We find in the legendary pictures, that the birth of several saints is announced by an angel, or in a dream, as in the stories of St. Catherine, St. Roch, &c. They exhibit precocious piety and wisdom, as in the story of St. Nicholas, who also calms a tempest, and guides the storm-tossed vessel safe to land. They walk on the water, as in the stories of St. Raymond and St. Hyacinth; or a river divides, to let them pass, as in the story of St. Alban. Saints are fed and comforted miraculously, or delivered from prison by angels; or resist fire, like the ‘Three Children.’ The multiplication of bread, and the transformation of water into wine, are standing miracles. But those which most frequently occur in pictures, are the healing of the sick, the lame, the blind; the casting out of demons, the restoration of the dead, or some other manifestation of compassionate and beneficent power. * * * * * Some of the pictured legends are partly scriptural, partly historical, as the story of St. Peter; others are clearly religious apologues founded on fact or tradition, as those of St. Mary of Egypt and St. Christopher; others are obviously and purely allegorical, as the Greek story of St. Sophia (i. e. Heavenly Wisdom, ΣΟΦΙΑ) and her celestial progeny, St. Faith, St. Hope, and St. Charity, all martyred by the blind and cruel Pagans. The names sound as if borrowed from the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress;’ and it is curious to find Bunyan’s allegorical legend, the favourite picture-book of the people, appearing just at the time when the legends and pictures of the saints became objects of puritanical horror, and supplying their place in the popular imagination. Martyrdoms are only too common: they present to us Christianity under its most mystical aspect—the deification of suffering; but to render these representations effective, they should be pathetic without being terrible, they should speak to us Of melancholy fear subdued by faith, Of blessed consolations in distress; but not of the horrid cruelty of man towards man. It has been well remarked by my friend M. Rio, (to whose charming and eloquent exposition of Christian Art I refer with ever-new delight,) that the early painters of Western Christendom avoided these subjects, and that their prevalence in ecclesiastical decoration marked the decline of religious feeling, and the degeneracy of Art. But this remark does not apply to Byzantine Art; for we find from the exact description of a picture of the martyrdom of St. Euphemia (both the picture and the description dating from the third century), that such representations were then common, and were appealed to in the same manner as now, to excite the feelings of the people.