muscles are
made of steel, and there is strength and watchfulness, attributes
which led the early architects to rest the pilasters of the pulpit and
portal upon lions' backs. But the eagle of St. John is superb, even
grander than the famous classical marble of the same subject.[199] It
has the broad expanse of wings, vibrating as though the bird were
about to take flight: the long lithe body with its soft pectoral
feathers, the striking claws, and the flattened head with cruel
gleaming eye, all combine to give a _terribilita_ which is, perhaps,
unsurpassed in all the countless versions of the symbol. But the drama
of the eagle is eclipsed by the quiet unostentatious poetry of the
angel of St. Matthew. We see a girl of intense grace and refinement,
winged as an angel and looking modestly downwards to the open gospel
in her hands. Delicacy is the keynote pervading every detail of the
relief: in her hands, arms and throat, in the soft curves of the young
frame, and in the drapery itself, which suggests all that is dainty
and pure--everywhere, in fact, we find charm and tenderness, rare even
in a man like Ghiberti, almost unique in Donatello.

[Footnote 199: The Walpole Eagle from the Tiber, belonging to the Earl
of Wemyss.]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Choir of Angels.]

In the original contract with Donatello, ten angels were commissioned,
and were exhibited on the provisional wooden altar (13, vi. '48). It
appears, however, that they were insufficient, and two more panels
were ordered. These may possibly be the reliefs in each of which a
couple of angels are represented singing, certainly the most
successful of all. There is a palpable inequality in the remainder.
They not only show differences of treatment in the details of drapery,
chiselling and general decoration, but there is a substantial lack of
harmony in their broad conception. It is impossible to believe that
the two angels leaning inwards against the edge of the relief (the
fourth respectively from either end of the altar) could have been
modelled by Donatello. Not only are they vulgar and commonplace, but
they are malformed: well might Donatello long for criticism and
censure if these two stupid little urchins were standards of his
production. Next to one of these pipers is a child playing the lute,
delicious in every respect: he is made by the genius, the other by the
hack. They contrast in every particular--drapery, anatom