And, in fact, the ignoble herd of those who conspired against Salvator succeeded in stemming the bold flight which his fame would otherwise have taken. One picture after another came from his hand, bold of conception, magnificent of execution, but the so-called "connoisseurs" always shrugged the shoulder; said, now that the mountains were too blue; now, that the trees were too green, the figures too tall, or too stumpy; found fault with everything where there was no fault to be found, and made it their business to detract from Salvator's well-merited renown in every possible way. His chief persecutors were the members of the Academia di San Luca, who could never get over the affair of the surgeon, and went out of their own province to depreciate the pretty verses which Salvator wrote about that time, even trying to make out that he did not live upon the fruit of his own land, but pilfered the property of other people. And this, too, led to Salvator's being by no means in a position to surround himself with the splendour and luxury which he had formerly displayed in Rome. Instead of the grand, spacious studio, where all the celebrities of Rome used to visit him, he went on living at Dame Caterina's, beside his green figtree. And in this very restrictedness he, doubtless, soon found comfort and ease of heart. But he laid the malignant conduct of his enemies more to heart than there was any occasion for; nay, he felt as though some creeping malady, engendered by annoyance and vexation, was gnawing at his inmost marrow. In this evil mood, he conceived and executed the great pictures which set all Rome in uproar. One of them represented the transitoriness of all earthly things; and in the principal female figure (which bore all the marks of a disreputable calling) it was easy to recognize the lady-love of one of the Cardinals. In the other was shown the Goddess of Fortune distributing her precious gifts. But Cardinal's hats, Bishop's mitres, and decorations were falling down upon bleating sheep, braying asses, and other despised creatures; whilst well-favoured men, in tattered garments, looked up in vain for the slightest favour. Salvator had given the rein to his bitter mood, and those beasts' heads had very striking resemblances to sundry well-known characters. It may be imagined how the hatred of him increased, and how much more bitterly he was persecuted than before.