The martyrdoms generally met with are those of St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Stephen Protomartyr, St. Laurence, St. Catherine, and St. Sebastian. These we find everywhere, in all countries and localities. Where the patron of the church or chapel is a martyr, his martyrdom holds a conspicuous place, often over the high altar, and accompanied by all the moving circumstances which can excite the pity, or horror, or enthusiasm of the pious votaries; but in the best examples we find the saint preparing for his death, not suffering the torments actually inflicted; so that the mind is elevated by the sentiment of his courage, not disturbed and disgusted by the spectacle of his agonies. III. OF CERTAIN PATRON SAINTS, WHO ARE COMMONLY GROUPED TOGETHER IN WORKS OF ART, OR WHO BELONG TO PARTICULAR COUNTRIES, CITIES, OR LOCALITIES. While such assemblages of holy persons as are found grouped together in devotional pictures are to be considered as quite independent of chronology, we shall find that the selection has been neither capricious nor arbitrary, and, with a little consideration, we shall discover the leading idea in the mind of the artist that, at least, which was intended to be conveyed to the mind of the spectator, and which was much more intelligible in former times than it is now. Sometimes we find certain saints placed in companionship, because they are the joint patrons and protectors of the city or locality for which the picture was painted. Thus in the Bologna pictures we constantly find the bishop St. Petronius, St. Eloy, St. Dominick, and the warrior St. Proculus; while in the Venetian pictures we have perpetual St. Marks, St. Georges, and St. Catherines. Or, secondly, they are connected by kindred powers and attributes. Thus we find St. Sebastian, the patron against pestilence, in company with St. Roch, who ministered to the sick of the plague. Thus St. Catherine and St. Jerome, the two patrons of school theology, are often found in companionship. Where St. Catherine and St. Barbara are found together, the first figures as patroness of the ecclesiastical, and the second of the military, power—or they represent respectively the contemplative and the active life. Or, thirdly, they are combined in the fancy by some inevitable association; as St. Augustine and St. Stephen are often in the same picture, because St. Augustine dedicated some of his most eloquent works to the glory of the martyr. Or they were friends on earth, for which reason St. Cyprian and St. Cornelius are placed together. Or their relics repose in the same spot; whence St. Stephen and St. Laurence have become almost inseparable. When St. Vincent and St. Laurence are placed together, (as in a lovely composition of Parmigiana where they sit reading out of the same book,) it is because of the similarity of their fate, and that the popular tradition supposed them to be brothers. * * * * *