3H» ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GREAT ARTISTS DON DIEGO RODRIGUEZ DE SILVA Y VELAZQ.UEZ ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GREAT ARTISTS. The following volumes, each illustrated with from 14 to 20 Engravings, are now ready, price 3i-. bd. : — ITALIAN, &^c. GIOTTO. By Harry Quilter, M.A., Trinity Coll., Cambridge. FRA ANGELICO. By Catherine Mary Phillimore. FRA BARTOLOMMEO. By Leader Scott. LEONARDO DA VINCL By Dr. J. Paul Richter. MICHELANGELO. By Charles Clement. RAPHAEL. From J. D. Passavant. By N. D'Anvers. TITIAN. By Richard Ford Heath, M.A. Oxford. TINTORETTO. By W. Roscoe Osler. From researches at Venice, VELAZQUEZ. By Edwin Stovve, B.A. Oxford. VERNET and DELAROCHE. By J. Ruutz Rees. TEUTONIC. ALBRECHT DURER. By R. F. Heath, M.A. ^Nearly ready. HOLBEIN. From Dr. A, Woltmann. By Joseph Cundall. THE LITTLE MASTERS OF GERMANY. By W. B. Scott. REMBRANDT. From Charles Vosmaer. By J. W. Mollett, B.A. RUBENS. By C. W. Rett, M.A. Oxford. VAN DYCK and HALS. By Percy R. Head, Lincoln Coll., Oxford. FIGURE PAINTERS of HOLLAND. By Lord Ronald Gower, F.S.A. ENGLISH. HOGARTH. By Austin Dobson. REYNOLDS. By F. S. Pulling, M.A. Oxford. GAINSBOROUGH. By G. M. Brock-Arnold, M.A. Oxford. TURNER. By W. Cosmo Monkhouse. WILKIE. By J. W. Mollett, B.A., Brasenose College, Oxford. LANDSEER. By Frederic G. Stephens. The following volumes are in preparation : — VAN EYCK and MEMLING. By Mrs. Charles Heaton. CORNELIUS and OVERBECK. By J. Beavington Atkinson. CORREGGIO and PAOLO VERONESE. By M. Compton Heaton. MANTEGNA and FRANCIA. By Julia Cartwright. Digitized 1 by the Internel [ Archi i in 2014 https://archive.org/details/velazquezOOstow DIEGO VELAZQUEZ DE SMAA l''o>it a Miniature. The 7vhole world without Art 7vould be one great wilderness.'^ V E L A Z Q U E Z BY EDWIN STOWE, B.A. FORMERLY SCHOLAR AND EXHIBITIONER OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD NEW YORK SCRIBNER AND WELFORD LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON i88i {^All rights reserved.^ London: R. Clay, Sons, and Taylor, bread street hill, e.c, THE GEHY CENTER LIBRARY PEEFACE. HE names of two authors, now beyond the reach of JL human praise, men of distinguished talents and wide and varied cultivation, must ever be associated with our knowledge of the history of Spanish Art. Unaided by the labours of Richard Ford and Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell the attempt at compiling even these slender pages would have proved a task scarcely practicable. That task has been also greatly lightened by recourse to the valuable information that has rewarded the careful and laborious researches of Don Pedro de Madrazo of Madrid. A Catalogue of the painter's works, based upon M. Burger's list (which seems for the most part to have been taken from Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell's) and augmented from the official catalogues of the public galleries of Europe, will be found at the end of the book. It is not to be regarded as exhaustive, although no masterpiece or important work of Yelazquez of which the compiler has been able to ascertain the present locality has been omitted. The object that has been kept in view in its preparation has been the facilitating the practical study of the works vi PREFACE. of this great master. Tt has been thought useful for this purpose to refer the reader to the principal engravings, by the study of which a general idea can be formed of the character of his most important productions ; and it is hoped that the other details given will also be found of value. They are rendered especially necessary by the peculiar cir- cumstances of Velazquez's work as a Court Painter. When it is considered that he painted his Royal Master not less than twenty-eight or thirty times, and that about the same number of works have to be shared between the young Prince and the King's Chief Minister, it will be seen how useless the repetition of the mere barren titles of such pictures would have proved. E. S. April, 1881. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGK Introduction • . . . 1 CHAPTER II. The Court of Spain — Philip IV. — Isabel de Bourbon — Don Carlos and Don Ferdinand — Dona Maria and Prince Charles of England — Duke of Olivarez — Lope de Vega — The Pretendiente . 