Your excellency has not replied to a letter of mine, in which I said that the portraits were finished, and also the copy of your excellency’s by Esteve which only lacked the inscription for which he has asked me several times. I also suggested that if your excellency approved I would get the frames made for the originals and would myself go and put them where your excellency might order, so that you might have the pleasure of finding them in their places. I only desire your excellency’s orders and that you keep well. May God preserve your excellency’s valuable life for many years.--Madrid, October 9, 1803.--Your excellency’s obedient and grateful servant, FRANCISCO DE GOYA. To his Excellency Señor Don Miguel Cayetano Soler. The technical excellence of the Caprichos makes them comparable with those of Rembrandt, while in their meaning and character they may be likened to the work of Daumier. There are the peculiar qualities of Goya’s etching, which recall the truth and naturalness of Fernando Boll, the movement and life of Lievens and Konninck, and the expression and charm of Von Vliet? These artists, whose best individual qualities are all combined in Goya, were pupils of Rembrandt. ‘Only Hokusai,’ writes Mr. Rothenstein, ‘was capable of such monstrous gaiety, such stinging satire, and he alone could have lent probability to such monstrous phantasy; Hogarth was too sermonising, Rowlandson too rollicking; a certain diabolical side of his nature, which Goya allowed to be seen both in the “Caprichos” and “The Disasters,” has probably prevented his etchings gaining a footing in England.’ Certain it is that Goya’s prints are rarely to be met with in this country--a fact that caused the writer of this book to spare no effort in order to include in the illustrations, reproductions of every etching and lithograph, as well as of every portrait or picture of Goya’s, of which he could secure an impression.