the sculptured capitals of the columns are gilded, and wherever there is gold there are precious stones. Diamonds and carbuncles and pearls glisten in St. George's breastplate and in St. Donatian's crosier and in the orphreys of his cope, his gleaming mitre is all sewn with amethysts and pearls; there are pearls, too, round Our Lady's mantle and on her breast and in her yellow hair, and all this splendour is so delicately manipulated and so minutely and carefully portrayed that it bears looking at through a magnifying glass, and it is arranged with such exquisite taste, and the figures which it adorns are so calm, and about the whole scene there is an atmosphere of such profound peace, that the picture is in no way tawdry or garish or vulgar. This is the largest panel which John van Eyck is known to have painted; the figures are about half life size. It was placed originally over the high altar in St. Donatian's, and we know from an inscription on the frame that it was completed in 1436. At that time Bruges was straining every nerve to free herself from the tyranny of Philippe l'Asseuré. John, indeed, was on the winning side, but the battle had not yet been fought out to the bitter end, and in 1436 it was as likely as not that his patron would be worsted, and yet he went on quietly painting, and the calm saints of the St. Donatian's picture bear no trace of the storm amid which they were created. GERARD DAVID Half a century later, when Bruges was once more in the throes of rebellion, and the burghers, for the moment triumphant, had the weakling who would have enslaved them under lock and key and were exacting the uttermost farthing from the instigators and instruments of his crimes, a painter less famous than John van Eyck, but for all that well skilled in his art, and one whose hand, in spite of the turmoil around him, had not lost its cunning, was at work on two panels which now hang in the gallery at Bruges hard by Van Eyck's picture. Similar in colour, hardly less delicate in design, adorned like it with jewels and gold, these pictures form the very antithesis to the calm altar-piece of St. Donatian's. It is instinct with serene splendour, they are quick with gruesome motion; it is the portrayal of God's mercy, they depict man's vengeance. Van Eyck was inspired by the spirit of love, David by the frenzy of delirium.