of his paintings, I cannot but think he is fully entitled to be considered the best of the Spanish school, and inferior to few, but very few, of the great Italians.

The school of Spain is of course the most interesting in this museum, as Italian, and also Dutch and French paintings, are to be seen elsewhere; but how few fine works of the great masters of Spain exist in the galleries of Europe! In England, we have many Murillos scattered over the kingdom; and a few paintings by Velasquez; but the other great masters, such as Joanes, Ribalta, Cano, &c., are almost entirely unknown. We can have but a faint idea of Velasquez from the pictures we possess of that master. Here he lived, and painted for almost royalty alone, and Spain still possesses the wonderful works of his brush.

The ancestors of this great master were Portuguese, but he was born at Seville in 1599. He first studied under Herrera the elder, and a similarity to that painter's style may be traced in some of the earliest works of the scholar; and it is probable that Velasquez is indebted to his master for that extraordinary freedom and boldness of drawing and colouring, which are his greatest attractions. The brutality of Herrera, which had driven even his children from his home, obliged Velasquez to leave him, and study with Pacheco, whose daughter he married; but nature was then his chief master,

and Pacheco gives an account (p. 100) of a peasant boy who served him as a model. In 1622, Velasquez went to Madrid, and painted the Duke of Olivares and Philip IV., who appointed him to be his portrait painter; and he had there the advantage of being intimate with Rubens, and profiting by his advice. In 1629, he went to Italy, and stayed a considerable time at Venice, a year at Rome, and afterwards proceeded to Naples, where he remained until the beginning of 1631, when he came back to Madrid. In 1648, he started for Italy again, to buy pictures and casts for the King, and returning in 1651, was appointed the year afterwards to the office of Aposentada Mayor-a place which unfortunately left him little leisure. He died

at Madrid, in 1660.*

As the catalogue is out of print, and there will probably not be another for years, I will mention the paintings as they follow each other, which appeared to me worth attention. The keeper had one or two copies of the old catalogue, which he lent to strangers; but when others had applied before me, I had to manage without one; and it was only the day before I left that I was enabled to purchase the volume at five times its value.

Mr. Ford has unfortunately classed the paintings under the different masters, which makes his excel

* See Sir Francis Head's Handbook and Mr. Sterling's work.

lent description of them almost useless as a guide. Those who have any curiosity to know the contents of the finest gallery of pictures in Europe, will find an account of it in Appendix D.

CHAPTER XI.

ARCHITECTURE OF THE ESCORIAL-THE PALACE CASA DEL CAMPO THE CHURCH-PANTEON-MONKS.

WE left Madrid at eight o'clock in the morning; and after passing on our left the Casa del Campo, a small palace of the Queen, in wellwooded grounds, which we have not visited, and on our right, the Florida, another royal villa, still less worth seeing, we soon entered the dreary wastes which surround Madrid. When we came to the domain of the Escorial, the country was pretty and park-like, the preserves covered with fine trees, and picturesque crosses perched on large rocks, reminded us that it was a monastery, church, and a royal mausoleum, that we were going to visit, as well as a palace. In the distance, the edifice is imposing, at the foot of a wild, barren range of grey picturesque hills.

The very name of the Escorial is grand and historically interesting; and then the millions that have been squandered on the building, enough to exhaust even Spain, at that period the richest country in Europe; and the renown of the architects and artists employed would have raised our expectations, if we had not recollected that the plan of the edifice, by royal command, represents the gridiron of St. Lawrence-a gridiron of granite, of which, as Mr. Sterling says, the frame and bars are a palaceconvent, and the handle a monastic palace; and what architects, since architecture was a science, ever received such an order? Even Grecian and Roman skill could never have dignified such a commission with even the treasures of the New World to execute it on the grandest scale.

The large dome in the centre, and smaller tower on each side, and the four picturesque ones at the angles of the building-the latter the feet of the gridiron-have a very good effect; but the best front is towards the mountain and not Madrid; and instead of there being a handsome portico towards the capital, there is only a blank wall projecting in a frightful manner, being, in fact, part of the handle of the gridiron.

Juan Bautisa de Toledo, the original architect of the Escorial, who was born at Madrid, studied in Italy, where he designed the royal palace at Naples, and the celebrated street called after his name.

In