Lucas Jordan was born at Naples in the year 1632. His father chanced to live near Españaletto, who was then in Italy; and Jordan, from infancy, was constantly in his neighbour’s workshop. At nine years old, he is said to have made great progress; and at fourteen he ran away from his father’s house, and went to Rome, where, it is said, his father following him, found him in the Vatican copying Michael Angelo’s Last Judgment. At Rome he was the disciple of Pietro de Cortona; and he afterwards visited Florence, Bologna, Parma, and Venice, where he improved himself upon the style of Paul Veronese. Subsequently he went to Rome; but unable to forget Veronese, he again returned to Venice, where he remained until called to Florence, in 1657, to paint the cupola of the Capilla Corsini in the church of Carmine. He was afterwards invited to Spain by Charles II., and arrived in Madrid in 1692; and from that time until his death, his genius was employed in enriching the palaces and convents of Spain, particularly the Escurial. Having satisfied my curiosity with the church, and the frescos, I wished Father Buendia to conduct me to the sacristy, where are to be seen those glorious creations of the pencil, which have added the charm of beauty, to the grandeur and magnificence of the Escurial. But my conductor led me first to the relicary, whose contents were perhaps more valuable in his eyes than those of the sacristy. In this relicary, there were five hundred and fifteen vases before the invasion of the French; but their number is now reduced to four hundred and twenty-two. These vases are of gold, silver, bronze gilded, and valuable wood; many of them thickly studded with precious stones: and upwards of eighty of the richest of these vases still remain. But the French, more covetous of the gold and silver than of the relics, made sad confusion of the latter; for not caring to burden themselves with bones, and wood, and dirty garments, they emptied the little gold and silver vases upon the floor,--irreligiously mingling in one heap, relics of entirely different value. The labels indicating the relics having been upon the vases, the bones, &c. were without any distinguishing mark; so that it was impossible to discriminate between an arm of St. Anthony, and the arm of St. Teresa,--or to know a bit of the true cross, from a piece of only a martyr’s cross,--or a garment of the Virgin Sin Pecada, from one of only the Virgin of Rosalio: and as for the smaller relics,--parings of nails, hair, &c. many were irrecoverably lost. But with all this confusion, and all these losses, the Escurial is still rich in relics. Several pieces of the true cross yet remain; a bit of the rope that bound Christ; two thorns of the crown; a piece of the sponge that was dipped in vinegar; parts of His garments, and a fragment of the manger in which he was laid. Making every allowance for bigotry and excess of ill-directed