The all-powerful Olivarez underwent, in 1643, the fate of most favourites, and experienced the doom denounced by the great English satirist on "power too great to keep, or to resign." He had declared his intention of making one Julianillo, an illegitimate child of no one exactly knew who, his heir; had married him to the daughter of the Constable of Castile, decked him with titles and honours, and proposed to make him governor of the heir-apparent. The pencil of Velasquez was employed to hand down to posterity the features of this low-born cause of his great patron's downfall, and the portrait of the ex-ballad singer in the streets of Madrid now graces the collection of Bridgewater House. The disgrace of Olivarez served to test the fine character of Velasquez, who not only sorrowed over his patron's misfortunes, but had the courage to visit the disgraced statesman in his retirement. The triumphal entrance of Philip IV. into Lerida, the surrender of Breda, and portraits of the royal family, exercised the invention and pencil of Velasquez till the year 1648, when he was sent by the king on a roving mission into Italy--not to teach the puzzled sovereigns the mysterious privileges of self-government, but to collect such works of art as his fine taste might think worthy of transportation to Madrid. Landing at Genoa, he found himself in presence of a troop of Vandyck's gallant nobles: hence he went to Milan, Padua, and Venice. At the latter city he purchased for his royal master two or three pictures of Tintoret's, and the Venus and Adonis of Paul Veronese. But Rome, as in his previous visit, was the chief object of his pilgrimage. Innocent X. welcomed him gladly, and commanded him to paint, not only his own coarse features, but the more delicate ones of Donna Olympia, his "sister-in-law and mistress." So, at least, says our author; for the sake of religion and human nature, we hope he is mistaken. For more than a year did Velasquez sojourn in Rome, purchasing works of art, and enjoying the society of Bernini and Nicolas Poussin, Pietro da Cortona and Algardi. "It would be pleasing, were it possible, to draw aside the dark curtain of centuries, and follow him into the palaces and studios--to see him standing by while Claude painted, or Algardi modelled, (enjoying the hospitalities of Bentivoglio, perhaps in that fair hall glorious with Guido's recent fresco of Aurora)--or mingling in the group that accompanied Poussin in his evening walks on the terrace of Trinità de Monte."--(Vol. ii. p. 643.) Meanwhile the king was impatiently waiting his return, and at last insisted upon its being no further delayed; so in 1651 the soil of Spain was once more trod by her greatest painter. Five years later, Velasquez produced his extraordinary picture, Las Meniñas--the Maids of Honour, extraordinary alike in the composition, and in the skill displayed by the painter in overcoming its many difficulties. Dwarfs