Next is “The Adoration of the Magi,” with all the ingredients that one can ask, except possibly any spiritual rapture; and then the flight into a country less like the Egypt to which the little family were bound, or the Palestine from which they were driven, than one can imagine, but a dashing work.  Then “The Slaughter of the Innocents,” a confused scene of fine and daring drawing, in which, owing to gloom and grime, no innocents can be discerned.  Then a slender nocturnal pastoral which is even more difficult to see, representing Mary Magdalen in a rocky landscape, and opposite it a similar work representing S. Mary of Egypt, which one knows to be austere and beautiful but again cannot see.

Since the story of S. Mary of Egypt is little known, I may perhaps be permitted to tell it here.  This Mary, before her conversion, lived in Alexandria at the end of the fourth century and was famous for her licentiousness.  Then one day, by a caprice, joining a company of pilgrims to Jerusalem, she embraced Christianity, and in answer to her prayers for peace of mind was bidden by a supernatural voice to pass beyond Jordan, where rest and comfort were to be found.  There, in the desert, she roamed for forty-seven years, when she was found, naked and grey, by a holy man named Zosimus who was travelling in search of a hermit more pious than himself with whom he might have profitable converse.  Zosimus, having given her his mantle for covering, left her, but he returned in two years, bringing with him the Sacrament and some food.

When they caught sight of each other, Mary was on the other side of the Jordan, but she at once walked to him calmly over the water, and after receiving the Sacrament returned in the same manner; while Zosimus hastened to Jerusalem with the wonderful story.

The next year Zosimus again went in search of her, but found only her corpse, which, with the assistance of a lion, he buried.  She was subsequently canonized.

The other two and hardly distinguishable paintings are “The Presentation of Christ in the Temple” and “The Assumption of the Virgin.”

Now we ascend the staircase, on which is a beautiful “Annunciation” by Titian, strangely unlike Tintoretto’s version below.  Here the Virgin kneels before her desk, expectant, and the angel sails quietly in with a lily.  The picture is less dramatic and more sympathetic; but personally I should never go to Venice for an “Annunciation” at all.  Here also is Tintoretto’s “Visitation,” but it is not easily seen.

The upper hall is magnificent, but before we examine it let us proceed with the Tintorettos.  In “The Adoration of the Shepherds,” in the far left-hand corner as one enters, there is an excellent example of the painter’s homeliness.  It is really two pictures, the Holy Family being on an upper floor, or rather shelf, of the manger and making the prettiest of groups, while below, among the animals, are the shepherds, real peasants, looking up in worship and rapture.  This is one of the most attractive of the series, not only as a painting but as a Biblical illustration.