9 CHAPTER III. 1623—1629, At Madrid— Portrait of Fonseca— The Fiesta Real— The King's Portrait— Sketch of Prince Charles — Made Painter to the Court — The Competition— Made Usher of the Chamber —"The Water-Carrier "— " The Topers " 21 CHAPTER IV. 1629 — 1631. First Italian Journey — Arrival at Venice — Ferrara — Rome — Naples 41 CHAPTER V. 1631—1648. Back at Madrid — Further favours from the King — His Own Portrait —Marriage of his Daughter Francisca — His Family — Made Chamberlain — The King's Portrait — Murillo — At Aranjuez 48 CHAPTER VI. 1648—1659. Second Italian Journey — Arrival at Genoa — Naples — Rome — Portrait of Innocent X. — Back in Spain — Made Aposentador Mayor — Las Hilanderas " — " Las Meninas " . . 59 CHAPTER VII. Velazquez as an Artist 68 CHAPTER VIII. 1659 — 1660. The Last Journey —Mission of the Duke of Gramraont — The Royal Progress — The Meeting in the Isle of Pheasants — The Royal Wedding— Return to Madrid— Death— Burial. . . 78 Appendix 94 The Principal Works of Velazquez 97 ChronoloCxY, 115 Index c.ll6 LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. PAGE Portrait of Velazquez. From a Miniature formerly in} x- • f -frontispiece. the possession of the Late Sir William Stirliny- Max well J Coronation of the Virgin. In the Madrid Gallery 7 Don Ferdinand of Austria. In the Madrid Gallery 9 Isabel de Bourbon, Queen of Spain 13 The Duke of Olivarez. In the Madrid Gallery 17 The Water-Carrier. In the possession of the Buke of Wellington . . 23 A Meeting op Artists. In the Louvre 31 The Topers. In the Madrid Gallery 39 View of the Villa Medici. In the Madrid Gallery 45 JuANA Pacheco, Wife of Velazquez. In the Madrid Gallery , . 53 The Surrender of Breda. In the Madrid Gallery 59 The Maids of Honour. In the Madrid Gallery 65 Portrait of a Dwarf. I7i the Madrid Gallery 79 Dona Anton ia, Daughter of Don Luis de Haro ....... 83 The Laughing Idiot. In the Belvedere, Vienna 91 VELAZCIUEZ CHAPTEE I. INTRODUCTION FROM SEVILLE TO MADRID. IT is spring-time of the year 1623. North and south the world, roused from its winter lethargy, yields itself a willing victim to the sweet and subtle influences. On every side there is something of stir, and life, and motion. Away in Spain, beside a well-known dwelling in the far-off city of Seville, there stand — scarcely discernible in the darkness of early morning, ere yet the first faint streaks of dawn begin to light the eastern horizon — a couple of mules, tended by a solitary domestic. They are already caparisoned, and the attendant is busy tightening a strap here, lengthening a rein there, to wile away the time till the owners appear. Anon footsteps are heard crossing the marble pavement of the patio, and from a lamp set down within yon distant doorway a faint glimmer streams. By its light can be seen the outline of three dark forms entering the vestibule together. One of them is the figure of a graceful woman, who, not without a rising tear, bids fond and tender adieux to those by whom she is accompanied. The gateway of open ironwork, that gives access to the street V B 2 VELAZQUEZ. itself, is unlocked and thrown back, and the two expected travellers issue forth fully equipped for the journey. It is a journey that shall not lack permanent and important results. They mount their sober-minded and trusty-footed beasts, and — flinging back a hasty " hasta la vista, carissima," to the form that still peers out, as though loath to lose the last glimpse of them — pass onward down the street. Winding through intri- cacies of narrow byeways, they at length enter on a more open space whence rises high into heaven the stately Moorish tower of the Giralda. Here, albeit that its columns and long retreat- ing aisles are still wrapt in the mysterious gloom of nocturnal shade, they would fain enter the sacred walls of the well-known cathedral itself ; but the guardians are yet slumbering, and every portal stiil securely closed. Yet they will not pass it by without low murmured Ave and Pater ISToster, commending their souls and the business they have in hand to the watchful care of God. Again they dive into a labyrinth of streets, and pass onward in the silence. By many a gateway of open tracery of delicately- wrought metal-work, through which there floats out upon the morning air the sweet odour of the blossoming plants within, and the dulcet music of the plashing fountains ; past lines of walls secluding so jealously and so carefully deep-embowered bosky garden thickets and parterres gay with masses of rose-blooms and carnations ; by open squares, tree-begirt and marble-seated ; through winding lanes of meaner dwellings, which, were the sun high in heaven, would be dazzling with the hot gleam and glare of their wdiite-washed fronts ; ever onward, till the line of houses on this side and on that abruptly terminates, and the city is left behind. Out into the realms of a true Eden of the South. The air is redolent of perfume. Above, the purple sky of the southern night is fading into paler tones. To the right and to the left spread in the richest profusion garden groves of orange and of pome- granate ; here hanging in very truth amid their dew-laden foliage, " Golden lamps in a green night ; " INTRODUCTION. 