Murillo is here the same as everywhere else. I very much prefer his pictures in Seville. Velasquez, however, is to be really seen nowhere so well as here. I do not know how many pictures there are here by him, but a great quantity, it seems to me: Philips without number, in childhood, youth, and age; Dons with curled moustaches; Queens with large hoops and disfigured heads; an actor, full of life and character, one of his very best. But his greatest picture, and really a wonder, is his portrait of himself painting the little Infanta, who is in the foreground of the picture with two young girls, her court ladies, her dwarf, and a diminutive page. It is quite like a photograph, in clear, broad effect of light and dark. From the other side of the room, full of truth and vigor,--as you approach it, you find it is dashed in with a surety of touch and a breadth truly extraordinary,--no details, no substance even; painted with one huge brush, it would almost seem, all is vigorous, dashing, clever, the triumph of _chic_, as shown by a master hand. The dog in the immediate foreground is capital, the page pushing him playfully with his foot. The dwarf stands next, full of a sort of quaint truth, with her big head and heavy chin. The mass of light falls on the Infanta, who takes a cup of something, chocolate, I suppose, from one of the kneeling girls, while the other makes a reverence on the other side. Beyond are a nun and a _guarda-damas_, and in the mirror at the other end of the room are most cleverly indicated the portraits of Philip and his wife. Velasquez stands on the left of the picture, behind the Infanta, painting, with his canvas turned back toward us as we look into the room. The black figure of an attendant has passed out of the apartment and is going up a stair against a clear white wall. The skilful way in which you are led into the picture is astonishing, and the whole thing is quite by itself as a piece of painting. There is no attempt at anything subtile or even delicate in the treatment, speaking from the point of view of a result achieved by paint on canvas,--no texture, no difference of handling, no imitation; all is _paint_, admirably put on, for the effect across the room. I think we must set Velasquez quite by himself as a truthful and surely most gifted portrait-master. With a peculiar gift,--genius, I think we might say,--certainly he is like no one else, and nobody else is like him. Then there is his equestrian portrait of Philip IV., of which you may remember the sketch in the Pitti Gallery,--also one of the Duke of Olivarez, fresh, dashing, and spirited. But I prefer the portrait of --some actor, I am sure,--full of character, against a gray wall background,--one of those faces one is sure one has seen somewhere in Spain, and he is declaiming evidently with the most capital action.--So much for Velasquez.