In relating ‘the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise,’ it is not said that an angel was the immediate agent of the divine wrath, but it is so represented in works of Art. In the most ancient treatment I have met with,[36] a majestic armed angel drives forth the delinquents, and a cherub with six wings stands as guard before the gate. I found the same _motif_ in the sculptures on the façade of the Duomo at Orvieto, by Niccolò Pisano. In another instance, an ancient Saxon miniature, the angel is represented not as driving them forth, but closing the door against them. But these are exceptions to the usual mode of treatment, which seldom varies; the angel is not represented in wrath, but calm, and stretches forth a sword which is often (literally rendering the text) a waving lambent flame. I remember an instance in which the preternatural sword, ‘turning every way,’ as the form of a wheel of flames. An angel is expressly introduced as a minister of wrath in the story of Balaam, in which I have seen no deviation from the obvious prosaic treatment, rendering the text literally, ‘and the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way and his sword drawn in his hand.’ ‘The destroying angel, leaning from heaven, presents to David three arrows, from which to choose—war, pestilence, or famine.’ I have found this subject beautifully executed in several MSS., for instance, in the ‘Heures d’Anne de Bretagne;’ also in pictures and in prints. ‘The destroying angel sent to chastise the arrogance of David, is beheld standing between heaven and earth with his sword stretched over Jerusalem to destroy it.’ Of this sublime vision I have never seen any but the meanest representations; none of the great masters have treated it; perhaps Rembrandt might have given us the terrible and glorious angel standing like a shadow in the midst of his own intense irradiation. David fallen on his face, and the sons of Ornan hiding themselves by their rude threshing-floor, with that wild mixture of the familiar and the unearthly in which he alone has succeeded.