whole city flocked, transported by indignation and grief. “And all, holding up their hands to heaven, made supplication.” Heliodorus, nevertheless, persisted; but when he presented himself at the treasury, “the Lord of Spirits, and the Prince of all power, caused a great apparition, so that all that presumed to come in with him were astonished at the power of God, and fainted, and were sore afraid.”
It is deemed the triumph of art to adorn the real with something grander than meets the ordinary gaze; but to paint the superhuman, and convey to the eyes the image of that which surpasses the might of visible objects, and can scarcely be conceived by the strongest effort of the imagination, is that which Raffaelle only could achieve. In this fresco the vision of a “horse with a terrible rider” fills the beholder with awe—the one shakes terror from his looks, while the horse may be seen to neigh and breathe destruction around. The figures of the two youths, “notable in strength, and excellent in beauty,” who are driving the spoiler with scourges from the Temple, are divine in swiftness and might. Celestial indignation animates their gestures, and motion was never painted so real, so impetuous, so uncontrollable.
