le, inevitable light;
the bright clouds are darkened with them as with thick snow, currents
of atom life in the arteries of heaven, now soaring up slowly, and
higher and higher still, till the eye and the thought can follow no
farther, borne up, wingless, by their inward faith and by the angel
powers invisible, now hurled in countless drifts of horror before the
breath of their condemnation."

Note in the opposite picture the way the clouds are wrapped about in
the distant Sinai.

The figure of the little Madonna in the "Presentation" should be
compared with Titian's in his picture of the same subject in the
Academy. I prefer Tintoret's infinitely: and note how much finer is
the feeling with which Tintoret has relieved the glory round her head
against the pure sky, than that which influenced Titian in encumbering
his distance with architecture.

The "Martyrdom of St. Agnes" _was_ a lovely picture. It has been
"restored" since I saw it.

OSPEDALETTO, CHURCH OF THE. The most monstrous example of the
Grotesque Renaissance which there is in Venice; the sculptures on its
facade representing masses of diseased figures and swollen fruit.

It is almost worth devoting an hour to the successive examination of
five buildings, as illustrative of the last degradation of the
Renaissance. San Moise is the most clumsy, Santa Maria Zobenigo the
most impious, St. Eustachio the most ridiculous, the Ospedaletto the
most monstrous, and the head at Santa Maria Formosa the most foul.

OTHELLO, HOUSE OF, at the Carmini. The researches of Mr. Brown into
the origin of the play of "Othello" have, I think, determined that
Shakspeare wrote on definite historical grounds; and that Othello may
be in many points identified with Christopher Moro, the lieutenant of
the republic at Cyprus, in 1508. See "Ragguagli su Maria Sanuto," i.
252.

His palace was standing till very lately, a Gothic building of the
fourteenth century, of which Mr. Brown possesses a drawing. It is now
destroyed, and a modern square-windowed house built on its site. A
statue, said to be a portrait of Moro, but a most paltry work, is set
in a niche in the modern wall.

P

PANTALEONE, CHURCH OF ST. Said to contain a Paul Veronese; otherwise of
no importance.

PATERNIAN, CHURCH OF ST. Its little leaning tower forms an interesting
object as the traveller sees i