Tintoretto has introduced several spectators, and among them an old woman spinning in a corner, who, while she turns her spindle, looks on with an observant eye. This alludes to an early tradition, that the Last Supper was eaten in the house of Mary, the mother of Mark the evangelist. But it is nowhere said that she was present, and therefore it is an impropriety to introduce her. Magnificent architecture, as in the picture by B. Peruzzi (who, by the way, was an architect), seems objectionable: but equally unsuitable is the poor dismantled garret in this picture of Tintoretto; for the chamber in which the scene took place was ‘the guest chamber,’ a large upper room, ready prepared; and as it was afterwards the scene of the Pentecost, it must have held more than a hundred persons. * * * * * It is a fault, as I have already observed, to represent John as _asleep_ on the breast or the shoulder of our Saviour. * * * * * Though countenanced by the highest authorities in Art, I believe it must be considered as a fault, or at least a mistake, to represent our Saviour and his apostles as seated, instead of reclining round the table. It is a fault, not merely because the use of the _triclinium_ or couch at all social meals was general in the antique times,—for the custom of sitting upright was not so entirely extinct among the Jews but that it might on any other occasion have been admissible,—but, from peculiar circumstances, it became in this instance an impropriety. We know that when the Passover was first instituted the Jews were enjoined to eat it standing, as men in haste, with girded loins and sandalled feet: but afterwards it was made imperative that they should eat it in an attitude of repose, lying upon couches, and as men at ease; and the reason for this was, that all the circumstances of the meal, and particularly the attitude in which it was eaten, should indicate the condition of security and freedom which the Israelites enjoyed after their deliverance from the Egyptian bondage. In the then imperfect state of Biblical criticism, this fact seems to have been unknown to the earlier artists, or disregarded by those who employed and directed them. Among modern artists, Poussin and Le Sueur have scrupulously attended to it, even when the moment chosen is the mystical distribution of the bread and wine which succeeded the Paschal Supper. Commentators have remarked, that if Christ and his disciples _reclined_ at table, then, supposing Christ to have the central place of honour, the head of John would have been near to the bosom of Christ: but under these circumstances, if Judas were sufficiently near to receive the sop from the hand of Christ, then he must have reclined next to him on the other side, and have taken precedence of Peter. This supposed a propinquity which the early Christian artists deemed offensive and inadmissible. * * * * *