In the Cartoon of Ananias, at the first glance, and even before we are made acquainted with the particulars of the subject, we become partners of the scene. The disposition is amphitheatric, the scenery a spacious hall, the heart of the action is the centre, the wings assist, elucidate, connect it with the ends. The apoplectic man before us is evidently the victim of a supernatural power, inspiring the apostolic figures, who on the raised platform with threatening arm pronounced, and with the word enforced his doom. The terror occasioned by the sudden stroke is best expressed by the features of youth and middle age on each side of the sufferer; it is instantaneous, because its shock has not yet spread beyond them, a contrivance not to interrupt the dignity due to the sacred scene, and to stamp the character of devout attention on the assembly. What preceded and what followed is equally implied in their occupation, and in the figure of a matron entering and absorbed in counting money, though she approaches the fatal centre, and whom we may suppose to be Sapphira, the accomplice and the wife of Ananias, and the devoted partner of his fate. In this composition of near thirty figures, none can be pointed out as a figure of common place or mere convenience; legitimate offsprings of one subject, they are linked to each other and to the centre by one common chain, all act and all have room to act; repose alternates with energy. The Sacrifice at Lystra, though as a whole it has more of collateral arrangement than depth of Composition, as it traces in the moment of its choice the motive that produced and shows the disappointment that checks it, has collected actors and faces the most suitable to express both: actors and features of godlike dignity, superstitious devotion and eager curiosity: the scene is the vestibule of the temple of Hermes, and Paul, the supposed representative of that deity, though not placed in the centre or a central light, by his elevation, gesture, and the whole of the composition streaming toward him, commands the first glance. At the very onset of the ceremony the sacrificer is arrested in the act of smiting the victim, by the outstretched arm of a young man bursting through the hymning throng of priests and victimarii, observing Paul indignant rending his garment in horror of the idolatrous perversion of his miracle.[88] The miracle itself is personified in that characteristic figure of the healed man, who with eyes flashing joy and gratitude on the Apostle, and hands joined in adoration, rushes in, accompanied by an aged man of gravity and rank, who, lifting up part of the garment that covered his thigh, attests him to have been the identic owner of those crutches that formerly supported him, though now as useless thrown on the pavement.