singles out the erect figure of the prophet standing forward from the throng; and the lofty emotion of that great leader, looking with gratitude to heaven, is finely contrasted with the downward regards of the multitude, forgetful of the Giver in the anticipation or the enjoyment of the gift. Each head and figure is an elaborate study; each countenance has a distinctive character, and even of the sixteen vessels brought to the spring, no two are alike in form."--(Vol. ii. p. 859.) But Cean Bermudez, who enjoyed the privilege of seeing all these eight masterpieces hanging together in their own sacred home, preferred The Prodigal's Return, and St Elizabeth of Hungary--with whose touching history the eloquent pens of the Count Montalembert and Mr A. Phillipps have made us familiar--to all the rest. The Franciscan convent, without the city walls, was yet more fortunate than the hospital of Mañara, for it possessed upwards of twenty of this religious painter's works. Now, not one remains to dignify the ruined halls and deserted cloisters of that once magnificent convent: but seventeen of these pictures are preserved in the Seville Museum; among them Murillo's own favourite--that which he used to call "his own picture"--the charity of St Thomas of Villanueva. In 1678, Murillo painted three pictures for the Hospital de los Venerables, two of which, the Mystery of the Immaculate Conception, and St Peter Weeping, were placed in the chapel. "The third adorned the refectory, and presented to the gaze of the Venerables, during their repasts, the blessed Virgin enthroned on clouds, with her divine Babe, who, from a basket borne by angels, bestowed bread on three aged priests." These were nearly his last works; for the art he so loved was now about to destroy her favourite son: he was mounting a scaffolding to paint the higher parts of a great altar-piece for the Capuchin church at Cadiz, representing the espousals of St Catherine, when he stumbled, and ruptured himself so severely, as to die of the injury. On the 3d of April 1682, he expired in the arms of his old and faithful friend, Don Justino Neve, and was buried in the parish church of St. Cruz, a stone slab with his name, a skeleton and "Vive moriturus," marking the spot--until the "Vandal" French destroyed the last resting-place of that great painter, whose works they so unscrupulously appropriated. Was the last Lord of Petworth aware of this short epitaph, when he caused to be inscribed on the beautiful memorial to his ancestors which adorns St Thomas's Chapel in Petworth Church, the prophetic,[18] solemn words--"Mortuis moriturus?" [18] He died the year following.