In a lower room there are Dutch and Flemish chefs-d'oeuvre without end: Rubens, and Vandyke, and Teniers, and Breughel, and Holbein, and the rest. It is a gallery bewildering from the number of its pictures, but with the rare merit of almost all being good; and they are so arranged that the visitor can see them with perfect comfort at any hour of the day. In the ante-room to the long gallery are some pictures of the present century, but none are worth looking at save Goya's pictures of the wholesale massacre of the Spanish prisoners by the French, which are not likely to soften the public feeling of bitterness and hostility toward that nation. There is nothing very good in sculpture, only two of the antiques being worth looking at; but there is a fine statue of Charles V., and a wonderfully beautiful St. John of God, carrying a sick man out of the burning hospital on his back, which is modern, but in admirable taste. {168} Neglected, in some side cupboards, and several of them broken and covered with dust and dirt, are some exquisite tazzas of Benvenuto Cellini, D'Arphes, and Beceriles, in lapis, jade, agate, and enamel, finer than any to be seen even in the Grüne Gewölbe of Dresden. There is a gold mermaid, studded with rubies, and with an emerald tail, and a cup with an enamelled jewelled border and stand, which are perfectly unrivalled in beauty of workmanship. Then, in addition to this matchless gallery, Madrid has its "Academia," containing three of Murillo's most magnificent conceptions. One is "St. Elizabeth of Hungary," washing the wounds of the sick, her fair young face and delicate white hands forming a beautiful contrast with the shrivelled brown old woman in the foreground. The expression of the saint's countenance is that of one absorbed in her work and yet looking beyond it. [Footnote 41] The other is the "Dream," in which the Blessed Virgin appears to the founder of the church of St. Maria della Neve (afterward called St. Maria Maggiore) and his wife, and suggests to them the building of a church on a spot at Rome, which would be indicated to them by a fall of snow, though it was then in the month of August. In the third picture the founder and his wife are kneeling at the feet of the Pope, telling him of their vision, and imploring his benediction on their work. These two famous pictures were taken by Soult from Seville, and are of a lunette shape, being made to fit the original niche for which they were painted: both are unequalled for beauty of color and design, and have recently been magnificently engraved, by order of the government. [Footnote 41: This picture was stolen from the Carldad, at Seville, by the French, and afterward sent back to Madrid, where it still remains.]