, bony clown's face, with the peculiar sodden and sensual
cunning in it which is seen so often in the countenances of the worst
Romanist priest; a face part of iron and part of clay, with the
immobility of the one, and the foulness of the other, double chinned,
blunt-mouthed, bony-cheeked, with its brows drawn down into meagre lines
and wrinkles over the eyelids; the face of a man incapable either of joy
or sorrow, unless such as may be caused by the indulgence of passion, or
the mortification of pride. Even had he been such a one, a noble workman
would not have written it so legibly on his tomb; and I believe it to be
the image of the carver's own mind that is there hewn in the marble, not
that of the Doge Foscari. For the same mind is visible enough
throughout, the traces of it mingled with those of the evil taste of the
whole time and people. There is not anything so small but it is shown in
some portion of its treatment; for instance, in the placing of the
shields at the back of the great curtain. In earlier times, the shield,
as we have seen, was represented as merely suspended against the tomb by
a thong, or if sustained in any other manner, still its form was simple
and undisguised. Men in those days used their shields in war, and
therefore there was no need to add dignity to their form by external
ornament. That which, through day after day of mortal danger, had borne
back from them the waves of battle, could neither be degraded by
simplicity, nor exalted by decoration. By its rude leathern thong it
seemed to be fastened to their tombs, and the shield of the mighty was
not cast away, though capable of defending its master no more.

Sec. LXXV. It was otherwise in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
The changed system of warfare was rapidly doing away with the practical
service of the shield; and the chiefs who direct