352 MORE POT-POURRI 



patterns which adorn the outside of the old Medici 

 passage to the Uffizi. It is worth while to go through to 

 look at them. Inside the galleries, pictures that used to 

 be pointed out to me as the great gems in my youth 

 seemed now comparatively uninteresting. Botticelli, 

 whom I at that time never heard of, stands indeed a head 

 and shoulders above his contemporaries. Two quite 

 little cabinet pictures in one of the small rooms at the 

 Uffizi gave me much to think of. One was the exquisite 

 little 'Judith/ His rendering of the subject first gave 

 me a kind of understanding why the old masters were so 

 fond of the ghastly story which must have appealed to 

 them from their own wars and dissensions. I have 

 always hated the usual treatment of this subject the 

 bleeding corpse on the bed and the uplifted head in 

 Judith's hand. But here the beautiful heroine widow, 

 her deed accomplished, her country saved, trips home 

 again with stately pride across the open country. 

 Warriors are in the distance, fields and flowers in front, 

 and her child-like innocent face is turned full towards one. 

 In one hand she holds the emblem of peace, an Olive 

 branch; in the other the sword of power. Behind her 

 comes the maid with the handsome head of Holofernes in 

 the meat-bag on her head. The maid's expression of 

 mingled awe and admiration is quite as much beyond the 

 time in variety of expression and powerful story-telling 

 as is Judith's own, which shows one how she will shortly 

 say with a loud voice : ' Praise, praise God, praise God, 

 I say ; for He hath not taken away His mercy from the 

 House of Israel, but hath destroyed our enemies by mine 

 hands this night.' 



The other picture, ' Calumny/ is hung quite near. It 

 is a little larger, and is unique and remarkable in every 

 way ; an allegorical picture full of thought. The idea 

 was suggested to Botticelli by Lucian's description of a 



