ner such a myth is re-written by a great man, born in the days of a nation's strength.

Carpaccio begins his story with what the myth calls a dream. But he wishes to tell you that it was no dream,— but a vision;-that a real angel came, and was seen by Ursula's soul, when her mortal eyes were closed.

"The Angel of the Lord," says the legend. What!thinks Carpaccio ;-to this little maid of fifteen, the angel that came to Moses and Joshua? Not so, but her own guardian angel.

Guardian, and to tell her that God will guide her heart tomorrow, and put His own answer on her lips, concerning her marriage. Shall not such angel be crowned with light, and strew her chamber with lilies?

There is no glory round his head; there is no gold on his robes; they are of subdued purple and gray. His wings are colourless his face calm, but sorrowful,-wholly in shade. In his right hand he bears the martyr's palm; in his left, the fillet borne by the Greek angels of victory, and, together with it, gathers up, knotted in his hand, the folds of shroud* with which the Etrurians veil the tomb.

* I could not see this symbol at the height at which the picture hung from the ground, when I described it in 1872. The folds of the drapery in the hand are all but invisible, even when the picture is seen close; and so neutral in their gray-green colour that they pass imperceptibly into violet, as the faint green of evening sky fades into its purple. But the folds are continued under the wrist in the alternate waves which the reader may see on the Etruscan tomb in the first room of the British Museum, with a sculpturesque severity which I could not then understand, and could only account for by supposing that Carpaccio had meant the Princess to "dream out the angel's dress so particularly"! I mistook the fillet of victory also for a scroll; and could not make out the flowers in the window. They are pinks, the favourite ones in Italian windows to this day, and having a particular relation to St. Ursula in the way they rend their calyx; and I believe also in their peculiar relation to the grasses (of which more in Proserpina). St. Ursula is not meant, herself, to recognize the angel. He enters under the door over which she has put her little statue of Venus; and through that door the room is filled with light, so that it will not seem to her strange that his own form, as he enters, should be in shade: and

VOL. III.-22

He comes to her, "in the clear light of morning;" the Angel of Death.

You see it is written in the legend that she had shut close the doors of her chamber.

They have opened as the angel enters,-not one only, but all in the room,-all in the house. He enters by one at the foot of her bed; but beyond it is another-open into the passage; out of that another into some luminous hall or street. All the window-shutters are wide open; they are made dark that you may notice them,-nay, all the press doors are open! No treasure bars shall hold, where this angel enters.

Carpaccio has been intent to mark that he comes in the light of dawn. The blue-green sky glows between the dark leaves of the olive and dianthus in the open window. But its light is low compared to that which enters behind the angel, falling full on Ursula's face, in divine rest.

In the last picture but one, of this story, he has painted her lying in the rest which the angel came to bring; and in the last, is her rising in the eternal Morning.

For this is the first lesson which Carpaccio wrote in his Venetian words for the creatures of this restless world,—that Death is better than their life; and that not bridegroom rejoices over bride as they rejoice who marry not, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God, in Heaven. she cannot see his dark wings. On the tassel of her pillow, (Etrurian also,) is written "Infantia"; and above her head, the carving of the bed ends in a spiral flame, typical of the finally ascending Spirit. She lies on her bier, in the last picture but one, exactly as here on her bed; only the coverlid is there changed from scarlet to pale violet. See notes on the meaning of these colours in third Deucalion.

NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.

I. Affairs of the Company.

Venice, October 20th.-I have sent for press, to-day, the fourth number of Deucalion, in which will be found a statement of the system on which I begin the arrangement of the Sheffield Museum.

There are no new subscriptions to announce. Another donation, of fifty pounds, by Mrs. Talbot, makes me sadly ashamed of the apathy of all my older friends. I believe, in a little while now, it will be well for me to throw them all aside, and refuse to know any one but my own Companions, and the workmen who are willing to listen to me. I have spoken enough to the upper classes, and they mock me ;-in the seventh year of Fors I will speak more clearly than hitherto,-but not to them. Meantime, my Sheffield friends must not think I am neglecting them, because I am at work here in Venice, instead of among them. They will know in a little while the use of my work here. The following portions of letter from the Curator of our Museum, with a piece of biography in it, which I venture to print, in haste, assuming permission, will be of good service to good workers everywhere.

"H. Swan to J. Ruskin.

