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 send the youngest for wine that they may drink together to their good luck, and when left alone devise to slay him on his return and share the spoil; meantime he buys them poison for wine, being mindful of past violences, and covetous as they of the treasure; he returning is stabbed, and his murderers drink and die; and thus all three overtake the Death they sought. In this drawing of Paolo's three men lie dead in a wide woody field; the youngest in front, turned half over on his face as one who has died hard; the two others rigid and supine, with faces upturned to the bleak heaven, as men slain by sudden judgment. The rare trees growing in this fatal field of blood, a barren and storm-swept Aceldama, are bare of limb and worried with wind, blown out of shape and vexed with violent air; not a bird or beast has here place to feed or sing, but a grey and drifted roof of cloud leaves dark the shaken grass and haggard trees.

Piero di Cosimo has not here more than three or four drawings; not however mere studies after models, but compositions marked with the strong romantic invention, the subtle questionable grace, which more or less distinguish at all times from his fellows the painter of Procris and Andromeda. Here the sacred dove is seen poising over the heads of children at prayer, two holding an open book, others bearing lilies; a design full of the pure blind pleasure of worship. There a saint enters the desolate Thebaid with almost smiling face, the smile controlled by sadness and the sadness lighted by a smile; he is high up already in the waste land, full of storms and streams; the pine and the poplar are wasted with wind, the ground covered as with stones of stumbling and rocks