the cheapest German imitations of the cheapest
decorations that Birmingham can produce; let the night air and
winter fogs get at her for three hundred years, and how easy, I
wonder, will it be to see the goddess who will be still in great
part there? True, in the case of the Birth of the Virgin chapel at
Montrigone, there is no real hair and no fresco background, but time
has had abundant opportunities without these. I will conclude my
notice of this chapel by saying that on the left, above the door
through which the under-under-nurse's drudge is about to pass, there
is a good painted terra-cotta bust, said--but I believe on no
authority--to be a portrait of Giovanni d'Enrico. Others say that
the Virgin's grandmother is Giovanni d'Enrico, but this is even more
absurd than supposing her to be St. Joachim.

The next chapel to the Birth of the Virgin is that of the
Sposalizio. There is no figure here which suggests Tabachetti, but
still there are some very good ones. The best have no taint of
barocco; the man who did them, whoever he may have been, had
evidently a good deal of life and go, was taking reasonable pains,
and did not know too much. Where this is the case no work can fail
to please. Some of the figures have real hair and some terra-cotta.
There is no fresco background worth mentioning. A man sitting on
the steps of the altar with a book on his lap, and holding up his
hand to another, who is leaning over him and talking to him, is
among the best figures; some of the disappointed suitors who are
breaking their wands are also very good.

The angel in the Annunciation chapel, which comes next in order, is
a fine, burly, ship's-figurehead, commercial-hotel sort of being
enough, but the Virgin is very ordinary. There is no real hair and
no fresco background, only three dingy old blistered pictures of no
interest whatever.

In the Visit of Mary to Elizabeth there are three pleasing
subordinate lady attendants, two to the left and one to the right of
the principal figures; but these figures themselves are not
satisfactory. There is no fresco background. Some of the figures
have real hair and some terra-cotta.

In the Circumcision and Purification chapel--for both these events
seem contemplated in the one that follows--there are doves, but
there is neither dog nor knife. Still Simeon, who has the infant
Saviour in his arms, is looking at him in a way which can only mean
that, knife or no knife, the mat