_ I name this picture by the title given in the
guide-books; it represents merely five persons watching the increase
of a small fire lighted on a table or altar in the midst of them. It
is only because they have all staves in their hands that one may
conjecture this fire to be that kindled to consume the Paschal
offering. The effect is of course a fire light; and, like all mere
fire lights that I have ever seen, totally devoid of interest.

35. _Elisha feeding the People._ I again guess at the subject: the
picture only represents a figure casting down a number of loaves
before a multitude; but, as Elisha has not elsewhere occurred, I
suppose that these must be the barley loaves brought from
Baalshalisha. In conception and manner of painting, this picture and
the last, together with the others above-mentioned, in comparison with
the "Elijah at Cherith," may be generally described as "dregs of
Tintoret:" they are tired, dead, dragged out upon the canvas
apparently in the heavy-hearted state which a man falls into when he
is both jaded with toil and sick of the work he is employed upon. They
are not hastily painted; on the contrary, finished with considerably
more care than several of the works upon the walls; but those, as, for
instance, the "Agony in the Garden," are hurried sketches with the
man's whole heart in them, while these pictures are exhausted
fulfilments of an appointed task. Whether they were really amongst the
last painted, or whether the painter had fallen ill at some
intermediate time, I cannot say; but we shall find him again in his
utmost strength in the room which we last enter.

[Illustration: Fourth Group. Inner room on the upper floor.

On the Roof.

36 to 39. Children's Heads. 41 to 44. Children.
40. St. Rocco in Heaven. 45 to 56. Allegorical Figures.

On the Walls.

57. Figure in Niche. 60. Ecce Homo.
58. Figure in Niche. 61. Christ bearing his Cross.
59. Christ before Pilate. 62. CRUCIFIXION.]

36 to 39. _Four Children's Heads_, which it is much to be regretted
should be thus lost in filling small vacuities of the ceiling.

40. _St. Rocco in Heaven._ The central picture of the roof, in the
inner room. From the well-known anecdote respecting the production