and ill-shaped; the ancient rules,
half-forgotten, are blended with new ones only half understood. Many
authors employ at the same time alliteration and rhyme, and sin against
both. The sermons are usually familiar in their style and kind in their
tone; they are meant for the poor and miserable to whom tenderness and
sympathy must be shown. The listeners want to be consoled and soothed;
they are also interested, as formerly, by stories of miracles, and
scared into virtue by descriptions of hell; confidence again is given
them by instances of Divine mercy.[325]

Like the ancient churches the collections of sermons bring before the
eye the last judgment and the region of hell, with its monstrous
torments, its wells of flames, its ocean with seven bitter waves: ice,
fire, blood ... a rudimentary rendering of legends interpreted in their
turn by Dante in his poem, and Giotto in his fresco.[326] The thought of
Giotto especially, when reading those sermons, recurs to the memory, of
Giotto with his awkward and audacious attempts, Giotto so remote and yet
so modern, childish and noble at the same time, who represents devils
roasting the damned on spits, and on the same wall tries to paint the
Unseen and disclose to view the Unknown, Giotto with his search after
the impossible, an almost painful search, the opposite of antique
wisdom, and the sublime folly of the then nascent modern age. Not far
from Padua, beside Venice, in the great Byzantine mosaic of Torcello,
can be seen a last reflection of antique equanimity. Here the main
character of the judgment-scene is its grand solemnity; and from this
comes the impression of awe left on the beholder; the idea of rule and
law predominates, a fatal law against which nothing can prevail; fate
seems to preside, as it did in the antique tragedies.

In the English sermons of the period it is not the art of Torcello that
continues, but the art of Giotto that begins. From time to time among
the ungainly phrases of an author whose language is yet unformed, amidst
mild and kind counsels, bursts forth a resounding apostrophe which
causes the whole soul to vibrate, and has something sublime in its force
and brevity: "He who bestows alms with ill-gotten goods shall not obtain
the grace of Christ any more than he who having slain thy child brings
thee its head as a gift!"[327]

The Psalter,[328] portions of the Bible,[329] lives of saints,[330]
were put into verse. Metrical lives of saints fil