The saint is here represented in glory; choirs of singing angels encompass him; for now "the wounds of his Master are his inheritance, the cross--sign not of triumph, but of trial, is his reward" (_Mornings in Florence_, i. 8, 13; iii. 64). Inscribed on the picture below are some lines from a Latin hymn to St. Francis, exhorting others to follow him, and to advance as he did the standards of their king ("Let those who depart out of Egypt follow him, and be united to him, in whom the standards of the King come forth for us in clear light"). The floating angels recall those by Botticelli, but the pupil's work is not here so good: these angels seem after all to be standing, Botticelli's to be indeed floating in thin air. Lippi, too, learnt no doubt from him the goldsmith's work, seen here in the indented background to the picture. 599. THE MADONNA OF THE MEADOW. _Giovanni Bellini_ (Venetian: 1426-1516). _See 189._ _See also_ (p. xix) A very charming little picture, marred only by a certain insipidity in the expression of the Madonna--which contrasts markedly alike with the pathetic type of Bellini's early Madonnas (_e.g._ No. 288), and with the more stately type which he afterwards adopted (as in the altar-piece in the Academy at Venice). "The landscape is altogether interesting, and will well repay a long examination. The incident of the bird and the serpent should not be missed, and the Eastern sheep with the long ears and its stately attendant in the white burnous should be noted as an attempt to give some Oriental character to the scene" (Monkhouse: _In the National Gallery_, p. 220). "The exquisite opaline purity of its daylight, the delicacy and finish of every detail, the walls and towers of the little town serene in the rays of morning, and the mountain ranges, pure and lovely in definition--all these graces make the picture one of the joys of art" (Gilbert's _Landscape in Art_, p. 330).