Michelangelo on the Sistine Chapel ceiling two figures are of special interest in the schoolroom, the Delphie and the Cumæan. The Delphic Sibyl presided over the temple of Apollo in Delphi, as a sort of priestess. Here the people came to consult her and she delivered the message, or oracle, communicated to her by the god. The Cumæan Sibyl lived in a great cave at Cumæ, where, according to Virgil, Æneas came to enlist her aid to visit his dead father. At Wellesley College is a large painting by Elihu Vedder, often reproduced, showing the Cumæan Sibyl stalking across the desert, a fierce old creature, carrying her precious oracles to the Roman Emperor Tarquin.
The purely classical spirit has never been more admirably expressed than in the works of the late Sir Frederick Leighton. Herakles wrestling with death for the body of Alkestis and the Captive Andromache at the fountain are among the few subjects commonly reproduced. When one reads the long list of classic subjects the painter treated, it seems much to be desired that such treasures should be known to us all. Some of the Homeric stories centering in Ulysses have sometimes been illustrated. By Guido Reni, in the Naples Museum, is Ulysses with Nausicaa and her Maidens; and by Pinturicchio, in the National Gallery, the Return of Ulysses to Penelope.
The history teacher, more than any other, perhaps, needs pictures. First of all she wants plenty of portraits as a background for the story of the nations. Unfortunately it is impossible to collect a series of uniform merit, and in trying to fill the gaps, there is