3 there softening the blazing crimson of their mid-day splendour into a faint roseate promise. Beyond is seen the gleam of waters, the broad bosom of the shining Guadalquivir, and further still the indistinct outline of the rising slopes mingles afar with the yet unillumined sky. The road runs on till an outer belt of country is reached, where gardens, and corn-lands, and olive-groves ring the changes of mutual alternation, this too fading off presently into a less cultivated district. Onward our travellers journey over their first stage of Spanish leagues. Gradually light begins to break, and the broad plains of the landscape open out to view. In front, in the distance, can be already descried the point where they mean presently to halt, and, early as it is, the road is now no longer left to them alone. From time to time they encounter little caravans of the tribes of busy Alcala, leading their mules, some singly, some in longer trains, bearing freight of daily provision for the slumbering city. The light waxes yet more clear. Let us examine more closely ^ the faces of our mule-riders. The elder is a man of some fifty years of age, dark of complexion, and darker still of eye, a true son of Andalucia. There is no want of animation or of refine- ment about the hale and honest countenance that looms upon us from beneath the shadow of the broad sombrero, yet a closer inspection may trace there something of a lack of self-assertion, something of an over-readiness to yield to fear, the mark left by a terror-instilling religionism on an existence that has been passed all too near its fatal upas-shadow. We have before us the per- sonification of a lover of precedents and rules ; of one who finds his safety in following the direction of others, and in treading ■well-beaten paths. And yet, intelligent, and highly industrious, he has already left his mark upon his city and neighbourhood ; nor is the metropolis of his country without knowledge of his reputation. It is Francisco Pacheco, the painter. By birth he is a native B 2 4 VELAZQUEZ. of Seville and a scion of a family of ancient nanie,^ so ancient indeed that the interesting links by which it is connected with Phoenician nomenclature form a chain which may perhaps retain its continuity under the hammer of the most exacting criticism. Nor is an ancient name all that is left to the family in the way of earthly distinction. His uncle is one of the principal digni- taries of the cathedral. And doubtless he can claim some kindred too - with the Capitan Don Jacinto Pacheco, also a Sevillan, who is about to serve under the leadership of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, and who will one day for his military services prefer a claim to royalty for the much-coveted Abito de Santiago. But whatever be his claims to nobility of race, (nor are they without a certain importance,) he is a man of no ignoble mind. One quality, a stranger to the spirits of the low and base, he possesses in a remarkable degree. He can see and greet with manly recognition excellencies in the performances of others. The younger man who rides beside him, wrapt in a cloak, the ample folds of which are thrown back round the neck, and fall behind the shoulder, is bound to him by ties of the closest kind. He has been his pupil through five long years of patient toil, and has found a wife in the master's daughter. He is him- self by this time too the happy father of daughters twain, fair children whom he has just left sleeping calmly in the house at home. In person somewhat slight of figure he is blessed with a lithe and active frame, and sits erect on his mule as one con- scious of innate power, and buoyant with youthful hopes. There is a frank expression about those clear dark eyes that look out from beneath the arches of the high, open forehead. The nose, slightly aquiline, is suggestive of vigour. The mouth, though firm, is not so set but that it easily relaxes into a pleasant smile. The hair falls in full waving masses. It is the figure of one destined hereafter to become one of the greatest of all Spanish painters, Diego de Silva y Velazquez. 