The Hall (21-22)

Judge, then, the difficulty the orator must experience in contending with such a rival as this Hall, whose beauty attracts every eye.

'But my weightiest argument I have kept till now: you, gentlemen, throughout the hearing of this case, have been gazing with admiration on roof and wall, scanning each picture in its turn. I do not reproach you: you have done what every man must do, when he beholds workmanship so exquisite, subjects so varied. Here are works whose perfect technique, applied as it is to the illustration of all that is useful in history and mythology, holds out an irresistible challenge to the judgement of the connoisseur. Now I would not have your eyes altogether glued to those walls; I would fain have some share of your attention: let me try, therefore, to give you wordpictures of these originals; I think it may not be uninteresting to you to hear a description of those very objects which your eyes view with such admiration. And you will perhaps count it a point in my favour, that I, and not my antagonist, have hit upon this means of doubling your pleasure. It is a hazardous enterprise, I need not say,—without materials or models to put together picture upon picture; this word-painting is but sketchy work.

‘On our right as we enter, we have a story half Argive, half Ethiopian. Perseus slays the sea-monster, and sets Andromeda free; it will not be long ere he leads her away as his bride; an episode, this, in his Gorgon expedition. The artist has given us much in a small space: maiden modesty, girlish terror, are

here portrayed in the countenance of Andromeda, who from her high rock gazes down upon the strife, and marks the devoted courage of her lover, the grim aspect of his bestial antagonist. As that bristling horror approaches, with awful gaping jaws, Perseus in his left hand displays the Gorgon’s head, while his right grasps the drawn sword. All of the monster that falls beneath Medusa’s eyes is stone already; and all of him that yet lives the scimetar hews to pieces.