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, anatomy, face and technique.  The lutist is admirable as he looks down at his instrument to catch the note; capital also is the boy playing the double pipe, with the close drapery swirling about his plump limbs, as one sees in San Francesco of Rimini, that temple dedicated to Isotta and to Childhood.  The head of the boy playing the harp shows the best characteristics of this group.  The hair is relatively short, and falls in thick glossy ringlets over his ears; it is bound by a heavy chaplet of leaves and rosettes; above this wreath the hair is smooth and orderly.  There was no occasion to exclude the pleasing little touches, as in the case of the Cantoria children, where deep holes penetrate the children’s hair, so that the “distance should not consume the diligence.”  At Padua, where the choristers were to be seen a few feet only from the ground, the sculptor’s efforts to show the warm shades and recesses of the hair were amply repaid.  The boys singing the duets differ from the remainder:  they are busily occupied with their music, carefully following the score.  The disposition of two children in a panel only large enough for one has not been so successfully met as when Abraham and Isaac were fitted into the narrow niche on the Campanile; but the affectionate attitude of these boys and their sincerity make one overlook a slight technical shortcoming.  The two heads in close proximity give a certain sense of atmosphere between them, not easily rendered when one of them had to be modelled in comparatively high-relief.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Alinari

CHORISTERS

SANT’ ANTONIO, PADUA]

[Illustration:  Alinari

CHORISTERS

SANT’ ANTONIO, PADUA]

[Illustration:  CHRIST MOURNED BY ANGELS

LONDON]

[Sidenote:  The Pieta and the Entombment.]

The remaining work for the high altar consists of a marble Entombment and a bronze relief of Christ mourned by Angels, treated as a Pieta.  The tabernacle door, which occupies the centre of the high altar, differs in shape, quality and design from everything else, and is wholly unworthy of its prominent position.  The lower relief is, however, a work of exceptional interest.  It is placed in the centre of the frontal with the reliefs of choristers on either side of it, a tragic culmination to all the happy children around it.  The Christ is resting upright in the tomb, half of the figure only being visible.  The head