"Even the powerful king of Spain could not make his favourite a belted knight without a commission to inquire into the purity of his lineage on both sides of the house. Fortunately, the pedigree could bear scrutiny, as for generations the family was found free from all taint of heresy, from all trace of Jewish or Moorish blood, and from contamination from trade or commerce. The difficulty connected with the fact that he was a painter was got over by his being painter to the king and by the declaration that he did not sell his pictures." The red Cross of Santiago conferred upon him by Philip, made Velasquez a knight and freed him also from the rulings of the Inquisition, which directed so largely what artists could and could not do. Thus it is that we come to have certain great pictures from Velasquez's brush which could not otherwise have been painted. This action of the king, setting free the artist, made two schools of art, of which the court painter represented one; and Murillo the other, under the command of the Church. Although not so rich perhaps as Raphael, Velasquez lived and died in plenty, while Murillo, the artist of the Church of Rome, was a poverty-stricken man. Finally, while in the midst of honours, and fulfilling his official duty to the court of Spain, Velasquez contracted the disease which killed him. The Infanta, Maria Theresa, was to wed Louis XIV., and the ceremony was to take place on a swampy little island called the Island of Pheasants. There he went to decorate a pavilion and other places of display. He became ill with a fever and died soon after he returned to Madrid. He made his wife, his old master Pacheco's daughter, his executor, and was buried in the church of San Juan, in the vault of Fuensalida; but within a week his devoted wife was dead, and in eight days' time she was buried beside him. He left his affairs--accounts between him and the court--badly entangled, and it was many years before they were straightened out. His many deeds of kindness lived after him. He made of his slave a good artist and a devoted friend, and by his efforts the slave became a freedman. The story of his kindly help to Murillo when that exquisite painter came, unknown and friendless to Madrid, has already been told. The Church where Velasquez was buried was destroyed by the French in 1811, and all trace of the resting place of the great Spanish artist is forever lost to us. He is called not only "painter to the king," but "king of painters." PLATE--EQUESTRIAN PORTRAIT OF DON BALTHASAR CARLOS.