e the robe of the cripple, curious to see if
there are any signs of the miracle, or if that really was the leg
which was helpless.

The two children who stand by the altar, one playing the pipes, the
other with a book of music, are very characteristic of Raphael, who
loved thus to introduce a playful, innocent element. The singing child
has his eyes bent on the ram which is led up for sacrifice.

Raphael, like other illustrators of the Bible, does not always follow
exactly the text which he is to illustrate. The people called Barnabas
Jupiter, and Paul Mercury. This would seem to show that Barnabas was a
great, imposing figure, and Paul, according to tradition, was a small,
undersized man; but there is no such contrast to be seen here.

By a happy suggestion, the painter has placed in the background on a
pedestal a statue of Mercury. We know it by the winged staff which
Mercury is supposed to carry as a sign of his office of messenger of
the gods.

Raphael painted at a time when scholars and artists were enthusiastic
over the rediscovery of the literature and art of the ancient world.
Such a scene as this, therefore, appealed to him; for he could not
only depict a Biblical incident, but he could make his picture a study
of ancient life. The architecture, the altar, the figure of Mercury,
the wreath-bound heads, the sacrificial act itself, were all such as
he could imagine from ancient Greece. Indeed, the whole picture is
like a copy of an antique bas-relief; and in the original cartoon
there is, below the picture, a decorative border studied from antique
sculpture, and below that still an ornamental edge which was very
common in Greek work.

And yet, though Raphael thus made much of the Greek spirit in his
design, he was like all great painters of his day. He did not try
minutely to repeat Greek life as he imagined it. The men and women and
children were like those he was wont to see in Rome or Florence, or
Urbino, where he was born, and the headdresses were such as the women
of his time wore.

V

HELIODORUS DRIVEN FROM THE TEMPLE

In the Vatican palace there is one chamber in a series of chambers
decorated with Raphael's paintings which is called in Italian Stanza
d'Eliodoro, or the Heliodorus Room. The name is taken from the first
of the paintings which cover the walls of the room.

The story which Raphael told in this picture is taken from an incident
in the history of Jerusalem, which is related