1 See Appenflix. Kote A. INTRODUCTION. 5 Half Portuguese by origin, wholly Andalucian by birth, he may be said to have just so much connection with the Western kingdom as to be a representative man for the whole peninsula. His father, Juan Eodrigaez de Silva, had been permanently settled at Seville before he there married Dona Geronima Velaz- quez. The sixth of June, 1599, saw the parents attending the baptism of their child at the church of San Pedro. ^ His destiny began to shape itself when at the early age of thirteen he was learning something of painting from the great professor of the day, Herrera el Yiejo. But the lad was not happy under a man of so severe a temperament, and fortunately for tlie Arts, the school of Herrera was not the only one that Seville then had to offer. At fourteen he migrated to the blander discipline of Pacheco's tutelage, and the ten years that have passed since then have but served to bind together more closely the ties between master and pupil. Onwards tkey travel, and at length reach the mills and bake- houses of the town of Alcala. Here, if anywhere in Spain, the means of satisfying the wants of the inner man are to be had in plenty. It is a true Spanish Bethlehem. Bread is all round one in this town of flour-toilers, as are maccaroni and pasta in a Neapolitan suburb. Hanging up in life-buoy circles, arranged in tempting order on tables in the open, it meets one's eye at every turn. The reins of the mules are hitched up to a peg outside the door of a x>osada, and the riders disappear within to search for mine host. The light Spanish meal is soon prepared and disposed of, and they wend their way across the Plaza to the church of San Sebastian to see how time is dealing with a work hanging there which had first seen the light on Pacheco's easel. This simple courtesy performed, they mount again, and, with the morning still young, set forth upon the road towards Mairena. The course that now lies before them is not unknown to either, ^ Cean Bermudez appears to have seen the entry of his baptism there. 6 VELAZQUEZ. tliougli it was but a year ago that Velazquez for the first time encountered its hazards and uncertainties. Long had he been fired with the desire to view the noble works of art hanging on the walls of the Escorial, of which his father-in-law was so often talking. Mingled with this feeling too was the hope, happily common to the youthful and ardent of all countries, of winning fame and honour at the great centre of competitive talent, the metropolis. But it was a long and somewhat costly journey to Madrid. At last, however, the opportunity had come ; and his day-dreams of an art-pilgrimage had become a reality. The hopes, however, of that sudden leap to fame in which he had also indulged had not been realised : so hard is it for most of us to storm the citadel of Fortune. Nor was the failure due to lack of kindly assistance. He had found friends in Don Luis de Gongora of Madrid, and in Don Melchior del Alcazar, who had both done what they could. He had received all possible assist- ance from a courtier of note, Don Juan de Fonseca y Figueroa^ ; but the Fates had not been propitious, and he had returned to Seville. I^ow, however, there is a change in the aspect of affairs, and Don Juan has interested the all-powerful minister Olivarez in the fate of the young Sevillan. The result has been a letter of instructions calling hira to Madrid. And so Velaz- quez and his father-in-law are now journeying northwards on their way to the capital. As the day advances the sun's rays beat down hotly upon them. Happily the mules are fresh enough, and go on their way if not right merrily at least right steadily. They scent their mid-day provender afar. When Mairena is reached rest comes not amiss to either man or beast. ^ The ancestral palace of tlie great Spanish house of the Fonsecas stood at Coca, near Segovia. It subsequently passed to the Dukes of Alba, a family still extant in Spain. It was at the house of a Duke of Alha that the ex-erapress of the French in 1879 awaited the moment for attending the funeral of her mother. THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN. BY VELAZQUEZ. In the Madrid Gallery. INTRODUCTION. 