3. The Supper of St. Gregory. It is related that when Gregory was only a monk, in the Monastery of St. Andrew, a beggar presented himself at the gate, and requested alms: being relieved, he came again and again, and at length nothing was left for the charitable saint to bestow, but the silver porringer in which his mother, Sylvia, had sent him a _potage_; and he commanded that this should be given to the mendicant. It was his custom, when he became pope, to entertain every evening at his own table twelve poor men, in remembrance of the number of our Lord’s apostles. One night, as he sat at supper with his guests, he saw, to his surprise, not twelve, but thirteen seated at his table. And he called to his steward, and said to him, ‘Did I not command thee to invite twelve? and behold, there are thirteen!’ And the steward told them over, and replied, ‘Holy Father, there are surely twelve only!’ and Gregory held his peace; and after the meal, he called forth the unbidden guest, and asked him, ‘Who art thou?’ And he replied, ‘I am the poor man whom thou didst formerly relieve; but my name is the Wonderful, and through me thou shalt obtain whatever thou shalt ask of God.’ Then Gregory knew that he had entertained an angel (or, according to another version of the story, our Lord himself). This legend has been a frequent subject in painting, under the title of ‘The Supper of St. Gregory.’ In the fresco in his church at Rome, it is a winged angel who appears at the supper-table. In the fresco of Paul Veronese, one of his famous banquet-scenes, the stranger seated at the table is the Saviour habited as a pilgrim.[288] In the picture painted by Vasari, his masterpiece, now in the Bologna Gallery, he has introduced a great number of figures and portraits of distinguished personages of his own time, St. Gregory being represented under the likeness of Clement VII. The unbidden guest, or angel, bears the features of the Saviour. This is one of many beautiful mythic legends, founded on the words of St. Paul in which he so strongly recommends hospitality as one of the virtues: ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’ (Heb. xiii. 2.) Or, as Massinger has rendered the apostolic precept,— Learn all, By this example, to look on the poor With gentle eyes, for in such habits often Angels desire an alms.