The room in which the greatest treasures of the Gallery are collected is called the Salon de la Reyna Isabel. Unfortunately a large opening in the floor, to give light to a gallery of sculpture below, makes it a little difficult to see some of the pictures at all well. At its upper end is the famous Spasimo de Sicilia, a noble work, but spoilt by the awkward and distorted drawing of the soldiers on the left. Near it is a very fine Giovanni Bellini, the Delivery of the Keys to St. Peter; and by its side a Giorgione, with a man in armour, as fine as anything I know,--the subject, the Virgin and Saints. By Bronzino there is a violin-player, a lad with a face beyond measure loveable. But it were endless to go on through a list even of the _chefs-d’œuvre_ in such a collection; and it is the less necessary to say much more than generally to praise the whole Gallery as one of the first, if not the first, in Europe, because, now that railways make the journey thither so much more easy, some, no doubt, of our thousands of annual travellers will make their way to Madrid, to make lists for themselves of the best of its pictures. There is as little interest in modern as in earlier architecture here; the only development that struck me being a fashion the people have of diapering houses all over with a kind of thirteenth-century painting on plaster; but I was not struck with the beauty of the development. The best street is the Calle de Alcalá, leading from the Puerta del Sol to the Prado. It is of great width, rising from the Puerta del Sol and falling to the Prado, and not straight, all which points are much in its favour: but the houses on either side are not generally so fine as they should be, and there is consequently a slightly faded look about it, which is not otherwise characteristic of Madrid. To see the Calle de Alcalá to advantage, the day of a bull-fight should be selected. Then from half-past three to four all the world streams along it to the arena, excited, running, pushing, buying red and yellow paper fans for the seats in the sun, and as noisy, boisterous, and enthusiastic as all the world at any of our own national gatherings. The _picadors_ in their quaint dresses come galloping along on their sorry steeds, each attended by a man in a blouse riding on the same horse, and whose office it is afterwards to make the poor wretch face the bull by beating him with a long stick. Omnibuses and vehicles of all kinds bring their share of the mob; and when I took my seat, I believe there were not less than twelve thousand people assembled, every seat in the rather shabby but vast arena being full. Women formed a very small proportion only of the whole number, and I noticed that a lady who sat near me seemed as much shocked as I was at the brutal parts of the exhibition; for all parts of it are by no means brutal, and, indeed, I should be inclined to limit the term to those parts in which horses are introduced. It would be quite as