7 Carmona, " the clean white town on the eastern extremity of the ridge " up which they have been mounting the latter part of the day, is reached before nightfall. The quarters at the hostelry are comfortable enough for the men, and so it may be, if habit has become second nature, for their beasts also ; otherwise to pass the night with their heads tied up short to the top of a post can hardly be the summit of quadrupedal bliss. Our travellers, ere they retire to rest, pay a visit to the church, prompted in part by the same motive that influenced them at Alcala, for here too Pacheco has found patrons, and his work of ' Tlie Descent from the Cross ' is hanging in a place of honour. The earliest flush of the morrow's daybreak sees them passing under the noble ruins of the Alcazar, and out by the JN'orthern Gate, prepared to descend into the plain, the magnificent panorama of which spreads out for miles before them. Nature has been lavish of her floral wealth this fair spring-tide. There blossom by the wayside the clear blue iris and the tall gladiolus, amid heathery growth of cistus, now white, now rose-coloured, while far below are seen broad oceans of purple blossom, through which meander gulf-streams of golden petal — a mere outside fragment of the truth enshrined within the distich — Quien no ha visto a Sevilla No ha visto a Maravilla. He who has not at Seville been. Has not, I trow, a wonder seen. With our travellers, as the stages of the journey drag their slow length along, the day waxes and wanes. Before darkness has wrapped the landscape in gloom they are making their way through the gardens on the banks of the Xenil up to the entrance of the city of Ecija. Two days later they cross the Guadalquivir, and thread the narrow streets of Cordova. And here, in this old capital of Moorish Empire, the nurse of captains, the cradle of science, they needs must halt awhile. 8 VELAZQUEZ. Apart from tlie rest which wisdom suggests should be given to their beasts ere long days of further marching be encountered, they have friends who must not be neglected. With what face can Pacheco greet his old ally the poet Don Luis de Gongora at his journey's end if he brings him no tidings of his kindred 1 It is a dozen years now since, on returning from Madrid, he lay under their roof-tree here, but Velazquez has been a more recent visitor. They will not have forgotten his coming to them last year with greetings from Don Luis, and hearing all about the portrait of their relative which the young artist had been painting at Madrid. And besides, the two painters have never visited in one another's company the glories of the great Mosque, — the Mesquita, — the forest of countless shafts, where aisle wanders into aisle in labyrinthine mystery — those silent but not voiceless pillars torn from ancient shrines of either continent. The brief hours are all too scanty. I^orth of Cordova the river is crossed again, and by moder- ate stages Andujar and Bailen are reached. Thence by the mountain passes they wend their way into La Mancha, the home of Cervantes's chivalrous knight, where "the traveller is sickened by tlie wide expanse of monotonous steppes." A momentary relief from this form of maladie clu pays is obtained at Valdepenas, the local vintage being the best of remedies for lowness of spirits. Presently they i3ass into a district of wind- mills — luxuries of then recent introduction — and further onward still pass the birthplace of that luckless child of Christian parents who^ according to the accusation of Toledan clergy, was sacrificed to celebrate a Jewish passover ; the story painted on the walls of a church testifying to its own veracity for all time : on through Toledan mountain chains into plains that feed the mighty Tagus, hard upon the banks of which lies the fair pleasaunce of Aranjuez, and so by level stages — to Madrid. DON FERDINAND OF AUSTRIA. By Velazquez. Jk the Madrid Gallery. CHAPTER II. THE COURT OF SPAIN PHILIP IV. ISABEL DE BOURBON DON CARLOS AND DON FERDINAND DONA MARIA AND PRINCE CHARLES OF ENGLAND DUKE OF OLIVAREZ LOPE DE VEGA THE PRETENDIENTE. AT the time at which our actors come prominently forward on the stage, the throne of Spain was occupied by Philip IV. and his Queen Isabel de Eourbon. The youthful monarch had succeeded to the heavy burden of supreme power at the early age of sixteen, and was at the date of which we are treating — the spring of the year 1623 — as nearly as might be, eighteen years old, the earliest time of life at which, according to English practice, children of the monarch are con- sidered fit to support the cares of sovereignty, or even to endure the toga virilis. His gigantic empire embraced not only Spain but Portugal ; not only the Peninsula, but far off possessions in the Spanish Main, while Naples and the Netherlands formed valuable outlying dependencies of the central body. As the