A picture by Caravaggio, less seen than it deserves to be, must be named here. It is in the chapel of Saint John the Baptist attached to the great church at Malta, and represents the decollation of the saint. Saint John and the executioner occupy the immediate foreground: a woman leaving the court of the prison, where the scene is placed, applies her hands to her ears that she may not hear the fall of the axe; while two prisoners are looking, with the curiosity of terror, from the grated window of the gaol. The composition, colour, and expression are all terrible and highly dramatic. To the second, or mixed class of Dramatic pictures, belong many of Paul Veronese’s great works, such as the Great Supper of Saint Gregory in the Refectory of the Servites, at Santa Maria del Monte, near Vicenza: his Marriage at Cana; the pictures in the church of Saint Sebastian at Venice, and many others. A great number of Tintoret’s pictures also find their proper place here[186]. Here also I would place Titian’s Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple[187]; and here some of Bonifaccio’s beautiful pictures, particularly the Feasting of the Prodigal Son, a work that, for composition, colour, and expression, is among the most beautiful I know[188]. I must not omit Andrea Mantegna’s Triumphs[189], nor Rubens’ imitations of them. Poussin’s Triumphs of David[190] are certainly dramatic, and so, perhaps, are his Sacraments[191]. But it is time to consider the variety of character among the Portraits, and to endeavour to class them. OF PORTRAIT. By historical portrait, I do not mean merely the likenesses of persons whose names are to be found in history, or Lely’s and Kneller’s works would have a chance of overpowering Raffaelle and Titian. But such portraits as Apelles painted of Alexander, or Protogenes of the tragic writer, Philiscus, sitting musing in his study, or as Raffaelle painted of Giulio II[192], and Cæsar Borgia[193], or Titian of Charles V.[194], and the Doge Grimani[195], or Andrea del Sarto of the astute Machiavelli[196], or Velasquez of Pope Innocent X[197], and King Philip[198], to say nothing of Rembrandt’s Burgomasters, or Rubens’ Duke of Alva, or Vandyke’s Charles I. and his unhappy Queen, and scarcely less unhappy courtiers. These are all single portraits historically treated. The second division of portraits must comprehend those so treated, and composed of more than one figure. Such are the Leo X. and his secretaries at Florence by Raffaelle; Titian’s unfinished Leo with his two attendants at Naples, and his Cornaro family[199]; Paul Veronese’s Pisani family in the characters of the family of Darius[200]; Rubens’ Conversation piece, composed of Grotius, Muersins, Lipsius, and himself; Vandyke’s Charles I. with his Children; and such is also Holbein’s family of Sir Thomas Moore.