X. THE SHRINE OF THE SLAVES 365

sit to him in all their finery, and to keep their pets quiet as long as they could, while yet he gave value to this new group of studies in a certain unity of satire against the vices of society in his time.

202. Of this satirical purpose there cannot be question for a moment, with any one who knows the general tone of the painter’s mind, and the traditions among which he had been educated. In all the didactic painting of mediæval Christianity, the faultful luxury of the upper classes was symbolized by the knight with his falcon, and lady with her pet dog, both in splendid dress. This picture is only the elaboration of the well-recognized symbol of the lady with her pets; but there are two ladies-mother and daughter, I think-and six pets, a big dog, a little dog, a paroquet, a peahen, a little boy, and a china vase. The youngest of the women sits serene in her pride, her erect head pale against the dark sky-the elder is playing with the two dogs; the least, a white terrier, she is teaching to beg, holding him up by his fore-paws, with her left hand; in her right is a slender riding-whip, which the larger dog has the end of in his mouth, and will not let go-his mistress also having dropped a letter,* he puts his paw on that and will not let her pick it up, looking out of gentlest eyes in arch watchfulness to see how far it will please her that he should carry the jest. Behind him the green paroquet, redeyed, lifts its little claw as if disliking the marble pavement; then behind the marble balustrade with gilded capitals, the bird and little boy are inlaid with glowing brown and red. Nothing of Hunt or Turner can surpass the plume-painting of the bird; nor can Holbein surpass the precision, while he cannot equal the radiance, of the porcelain and jewellery.

To mark the satirical purpose of the whole, a pair of ladies’ shoes are put in the corner (the high-stilted shoe, being, in fact, a slipper on the top of a column), which were the grossest and absurdest means of expressing female pride in the fifteenth and following centuries.

* The painter’s signature is on the supposed letter.

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