still more extensive empire, which the early part of the sixteenth century had seen gradually arise, had not proved too large for the activity and dynastic power of a single individual — so also might it have been again, had Spain at this juncture given birth to a ruler possessed of the determination to devote his energies to the one great task of maintaining a wise government over the 10 VELAZQUEZ. nations committed to his care. The partial dismemberment of the united king(ioms that followed immediately upon the death of Charles V. would in one respect have rendered the difficulties of organisation less arduous than heretofore, for to direct communi- cation between Spain and Germany either the height of the Alps or the breadth of the kingdom of France had ever inter- posed a barrier of no common kind. But — despite the addition of Portugal under the sway of Philip 11. — at the time of the accession of Philip IV. the process of a real disintegration had in effect begun. The destruction of her great invincible Armada in 1598 had struck a fatal blow to tlie maritime claims of Spain, and the twenty years during which the minister Lerma had subsequently guided the helm of state had been witnesses to the growth of feelings of dissatisfaction and ever-increasing dis- content, only too surely destined, when the opportunity arose, to break out into open defection. Half that length of time had been sufficient to bring about a state of things in which the recognition of the independence of the United Provinces had become, if not an actual necessity, at least a step which a wise poHcy dare no longer defer. The expulsion of the Moors, that followed almost immediately in the wake of what had been practically a defeat in those northern lands, was an act of politico-religious statecraft that had also greatly lessened the contingencies of success for Spanish arms and Spanish wealth in any protracted struggle. Such had been the course of events up to the time of the fall of Lerma, a premier who had been even quite early in his career so far bent on schemes of personal aggrandisement, and so far successful in those schemes, as to have raised for himself a vast palaite from the spoil of his ill-gotten gains. That minister's disgrace had not occurred early enough in the lifetime of the late king to admit of any great change in the condition of affairs, before the mightier monarch Death called the too indolent Sovereign himself to give an account of his stewardship. THE COURT OF SPAIN. 11 Such then was the aspect of the political horizon when Philip TV. first mounted the steps of his ancestral throne. Tall, and for his years somewhat slender in figure, he carried with equal grace and dignity a head marked by the joint traces of his Spanish and Austrian origin ; the face long, pale, and thin, in repose grave ^ even to a fault, the eyes the reverse of vivacious, set beneath the high arches of an elevated and open forehead. It was a head in which there was no deficiency of brain. The all-important question was in what direction those intellectual powers were to develope themselves — to what main purpose of life they should be bent. For a thirst for military glory to have been the leading feature in the character of the son of Philip III. would indeed have been an anomaly ; but to the achieve- ment of noble deeds he might have been encouraged. At eighteen or twenty, even in a southern clime, the character is not of necessity so fixed as to resist every generous impulse that may urge it into fresh paths. In this case the natural tendency, which a happier guidance would have been striving to correct, was, however, already clearly evident in too unrestrained a taste for ease and pleasure. Yet it were a mistake to suppose that the youthful king was an inactive sluggard. Energies he possessed and these he exercised; pov/ers he possessed and these he exerted. The philanthropist and the historian may well be permitted to mourn his lost opportunities of establishing a prince's firm grasp over such broad realms, and of exerting a directly beneficial influence upon the nations beneath his sway : yet Art cannot but hail him as a benefactor. His natural bias led him to find much of his enjoyment in the manly exercises of the chase. A no less spontaneous feeling prompted him to the ^ Stirling-Maxwell, on this point, refers to the dicta of contemporary writers, who speak of his "talents for dead silence and marble iramo- bility " as talents " so highly improved that he could sit out a comedy without stirring hand or foot, and conduct an audience without movement of a muscle, except those in his lips and tongue." 