[I interpolate here the account of the =Brussels Picture Gallery=, because it is the most important object to be seen in the town, after the Grand’ Place and its neighbourhood. You must pay it several visits—three at the very least—and you may as well begin early. Follow the roughly chronological order here indicated, and you will understand it very much better. Begin again next time where you left off last: but also, revisit the rooms you have already seen, to let the pictures sink into your memory. Intersperse these visits with general sight-seeing in the town and neighbourhood. The Brussels Gallery forms an excellent continuation to the works of art we have already studied at Bruges and Ghent. In the _first place_, it gives us some further examples of the =Old Flemish masters=, of the Van Eycks and of Memling, as well as several altar-pieces belonging to the mystical religious School of the Brussels town-painter, =Roger Van der Weyden=, who was Memling’s master. These have been removed from churches at various times, and gradually collected by the present Government. It also affords us an admirable opportunity of becoming well acquainted with the masterpieces of =Dierick Bouts=, or Dierick of Haarlem, an early painter, Dutch by birth but Flemish by training, who was town painter in democratic Louvain, (which town may afterwards be made the object of an excursion from Brussels). But, in the _second place_, besides these painters of the early school, the Brussels Gallery is rich in works of the =transitional period=, and possesses in particular a magnificent altar-piece by =Quentin Matsys=, the last of the old Flemish School, and the first great precursor of the Renaissance in the Low Countries. He was practically an Antwerp man (though born at Louvain), and his place in art may more fitly be considered in the Antwerp Museum. From his time on we are enabled to trace, in this Gallery, the evolution of Flemish art to its =third period=, the time of =Rubens= (also better seen at Antwerp) and his successors, the great =Dutch painters=, here fairly represented by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Van der Helst, Gerard Dou, and Teniers. In the following list of the most noteworthy works of each School, I have adhered, roughly speaking, to a chronological order, but without compelling the reader unnecessarily to dance up and down the various rooms of the collection from one work to another. The Gallery itself is one of the most splendid in Europe, and it has been recently re-arranged in a most satisfactory manner.]