Page:Essays and Studies - Swinburne (1875).pdf/351

 music on strange instruments, and in the background low broken rocks enclose and reveal cold inlets and quiet reaches of the sea. The colour and manner too seem altogether those of Lippino.

His finest study here of a single figure is in another part of the room; a beautiful head of a youth bent sideways, with curls blown back and eager joyful eyes under lifted brows and eyelids; the lips parted with eloquent and vehement expression of pleasure; his cloak is loose, but the collar close about the round and splendid column of his throat; the mouth seems indeed to talk, the hair to vibrate, the eyes to glitter. Near it is a group also noticeable, a boy seated and reaching out both arms towards a girl hard by; full of vivid grace and action, Here too is a long narrow drawing for an architectural facade; in a niche St. Martin and the beggar, who holds the cloak for the saint to cut; the design is active and careful, capable of being put to noble use in fresco or sculpture. Another slight sketch suffices to show the power and enjoyment of a great artist; the bull which has borne Europa far out into mid-sea, looking back with reverted horn and earnest eye, plunges on ahead through a dim swell of obscure and heaving water. No land is in sight, and no sky given; the faint full wave of outer sea, beyond roller or breaker, is dimly seen to sweep and heave in continuous moving outline. A design apparently for the story of Phaethon (or more probably, as I now think, of Hippolytus) has the same kind of mediæval realism as that of Ariadne; four horses plunge violently forward, whirling after them charioteer and chariot; one alone turns backwards his reinless neck