Hope has it, because she fights forward always to her aim, or at least has the joy of seeing it draw nearer. Faith and Fortitude wait, as St. John in prison, but unoffended. Hope is, however, put under St. James, because of the 7th and 8th verses of his last chapter, ending "Stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." It is he who examines Dante on the nature of Hope. 'Par.,' c. xxv., and compare Cary's notes. 8, B. DESPAIR, stabbing himself. Suicide not thought heroic or sentimental in the 13th century; and no Gothic Morgue built beside Somme. 9, A. CHARITY, bearing shield with woolly ram, and giving a mantle to a naked beggar. The old wool manufacture of Amiens having this notion of its purpose--namely, to clothe the poor first, the rich afterwards. No nonsense talked in those days about the evil consequences of indiscriminate charity. 9, B. AVARICE, with coffer and money. The modern, alike English and Amienois, notion of the Divine consummation of the wool manufacture. 10, A. CHASTITY, shield with the Phoenix.[63] [Footnote 63: For the sake of comparing the pollution, and reversal of its once glorious religion, in the modern French mind, it is worth the reader's while to ask at M. Goyer's (Place St. Denis) for the 'Journal de St. Nicholas' for 1880, and look at the 'Phenix,' as drawn on p. 610. The story is meant to be moral, and the Phoenix there represents Avarice, but the entire destruction of all sacred and poetical tradition in a child's mind by such a picture is an immorality which would neutralize a year's preaching. To make it worth M. Goyer's while to show you the number, buy the one with 'les conclusions de Jeanie' in it, p. 337: the church scene (with dialogue) in the text is lovely.] 10, B. LUST, a too violent kiss. 11, A. WISDOM, shield with, I think, an eatable root; meaning temperance, as the beginning of wisdom. 11, B. FOLLY, the ordinary type used in all early Psalters, of a glutton, armed with a club. Both this vice and virtue are the earthly wisdom and folly, completing the spiritual wisdom and folly opposite under St. Matthew. Temperance, the complement of Obedience, and Covetousness, with violence, that of Atheism. 12, A. HUMILITY, shield with dove. 12, B. PRIDE, falling from his horse. 42. All these quatrefoils are rather symbolic than representative; and, since their purpose was answered enough if their sign was understood, they have been entrusted to a more inferior workman than the one who carved the now sequent series under the Prophets. Most of these subjects represent an historical fact, or a scene spoken of by the prophet as a real vision; and they have in general been executed by the ablest hands at the architect's command.