This virtue is one of the forms of fortitude, and Giotto therefore sets as the vice opponent to Fortitude, “Inconstantia,” represented as a woman in loose drapery, falling from a rolling globe. The vision seen in the interpreter’s house in the Pilgrim’s Progress, of the man with a very bold countenance, who says to him who has the writer’s ink-horn by his side, “Set down my name,” is the best personification of the Venetian “Constantia” of which I am aware in literature. It would be well for us all to consider whether we have yet given the order to the man with the ink-horn, “Set down my name.”

§ LXXI. Third side. Discord; holding up her finger, but needing the inscription above to assure us of her meaning, “DISCORDIA SUM, DISCORDANS.” In the Renaissance copy she is a meek and nun-like person with a veil.

She is the Atë of Spenser; “mother of debate,” thus described in the fourth book:

“Her face most fowle and filthy was to see, With squinted eyes contrarie wayes intended; And loathly mouth, unmeete a mouth to bee, That nought but gall and venim comprehended, And wicked wordes that God and man offended: Her lying tongue was in two parts divided, And both the parts did speake, and both contended; And as her tongue, so was her hart discided, That never thoght one thing, but doubly stil was guided.”

Note the fine old meaning of “discided,” cut in two; it is a great pity we have lost this powerful expression. We might keep “determined” for the other sense of the word.

§ LXXII. Fourth side. Patience. A female figure, very expressive and lovely, in a hood, with her right hand on her breast, the left extended, inscribed “PATIENTIA MANET MECUM.”

She is one of the principal virtues in all the Christian systems: a masculine virtue in Spenser, and beautifully placed as the Physician in the House of Holinesse. The opponent vice, Impatience, is one of the hags who attend the Captain of the Lusts of the Flesh; the other being Impotence. In like manner, in the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” the opposite of Patience is Passion; but Spenser’s thought is farther carried. His two hags, Impatience and Impotence, as attendant upon the evil spirit of Passion, embrace all the phenomena of human conduct, down even to the smallest matters, according to the adage, “More haste, worse speed.”

§ LXXIII. Fifth side. Despair. A female figure thrusting a dagger into her throat, and tearing her long hair, which flows down among the leaves of the capital below her knees. One of the finest figures of the series; inscribed “DESPERACIO MÔS (mortis?) CRUDELIS.” In the Renaissance copy she is totally devoid of expression, and appears, instead of tearing her hair, to be dividing it into long curls on each side.

This vice is the proper opposite of Hope. By Giotto she is represented as a woman hanging herself, a fiend coming for her soul. Spenser’s vision of Despair is well known, it being indeed currently reported that this part of the Faerie Queen was the first which drew to it the attention of Sir Philip Sidney.

§ LXXIV. Sixth side. Obedience: with her arms folded; meek, but rude and commonplace, looking at a little dog standing on its hind legs and begging, with a collar round its neck. Inscribed “OBEDIENTI * *;” the rest of the sentence is much defaced, but looks like