Nothing, perhaps, is earlier, among the canvases of Velasquez now shown, than the large, somewhat straggling picture--with perfect composition yet to learn--of a ‘Peasant Boy Feeding Fowls.’ It comes from Ireland, and is lent by Lady Gregory. It does not, in every particular, want breadth of treatment: it is broader in treatment, indeed, than some things which may presumably have been painted not very long after it. The vigour of perception, the realistic outlook upon life, the point of view, in fact, is hardly less characteristic than in work avowedly mature; yet, to pass on from it to painting of the first Madrid, rather than of the Seville, period, is to move into the presence of a much greater accomplishment. Before taking another step, however, it may be well to glance at one picture like it in subject, and, it is scarcely too much to say, even richer in handling--a picture not Velasquez’s at all, yet a link in the chain of his history, for it is the work of his first master, whose harsh temper drove the youth from his painting-room--Herrera el Viejo: it is a broad and finely treated representation of a bird upon the wing--‘A Partridge.’ This is one among the many interesting loans of Sir Clare Ford, whose opportunities of study have been exceptional, and whose devotion to Velasquez himself is indeed hereditary. The Duke of Wellington is the owner of what seems to be the first picture by Velasquez of whose history there is authentic record. We saw it at the Royal Academy, one winter, in bygone years. It is called the ‘Water-Carrier,’ or ‘El Corno, Aquador de Sevilla,’ and it represents, with a force and luminousness already extraordinary, a man in tattered brown doublet, bearing in one hand the large earthen jar, and, with the other, tendering a glass of water to a boy standing beside a table. It is recorded in the inventory of Buen Retiro, all but two hundred years ago. Since then its fortunes have been various. The picture figured amongst the _impedimenta_ of Joseph Bonaparte in his flight from Madrid, but at the rout of Vittoria it was captured from his carriage, and Ferdinand VII. afterwards gave it to the Great Duke. Sir Charles Robinson contributes an illustration of the story of Jael and Sisera, painted, possibly, about 1623--a composition in which, it is said, there is to be discerned a portrait of the Conde Duque Olivarez (who at that period summoned Velasquez to Madrid), and a posthumous portrait of the Duke of Alva; and it is suggested that there may be in this canvas an allegorical reference to the assassination of William the Silent. Two figures are in armour. At Madrid, we believe, there are three suits of armour of the Duke of Alva’s--there are ten of Charles the Fifth’s. A typical group of the earlier work of the master may be said almost to end with the presentment of the veteran ‘Spanish Beggar,’ belonging to Sir Francis Cook, and, as it would seem, somewhat