regarded as one of the best connoisseurs of art that has ever sat on a throne: he was able after short consideration to distinguish with delicate and certain judgment between those Italian masters who are closely allied in style and touch. There was no surer road to his favour than bringing him a picture of some celebrated master as a present, or pointing one out for purchase, which could still be effected with remarkable ease. The catalogues of his property show nine Correggios, thirteen Raphaels, forty-five Titians--among which are some of the greatest works of these masters, such as ‘The Education of Love,’ by the first; ‘The Holy Family,’ known under the name of ‘The Pearl,’ by the second; and among others by the third, ‘The Venus of the Prado.’ These catalogues present a many-sided interest in the history of art: they enumerate 400 works in sculpture, and 1400 in painting. Inigo Jones built a gallery for them: the King wished to have the principal works about him in his chambers at Oatlands, Hampton Court, St. James’s and Whitehall[76]. In the gardens of York House he put up the figures of Cain and Abel, by John of Bologna, the imitator of Michael Angelo, one of the finest groups by that master, a present from Philip IV of Spain. It was the intention of Charles I to adorn the squares and public gardens of London in general with works of artistic merit. It is worth while to remark the connexion between these efforts in favour of art and poetry, and the social cultivation, the general tendencies in favour of toleration, of ecclesiastical ceremony, and of antiquity, and the cosmopolitan sympathies, which mark the ascendancy of royal authority. Could Charles I ever have succeeded in leading the English mind in this direction, and in instigating it to produce works of its own? We may feel ourselves tempted to agree with those who have at all times made it the bitterest reproach of the Puritans, that they opposed these intentions, and even frustrated them. But in the struggles between different tendencies, which give the tone to an age, the question in dispute cannot be settled by the encouragement which they afford to this or that branch of culture. They are like the forces of nature, which create but at the same time destroy. The other party also had its rights, its ideas, and, if we regard the general state of the world and of the time, a still greater destiny in the field of universal history. FOOTNOTES: [43] Relation de Mr. Fontenay, 4 Juin 1634: ‘Le tresorier veut la paix et pour sa subsistance et par sa foiblesse: c’est pourquoy il demeure neutre entre France et Espagne.’ Cp. the instructions to the ambassador Poigny in the 4th vol of Avenel’s Lettres du Cl. Richelieu. [44] Gussoni. ‘Gode la fortuna d’esser il piu autorevole e superiormente favorito di S. M.--sogetto di cupo e di sagace ingegno, benche nell’ esteriore si dimostri non amabile, anzi ruvido di natura.’