The fourth is the history of the death of Ananias. Here is the greatest dignity in the apostles; they are however only a subordinate group, because the principal action relates to the criminal; thither the eye is directed by almost all the figures in the picture; what a horror and reverence is visible in the whole assembly on this mercenary man’s falling down dead! The fifth is Elymas the sorcerer struck with blindness. His whole body from head to foot expresses his being blind. How admirably are terror and astonishment expressed in the people present? and how variously according to their several characters? the Proconsul has these sentiments but as a Roman and a gentleman, the rest in several degrees and manners. The same sentiments appear in Ananias’s death, together with those of joy and triumph, which naturally arise in good minds upon the fight of the divine justice and the victory of truth. What grace and majesty is seen in the great apostle of the gentiles, in all his actions, preaching, rending his garments, denouncing vengeance on the sorcerer! The Proconsul Sergius Paulus has a greatness and grace superior to his character; and equal to what one can suppose in Cæsar, Augustus, or Trajan. The sixth is the sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas by the people of Lycaonia. The occasion of this is finely told; the man healed of his lameness, to express his sense of the divine power which appeared in these apostles, and to shew it to be him, not only a crutch is under his feet on the ground, but an old man takes up the lappet of his garment, and looks upon the limb he remembers to have been crippled, expressing great devotion and amazement; which are sentiments seen in the other, with a mixture of joy. The group of the ox and popa are taken from a bass relievo in the Villa de Medici. The seventh is St. Paul preaching to the Athenians. The divine orator is the chief figure; but with what wonderful art are almost all the different tempers of mankind represented in that elegant audience! one is eminently distinguished as a believer, holding out his hands in rapture, and has the second place in the picture; another is wrapped up in deep suspense; another saying there is some reason in what he says; another angry and malicious at his destroying some favourite opinion; others attentive and reasoning on the matter within themselves, or with one another; while the generality attend, and wait for the opinion of those who are leading characters in the assembly. Some are placed before the apostle, some behind, not only as caring less for the preacher or the doctrine, but to raise the apostolic character, which would lose something of its dignity, if his maligners were supposed to be able to look him in the face.