"WALKLEY, SHEFFIELD, October 18, 1876. "Dear Master,-The interest in the Museum seems still increasing. Yesterday (Sunday), in addition to our usual allotment of casual calls at the Museum, we had a visit from a party of working men; two or three of them from Barnsley, but the most Sheffielders, among which last were several of those who came to meet thee on the last occasion. Their object was a double one; first, to see what progress we were making with the Museum; and, secondly, to discuss the subject of Usury, the unlawfulness of which, in its ordinary aspects, being (unlike the land question) a perfectly new notion to all except one or two. The objection generally takes this shape: 'If I have worked hard to earn twenty pounds, and it is an advantage to another to have the use of that twenty pounds, why should he get that advantage without paying me for it?' To which my reply has been, there may, or may not, be reasons why the lender should be placed in a better position for using his powers of body or mind; but the special question for you, with your twenty pounds, now is, not what right has he to use the money without payment-(he has every right, if you give him leave; and none, if you don't ;)—the question you have to propose to yourself is this. Why should I, as a man and a Christian, after having been paid for what I have earned, expect or desire to make an agreement by which

I may get, from the labour of others, money I have not earned?' Suppose, too, bail for a hundred pounds to be required for a prisoner in whose innocence you believed, would you say I will be bail for the hundred pounds, but I shall expect five pounds from him for the advantage he will thereby get? No; the just man would weigh well whether it be right or no to undertake the bail; but, having determined, he would shrink from receiving the unearned money, as I believe the first unwarped instinct of a good man does still in the case of a loan.

"Although, as I have said, all question as to the right of what is called a moderate rate of interest was new to most of our visitors, yet I found a greater degree of openness to the truth than might have been expected. One of the most interesting parts of the discussion was the relation by one of the party of his own experiences, in years past, as a money-lender. 'In the place where I used to work at that time,' said he, there was a very many of a good sort of fellows who were not so careful of their money as I was, and they used often to run out of cash before the time came for them to take more. Well, knowing I was one that always had a bit by me, they used to come to me to borrow a bit to carry them through to pay-day. When they paid me, some would ask if I wanted aught for the use of it. But I only lent to pleasure them, and I always said, No, I wanted naught. One day, however, Jack came to me, and said, "Now, my lad, dost want to get more brass for thyself, and lay by money? because I can put thee in the way of doing it." I said that was a great object for me. "Well," said he, "thou must do as I tell thee. I know thou'rt often lending thy brass to them as want a lift. Now thou must make them pay for using thy money, and if thou works as I tell thee, it'll grow and grow. And by-and-by they'll be paying and paying for the use of their own money over and over again." Well, I thought it would be a good thing for me to have the bits of cash come in and in, to help along with what I earned myself. So I told each of the men, as they came, that I couldn't go on lending for nothing, and they must pay me a bit more when they got their pay. And so they did. After a time, Jack came again, and said, "Well, how'rt getting on?" So I told him what I was doing, and that seemed all right. After a time, he came again, and said, "Now thou finds what I said was right. The men can spare thee a bit for thy money, and it makes things a deal more comfortable for thyself. Now I can show thee how a hundred of thy money shall bring another hundred in." Nay," said I, "thou canst not do that. That can't be done." "Nay, but it can," said Jack. And he told me how to manage; and that when I hadn't the cash, he would find it, and we'd halve the profits. [Say a man wants to borrow twenty pounds, and is to pay back at three shillings a week. The interest is first deducted for the whole time, so that if he agrees to pay only five per cent. he will receive but nineteen pounds; then the interest is more than five per cent. on the money actually out during the very first week, while the rate gradually rises as the weekly payments come,-slowly at first, but at the last more and more rapidly, till, during the last month, the money-lender is obtaining two hundred per cent. for the amount (now, however, very small) still unpaid.]

"Well, it grew and grew. Hundreds and hundreds I paid and received every week, (and we found that among the poorest little shops

it worked the best for us). At last it took such hold of me that I be. came a regular bloodsucker-a bloodsucker of poor folk, and nothing else. I was always reckoning up, night and day, how to get more and more, till I got so thin and ill I had to go to the doctor. It was old Dr. Sike, and he said, "Young man, you must give up your present way of work and life, or I can do nothing for you. You'll get worse and

"So I thought and thought, and at last I made up my mind to give it all up, though I was then getting rich. But there was no blessing on what I'd got, and I lost it every farthing, and had to begin again as poor as I was when I first left the workhouse to learn a trade. And now, I've prospered and prospered in my little way till I've no cause to worry anyways about money, and I've a few men at work with me in my shop.

66 6

'Still, for all that, I don't see why I shouldn't have interest on the little capital I've saved up honestly; or how am I to live in my old age?'

"Another workman suggested, 'Wouldn't he be able to live on his capital?' 'Aye, but I want to leave that to somebody else,' was the answer. [Yes, good friend, and the same excuse might be made for any form of theft.-J. R.]

"I will merely add, that if there were enforced and public account of the amount of moneys advanced on loan, and if the true conditions and workings of those loans could be shown, there would be revealed such an amount of cruel stress upon the foolish, weak, and poor of the small tradesmen (a class far more numerous than are needed) as would render it very intelligible why so many faces are seamed with lines of suffering and anxiety. I think it possible that the fungus growth and increasing mischief of these loan establishments may reach such a pitch as to necessitate legislative interference, as has been the case with gambling. But there will never fail modes of evading the law, and the sufficient cure will be found only when men shall consider it a dishonour to have it imputed to them that any portion of their income is derived from usury."

THE UNION BANK OF LONDON (CHANCERY LANE BRANCH) IN ACCOUNT WITH THE ST. GEORGE'S FUND.