f the French school, the result being that the head
is very bright and very conspicuous, and perhaps, in some of the late
operations upon the roof, recently washed and touched. In consequence,
every one who comes into the room, is first invited to observe the
"bella testa di Abramo." The only thing characteristic of Tintoret is
the way in which the pieces of ragged wood are tossed hither and
thither in the pile upon which Isaac is bound, although this
scattering of the wood is inconsistent with the Scriptural account of
Abraham's deliberate procedure, for we are told of him that "he set
the wood in order." But Tintoret had probably not noticed this, and
thought the tossing of the timber into the disordered heap more like
the act of the father in his agony.

33. _Elijah at the Brook Cherith (?)._ I cannot tell if I have rightly
interpreted the meaning of this picture, which merely represents a
noble figure couched upon the ground, and an angel appearing to him;
but I think that between the dark tree on the left, and the recumbent
figure, there is some appearance of a running stream, at all events
there is of a mountainous and stony place. The longer I study this
master, the more I feel the strange likeness between him and Turner,
in our never knowing what subject it is that will stir him to
exertion. We have lately had him treating Jacob's Dream, Ezekiel's
Vision, Abraham's Sacrifice, and Jonah's Prayer, (all of them subjects
on which the greatest painters have delighted to expend their
strength,) with coldness, carelessness, and evident absence of
delight; and here, on a sudden, in a subject so indistinct that one
cannot be sure of its meaning, and embracing only two figures, a man
and an angel, forth he starts in his full strength. I believe he must
somewhere or another, the day before, have seen a kingfisher; for this
picture seems entirely painted for the sake of the glorious downy
wings of the angel,--white clouded with blue, as the bird's head and
wings are with green,--the softest and most elaborate in plumage that
I have seen in any of his works: but observe also the general
sublimity obtained by the mountainous lines of the drapery of the
recumbent figure, dependent for its dignity upon these forms alone, as
the face is more than half hidden, and what is seen of it
expressionless.

34. _The Paschal Feast.