From Mr. Ruskin's _Stones of Venice_, it appears that the figures on the Venetian tombs of the Middle Ages are manifestly dead; and such, it may be inferred, is the impression conveyed to his highly cultivated mind by the contemplation of those in our own country. "In the most elaborate examples," says this observant writer, "the canopy is surmounted by a statue, generally small, representing the dead person in the full strength and pride of life, while the recumbent figure shows him as he lay in death. And at this point the perfect type of the Gothic tomb is reached." Describing one at Verona, of the fourteenth century, he observes: "The principal aim of the monument is to direct the thoughts to his image as he lies in death, and to the expression of his hope of resurrection." And towards the conclusion of his review of their development he writes: "This statue in the meantime has been gradually coming back to life through a curious series of transitions. The Vendramin monument is one of the last which shows, or pretends to show, the recumbent figure laid in death. A few years later this idea became disagreeable to polite minds; and lo! the figures which before had been laid at rest upon the tomb pillow, raised themselves on their elbows, and began to look around them. The soul of the sixteenth century dared not contemplate its body in death." Flaxman, in his remarks on the monuments of Aylmer de Valence and Edmund Crouchback in Westminster Abbey, admires "The solemn repose of the principal figure, representing the deceased in his last prayer for mercy to the throne of grace, the delicacy of thought in the group of angels bearing the soul, and the tender sentiment of concern variously expressed in the relations ranged in order round the basement." As, however, a canopy on the former exhibits a living figure of the departed on horseback, such as Mr. Ruskin notices in Italy, and as the angels are said to bear the soul, the knight must certainly have breathed his last. The raised hands are no refutation of the argument, since there are grounds for the assertion that those of the dead bodies laid in state were sometimes tied together to retain them in the suitable position. A few exceptional instances, no doubt, occur of variations in the attitude irreconcileable with death, and equally inconsistent with a reclining posture. It must also be admitted that in brasses and incised slabs (which may be regarded in many respects as parallel memorials), the eyes are almost invariably unclosed; yet the fact, neither in this case nor in that of the carved marble, does not by any means certify that the individuals are alive.