12 VELAZQUEZ. cultivation of literature, and to the encouragement of the sister arts. It was his to fill his court with a gay and brilliant assem- blage of the bluest blood in Spain. It was no less his to temper the magnificence of his pageants, and the aristocratic splendour of his state banquets, by the introduction of elements of more enduring worth. Himself something of an artist — it may be but a half-brother of the guild — he was nobly endowed with the fticulty of recognising artistic excellence in others. If it be as worthy an object of our human desires as it is a common one to wish to leave something behind us that, when we quit this stage, shall preserve to posterity the memory of our form and features, Philip has been richly rewarded for his magnanimity in this respect. Of all monarchs few have been so frequently, none so faithfully, pourtrayed on a lasting canvas. In youth, in maturity, in declining years; on foot, and on horseback ; dressed for the chase, or already absorbed in its pleasures ; alone, or in the same scene with his daughter and his queen ; in the richest of armour, or more plainly clad and lowly kneeling at his prayers — few are the actions of his life in which we cannot, even at this distance of time, see him actually before us. This is not the place to enter into the vexata qucestio of the special title to our reverence possessed by this or that of the numerous pictures, most of which are indisputably genuine, that lay claim to such honours. Let it suffice to remind ourselves that some of this wealth of portraiture has found a resting-place on English soil, and that we have but to step aside a moment from a crowded London thoroughfare, or to stroll to the pleasant shade of the lanes of suburban Dulwich, to learn more in a few moments of this former king of Spain than can be taught by a flood of mere description. The quiet halls of the National Gallery present us with the lineaments of a face which once seen will not easily be forgotten ; nor shall we doubt for a moment whose is the living image before which we stand, when gazing on the figure clothed in raiment of scarlet and of silver that has been preserved for us DOxNA ISABEL DE BOURBOiN. By Velazquez. THE COURT OF SPAIN. 13 by the noble and well-directed munificence of a Burgeois and a Desenfans. As a patron of literature, too, he stands upon a pinnacle. Around him gathered whatever of talent in verse or prose, or of elegance and skill in dramatic composition, could break down the slender barrier that guarded the first entrance to his court. A strong supporter of the drama, he bid a theatre rise within the precincts of a royal Sifio, nor were any pains esteemed too great, nor sums too large, to set forth each moving tale with honour due. The comparatively subordinate part which woman plays, at least to the outward eye, in the course of public affairs in Spain, is doubtless the cause of our having scant record left us of his Queen, Isabel de Bourbon. Daughter of Henri IV. of France, and consequently sister of that Henrietta Maria who is said to have charmed and won the affections of the errant Prince Charles at a single glance, she was remarkable for a rare beauty. A face somewhat oval, in which was set a delicate nose just so far free from being aquiline as to escape the charge of severity, was enlivened by glancing eyes of lustrous gaze. The tournure of her neck was the perfection of elegance and grace ; the head, so neatly shaped, was covered with a profusion of the loveliest of curling locks. In lofty birth and courtly manners a fitting consort for her august spouse, her figure may be seen in the canvases of the court-painter, now seated on a well-trained palfre}^, now kneeling at her prayers, now with her maids of honour joining in the pastimes of the hunting-grounds. Thus does she come before us in those " companion " pictures that are in one sense replicas (if with variation) of those that represent her lord. As yet the child-prince of the Asturias, in whom so many hopes will one day be centred, is not born into the world ; but the circle of royalty is incomplete without the figures of the king's brothers, Don Carlos and the Cardinal (for he is alike 14 VELAZQUEZ. Cardinal and Arclibishop of Toledo) Don Fernando, both in Spanish style yclept " Infantes,'' though one is thirteen years old, and the other has already numbered seventeen summers. The younger, spite of his clerical or supposed clerical calling, will soon