way improved on this fancy; the
Virgin sleeps on a bank with the Child on her bosom; Joseph, who looks
extremely like an old tinker, is doubling his fist at the ass, which
has opened its mouth to bray.

* * * * *

Before quitting the subject of the Riposo, I must mention a very
pretty and poetical legend, which I have met with in one picture only;
a description of it may, however, lead to the recognition of others.

There is, in the collection of Lord Shrewsbury, at Alton Towers, a
Riposo attributed to Giorgione, remarkable equally for the beauty and
the singularity of the treatment. The Holy Family are seated in the
midst of a wild but rich landscape, quite in the Venetian style;
Joseph is asleep; the two children are playing with a lamb. The
Virgin, seated holds a book, and turns round, with an expression of
surprise and alarm, to a female figure who stands on the right. This
woman has a dark physiognomy, ample flowing drapery of red and white,
a white turban twisted round her head, and stretches out her hand with
the air of a sibyl. The explanation of this striking group I found
in an old ballad-legend. Every one who has studied the moral as well
as the technical character of the various schools of art, must have
remarked how often the Venetians (and Giorgione more especially)
painted groups from the popular fictions and ballads of the time; and
it has often been regretted that many of these pictures are becoming
unintelligible to us from our having lost the key to them, in losing
all trace of the fugitive poems or tales which suggested them.

The religious ballad I allude to must have been popular in the
sixteenth century; it exists in the Provencal dialect, in German,
and in Italian; and, like the wild ballad of St. John Chrysostom, it
probably came in some form or other from the East. The theme is, in
all these versions, substantially the same. The Virgin, on her arrival
in Egypt, is encountered by a gypsy (Zingara or Zingarella), who
crosses the Child's palm after the gypsy manner, and foretells all the
wonderful and terrible things which, as the Redeemer of mankind, he
was destined to perform and endure on earth.

An Italian version which lies before me is entitled, _Canzonetta
nuova, sopra la Madonna, quando si parto in Egitto col Bambino Gesu
e San Giuseppe_, "A new Ballad of our Lady, when she fled into Egypt
with the Child Jesus and St. Joseph."

It begins with a conver