a and Child and at
his side is the sibyl, Tiburtina, pointing upwards.

Since the revival of art, the incident has been frequently treated. It
was painted by Cavallini, about 1340, on the vault of the choir of
the Ara-Coeli. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it became
a favourite subject. It admitted of those classical forms, and that
mingling of the heathen and the Christian in style and costume, which
were calculated to please the churchmen and artists of the time, and
the examples are innumerable.

The most celebrated, I believe, is the fresco by Baldassare Peruzzi,
in which the figure of the sibyl is certainly very majestic, but
the rest of the group utterly vulgar and commonplace. (Siena, Fonte
Giusta.) Less famous, but on the whole preferable in point of taste,
is the group by Garofalo, in the palace of the Quirinal; and there
is another by Titian, in which the scene is laid in a fine landscape
after his manner. Vasari mentions a cartoon of this subject, painted
by Rosso for Francis I., "among the best things Rosso ever produced,"
and introducing the King and Queen of France, their guards, and a
concourse of people, as spectators of the scene. In some instances the
locality is a temple, with an altar, before which kneels the Emperor,
having laid upon it his sceptre and laurel crown: the sibyl points to
the vision seen through a window above. I think it is so represented
in a large picture at Hampton Court, by Pietro da Cortona.

* * * * *

The sibylline prophecy is supposed to have occurred a short tune
before the Nativity, about the same period when the decree went forth
"that all the world should be taxed." Joseph, therefore, arose and
saddled his ass, and set his wife upon it, and went up from Nazareth
to Bethlehem. The way was long, and steep, and weary; "and when Joseph
looked back, he saw the face of Mary that it was sorrowful, as of one
in pain; but when he looked back again, she smiled. And when they,
were come to Bethlehem, there was no room for them in the inn, because
of the great concourse of people. And Mary said to Joseph, "Take me
down for I suffer." (Protevangelion.)

The journey to Bethlehem, and the grief and perplexity of Joseph, have
been often represented. 1. There exists a very ancient Greek carving
in ivory, wherein Mary is seated on the ass, with an expression of
suffering, and Joseph tenderly sustains her; she has one arm round his
neck, leani