be found " the life and soul of the court and the leader of its revels," and as the years roll on will attain to something of military fame and honour. Destined to perish ere the prime of life be reached, he will yet outlive his elder brother Carlos. There also moves upon the dais of the same courtly stage the form of' the king's sister. Dona Maria, to whose hand no less a personage is pretending than the son of our English Monarch James. For at this moment Charles, Prince of Wales, is at Mad rid. 1 The story that reads almost like an Oriental love- tale is familiar enough. How that a prince of the blood, heir to the throne of England, obtained leave from a too fond father to travel in mufti, accompanied by the Grand Vizier, in search of a foreign princess. How — passing by one Court where dwelt a king's fair daughter, predestined by the Fates to be the partner of a life vrliich opening brightly had so dark and tragic a close — he hast- ened on across the southern mountain ranges to the still more splendid Court of a still more mighty potentate. How, entering the city gates unnoticed, the twain knocked humbly, or as humbly as in them lay, at the door of the palace of the Lord- Eesident from their own country, to be received by him as per- haps totally unexpected guests ; and how, when the story of their arrival at length became noised abroad, the delighted in- habitants of the capital, overjoyed at the advent of a foreign suitor who had come so weary a journey in such true-lover guise, greeted him with loudest acclaim and all-jubilant cries of welcome. ^ The Prince reached Madrid on the evening of the 16th March, 1623, and made his state entry there ten days later. THE COURT OF SPAIN. 15 The ialements that form tlie Saturn-ring that encircles this luminous centre of royal persona;4es are numerous and varied indeed. In front of all, the observed of all observers, there stands out the figure of the king's great minister [su gran privado)^ the Count Duke of Olivarez. Taking his title from a little Andalucian town that lies a few miles away from the city of Seville — a town comparatively unknown to fame save from the gleam that the lustre of this great name has shed upon it, and still but rarely visited save by an occasional amateur desirous of doing honour to the memory and works of its canon of former days, the painter Roelas — for upwards of twenty years Don Gaspar de Guzman, Conde Duque de Olivarez, y Duque de San Lucar, guided the fortunes of the Spanish commonweal both at home and abroad. To write his history during these years would be to Avrite the history of his country, but we may at least gatlier from the points that bring him more immediately in contact with the painter whose life is here to be pourtrayed, that as a patron of art he was not merely a constant and indefatigable ally, but one capable of inspiring strong and affectionate gratitude. Had he been really great in the highest sense of the term he would have laboured to instil into the mind of the Monarch, whose tender years he was called upon to guide, a lofty sense of the duties that had devolved upon him as an independent autocrat. He would have been repaid, had he desired other repay- ment than the consciousness of having stepped aside at the call of patriotism from the alluring patlis of individual power and supremacy, by finding a willing ear ever afterward bent to his advice in the council-chamber and in the closet : and he would not have met at last the fate of a Wolsey. But unhappily for his country and unhappily for his memory, he sought rather to lull to rest any rising scruples in the breast of the youthful king^ well content if he could but divert his attention from questions of State policy to matters of comparatively trifling moment, or VELAZQUEZ. engage him in a round of court pleasures and gaieties. It was his base desire that pursuits unimportant and trivial should by- insensible degrees so captivate and engross the attention of his royal master as at last to become the pabulum needful for his very existence. The triumph of the hour, and that hour a long- protracted one, was his. For years he ruled with a sway well nigh absolute, but vengeance came at last, and the hand that struck the blow was the hand of the man whose moral life he had intentionally neglected to improve. This proud noble we have to picture to ourselves moving in each courtly scene, erect and stately, now holding brief parley with some eager pretendiente or place-hunter, who, armed with credentials from some distant scene of civil stru