tures.

21. _St. Rocco._ Three figures occupy the spandrils of the window
above this and the following picture, painted merely in light and
shade, two larger than life, one rather smaller. I believe these to be
by Tintoret; but as they are quite in the dark, so that the execution
cannot be seen, and very good designs of the kind have been furnished
by other masters, I cannot answer for them. The figure of St. Rocco,
as well as its companion, St. Sebastian, is colored; they occupy the
narrow intervals between the windows, and are of course invisible
under ordinary circumstances. By a great deal of straining of the
eyes, and sheltering them with the hand from the light, some little
idea of the design may be obtained. The "St. Rocco" is a fine figure,
though rather coarse, but, at all events, worth as much light as would
enable us to see it.

22. _St. Sebastian._ This, the companion figure, is one of the finest
things in the whole room, and assuredly the most majestic Saint
Sebastian in existence; as far as mere humanity can be majestic, for
there is no effort at any expression of angelic or saintly
resignation; the effort is simply to realize the fact of the
martyrdom, and it seems to me that this is done to an extent not even
attempted by any other painter. I never saw a man die a violent death,
and therefore cannot say whether this figure be true or not, but it
gives the grandest and most intense impression of truth. The figure is
dead, and well it may be, for there is one arrow through the forehead
and another through the heart; but the eyes are open, though glazed,
and the body is rigid in the position in which it last stood, the left
arm raised and the left limb advanced, something in the attitude of a
soldier sustaining an attack under his shield, while the dead eyes are
still turned in the direction from which the arrows came: but the most
characteristic feature is the way these arrows are fixed. In the
common martyrdoms of St. Sebastian they are stuck into him here and
there like pins, as if they had been shot from a great distance and
had come faltering down, entering the flesh but a little way, and
rather bleeding the saint to death than mortally wounding him; but
Tintoret had no such ideas about archery. He must have seen bows drawn
in battle, like that of Jehu when he smote Jehoram between the
harness: