It represents the little Prince of Asturias, when a child of six or seven years of age, on a great trampling war-horse-sitting as upright as a dart, and as bold as if he felt the future general within him. His little legs scarcely reach half way down the horse's side, and his hands can hardly grasp the reins; and yet you feel that he has a perfect command over the animal he is riding. This is a very singular picture, and is well worth particular attention.-Returning for a moment to the second room, I would point out two pictures that are among the very finest in this collection. One of them (149) is by Rubens, and is (strangely enough) called "Saint Barbara fleeing from her Persecutors." It is very small, and a mere sketch; and it represents a female figure ascending some steps, followed by a man. But what I would particularly point out is the effect of motion which is given to the two figures or which they are, in fact, so contrived as to give to each other. No one could manage this like Rubens, and he has nowhere managed it more finely than in this little sketch-struck off, no doubt, in a few happy moments, and as a mere study or amusement. You may look at this picture till you fairly see the figures move, and expect that they will presently disappear.-The other (144) is one of Rembrandt's very finest efforts, and is perhaps the most purely poetical picture he ever produced. The effect that light seemed to produce, not only on the mind but the hand of this painter, is truly astonishing. In all other things he was a common man; but when an extraordinary or even a common effect of light was his subject, he became at once a poet. The picture before us is called Jacob's Dream; and it may be safely stated that the subject, poetical and imaginative as it is, was never before so poetically or imaginatively treated. The picture is quite small, and an upright one; and nearly all over it, except the centre, is spread a thick black gloom-deep as the darkness of night, and yet so transparent that you see, or seem to see, down into it, as if you were looking into deep water. In one corner of this darkness lies Jacob, on the ground, sleeping-his arms stretched above his head, and one knee bent up, in the most inartificial attitude that can be conceived, and altogether representing a rude shepherd-boy. Round about him, and along the front of the foreground, are scratched in a few straggling shrubs, with the wrong end of the pencil: these are merely scratched out of the brown ground while it was wet-not painted in afterwards. In fact the picture consists but of two colours or rather it has no colours at all, but consists merely of light and shade. All this dark part of the picture is exceedingly fine. There is an admirable keeping and consistency about it, looking at it only with a view to itself, as the immediate scene in which the awful dream takes place. But, as a contrast to heighten the impression we receive from the representation of the dream itself, its effect is prodigious. This representation occupies the centre part of the picture; and as a delineation of super-natural appearances and things, I conceive it to be finer than any thing within the same space in existence. In the upper part of the sky an intense light is bursting forth, and it descends slantwise and widening as it descends, till it reaches the sleeping youth-gradually decreasing in splendour as it recedes from its apparent source; and at different intervals of this road of light, winged figures are seen descending. In the whole circle of art there are not to be pointed out more une

quivocal strokes of genius than these figures. They are as purely poetical creations as any thing that ever proceeded even from the pen. They are like nothing that was ever seen or described. All the angels that I have ever before seen depicted or described are but winged mortals ; but these angels are no more like mortals than they are like any thing else. They are altogether of the air, airy; and if they must be likened to any thing, it is to birds; though we probably gain this association simply on account of their having wings like birds-for they resemble them in nothing else: they are not flying, but gliding down perpendicularly, as if borne up on the surface of the collected rays of light; and their outspread wings seem used only to keep them in this erect position as they descend. I conceive this picture to be worthy the deepest study and attention, and that the more it is studied the more its extraordinary merit will be discovered and admitted.

The first picture calling for particular attention in the centre or third room is 176, A Girl at a Window, by the same artist. This is as purely natural and forcible a head as Rembrandt ever painted. It must have been a study from nature; for there is an absolute truth about it that no memory or invention could have given. It is taken from the lowest class of life; and there is a very particular character about it, which is sometimes observable in that class at an early age; namely, that, judging from the face merely, you can scarcely determine whether it belongs to a male or female. The character of expression depicted in the human face, is so entirely owing to the habits of thought and feeling arising from the circumstances in which we are placed, that, in the very lowest classes of life, and at an early age, before the sexual qualities become developed, you frequently see faces that exhibit no mark of sex whatever; and others (as in the instance before us) in which females, from associating indiscriminately with males, and partaking in the same sports and pursuits, acquire the same expression of countenance. The picture before us might just as well have been called " Boy at a Window," as Girl.

Near to the above are two very pleasing and characteristic specimens of Watteau-the gay, the graceful, the genteel, the gallant (not the gallant) Watteau-(185 and 191), a Bál champetre, and a Fête champetre. For a natural style of depicting all that is unnatural in manners and appearance, commend me to Watteau. He not only places us in the midst of the affected airs and courtly graces of the times of Louis XIV., but he makes us admire them. To see one of his out-of-door scenes, and not to wish ourselves in the midst of it, is impossible,though it consist of ladies in hooped petticoats and ostrich-plumed heads, seated on the green grass, beneath green trees, talking to gentlemen with rosettes in their shoes, and flowing perriwigs on their heads -or couples of these respectively, "moving a measure" to the minuet in Ariadne, as if they had the fear of a French dancing-master before their eyes, or had read Mr. Wordsworth's poems, and were therefore cautious not to tread upon the daisies-so mincingly do they move! It is impossible to conceive of any thing less in keeping than the airs and graces of a court thus shewing themselves off in the very presence of that Nature which belies them all, and one breath of which, perfumed with sweet flowers, ought to be able to blow them all away in a moment,substituting in their place that free, fresh, and unpremeditated gaiety

of heart, that involuntary effusion of pure animal spirit, which vents itself in "nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,"-in off-hand jollity, and heedless joyance-in any thing rather than courtly courtesies and cold common-places. And yet there is no denying that the art of Watteau contrives in some way or other to reconcile together Nature and its antithesis, and we seem to like each the better for its friendly union with the other. The Art, we think, cannot be wholly denaturalized that can thus willingly take Nature by the hand; and the Nature must be rich and pure indeed, that can afford to undergo this marriage with Art. No. 191 is by far the best of these two pictures, and may be regarded as a very fair example of Watteau's best style.

In Nos. 194, 195, and 196, we have three admirable portraits together; the first, Rubens's mother, by Rubens; the second, by Velasquez, of the Prince Asturias; and the third, by Vandyke, in his finest manner, the Archduke Albert. The only other picture in this room that I shall notice particularly, is one by Murillo,-though I confess that there are several others of great merit and interest. But if I were not to be very select in my strictures on this admirable collection, I should notice almost every picture of the three hundred and fifty that it contains, and thus write a volume instead of a short paper. And, to say the truth, should desire nothing better in the way of authorship (as far as it respects myself, and the pleasant occupation it would afford me) than to be called upon to furnish a volume on this one Gallery alone; so rich, varied, and select are its contents.

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No. 217 (Jacob and Rachel, by Murillo,) is a charming work, full of sweetness, tenderness, and grace-but the grace of nature alone, not of society-the grace that is inspired by present sentiment, not by habit or by art. "And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept." Both figures are in a kneeling posture,-Rachel bending forward to receive the kiss, which Jacob is proffering with uplifted lips, as if it were a vow to Heaven. It may be fancy,—but to me the face of Rachel seems intended to resemble, in lamb-like innocence and simplicity, the younglings of her father's flock. She may be supposed to have looked upon them till their beauty has passed into her face, and become a part of it. The undefined outline which Murillo gave to all his works of this class, has a very pleasing effect here,-blending all the different parts together, and suffering each to become as it were a portion of the other, and at the same time giving an airy softness to the whole.

In the fourth room, the most striking and valuable works are unquestionably the Poussins; and I know not where else to find so admirable a selection of them. Better single pictures of him may be found elsewhere; but nowhere so many fine ones collected together: for though there are a vast number of his larger gallery pictures at the Louvre, I hold this latter class of his works to be altogther inferior to the class to which the pictures here belong. Probably the best picture here by this artist is No. 287, called The Education of Jupiter.* It is, in point of expression, not so fine in parts as one or two others. But, as a whole, and for colouring, composition, and expression united, it is certainly a fine work. Nothing can be more complete in itself than every separate portion of it, and at the same time each portion is Anely consistent with all the others; and it is this, in particular, which

seems to entitle a work to the term classical. The centre group is finely imagined, and most happily executed. The infant, in particular, is drawn with infinite spirit, and yet with perfect nature and truth. So, also, is the one lying down in the right-hand corner: and the colouring of this one is exquisite. The two single figures behind-the one standing by the tree, and the other lying in a reclining attitude— are also admirable. There is an air about them that no one but Poussin ever gave. This picture is among his most highly-finished productions-much more so than any of the others in the present collection. Perhaps the one next in merit and value to the foregoing is No. 309— a Poet drinking in inspiration from a cup presented to him by the hand of Apollo. The youthful god is drawn in an easy, but not very graceful attitude, holding a small shallow cup to the lips of the poet, who is drinking the inspiring draught with all his faculties, of mind as well as body. The expression of this figure is exceedingly fine. There are also several little winged figures scattered about this picture, which add to the imaginative character of it, without producing any of that deteriorating effect which these kind of figures usually do, when introduced injudiciously-as they almost always are. Here they seem to typify the winged thoughts that are necessarily attendant on the favoured of Apollo.

In the same rich and intense style in point of expression, but more dashing and spirited in the handling, and more deep and sombre in the colouring, is 225-The Education of Bacchus. The god is depicted as an infant, attended by Satyrs, Nymphs, &c. who are giving him the juice of the grape to drink, while one is filling the cup from above as fast as he drains it. The expression of the child in this picture is finely contrasted with, and at the same time finely resembles, that of the poet in the other picture. The one is drinking as ardently as the other; but the expression of the poet has much of intellect mixed with it, while that of the child is purely animal. I do not mean to say that this latter expression is appropriate, supposing the picture to be what its name indicates. I conceive this name to have been given it without any sufficient reason, and that it merely represents a Bacchanalian scene, in which the sport is made to consist in teaching the children to drink, and in watching its effect upon them. The child is drinking exactly in the manner that any other thirsty animal drinks-swilling— poking its nose and lips into the cup as a horse does into a water-trough. This is exceedingly fine as representing the mere animal feeling of a child under such circumstances; but it is not so, if that child is intended for the infant god. And, I repeat, though not less ardent and intense than the expression of the poet in the other picture, it is of a totally different character. The other expressions in this picture,-of the nymphs, satyrs, &c. who are watching the sport,-are highly appropriate and fine.

The Jupiter and Antiope, as it is named (though again, as I think, without adequate reason,) is a disagreeable picture, but yet, in many respects, exceedingly fine. The sleeping nymph is indeed sleepingnot merely in her eyes, but in all her frame. There is the protruding lips, the total absence of consciousness, and consequently the total freedom from the restraints of custom, and the sense of being the subject of observation, which is always apparent, even in women, wher

they sleep-but which is so seldom depicted in works of art. In most sleeping figures you have only to fancy their eyes open, and they are awake but here all the faculties are asleep. The figure of Jupiter (so called) is drawn and coloured with great gusto; but it is highly disagreeable and inappropriate nevertheless.

The rest of the Poussins in this Gallery I must leave to the general admiration of the spectator. They call for particular study and attention, and pages might be written on the merits and defects of every one of them.

Here are two excellent specimens of Salvator Rosa; a small upright landscape (226), and Soldiers Gaming (236). The characteristic air of the soldier who is looking on-upright, firm, self-poised, Roman-is admirable. We have also a capital portrait by this artist, of a "Young Man drawing" (270).

In this part of the collection there are several other excellent, and indeed first-rate pictures in their respective styles, which I cannot pass over silently, and which yet I must not attempt to do more than name, and recommend to the particular attention of the spectator and student. But it is the less necessary to notice them at any length, as their merits are for the most part exactly similar to those of others by the same artists, which I have had occasion to examine in detail in my former papers, or which I shall have more eligible opportunities of attending to hereafter. Conspicuous among these are four delightful Claudes. 246, The Embarkation of St. Paul from the port of Ostia, though much smaller. than the two Embarkations in Mr. Angerstein's collection, is similar in style to them, and not much inferior in merit. 248, a Landscape, divided in the centre in his favourite manner, by three trees, with a tower on the left hand, and the blue distant hills blending with the blue sky,— is exquisite. There are some figures introduced which are better than usual, and from these the picture is called Jacob and Laban. 257, is another sea-port, of the same character as 248. 252, is one of a very rare kind for this artist. It is full of figures, and represents the Campo Vacino, at Rome. The distance of this recedes finely, and the sky is all his own. There are two or three other pictures by this artist, of different degrees of merit.

251, is a Venus and Adonis, said to be by Titian; but is is not in that condition to enable one to feel any certainty as to its being really by him. It is a repetition of that by the same artist, noticed in Mr. Angerstein's collection, and it differs scarcely at all from that in point of composition, but is inferior in colouring, and in its state of preservation. 228, is an admirable portrait, by Rubens, of a Venetian lady; painted probably at the time he was in Italy, and studying the works of Titian; for it has more of that artist's intellectual style of expression, and less of his own florid colouring, than even his portraits usually had. 243, is a St. Cecilia, by Guercino; and 299 and 233 are Holy Families, by Andrea del Sarto.

They are all very pleasing works, and in some degree characteristic of their authors; but neither of them are of sufficient importance to afford an eligible opportunity of enquiring into the general merits of these two excellent painters. The same may be said of 295, by Caravaggio. It is rich, racy, and full of spirit; but does not afford scope for any particular description-being nothing more than a single head. All these are in the fourth room.