Rome, with its exhaustless treasures of art, was still before him, and he was soon gratified with an opportunity of visiting that capital. The Duke of Mantua wished to obtain copies of some of the finest pictures there, and he engaged Rubens to make them, with the double motive of availing himself of his talents and facilitating his studies. This task was doubtless rendered light to Rubens, as well by gratitude towards his patron as by his own great facility of execution. In this respect Sir J. Reynolds considers him superior to all other painters; and says that he was “perhaps the greatest master in the mechanical part of his art, the best workman with his tools, that ever handled a pencil.” He executed for the Duke copies of several great works, which could scarcely be distinguished from the originals. Among his own compositions, painted while at Rome, the most conspicuous are three in the church of S. Croce in Gerusalemme, two of which, Christ bearing the Cross, and the Crucifixion, are considered to rank among his finest productions. There is also, in the Campidoglio, a picture painted by him at this time, of the finding of Romulus and Remus, a work of remarkable spirit and beauty. Rubens, however, had formed his style at Venice, and was not induced by the contemplation of the great works at Rome to alter it in any essential particular. It is not thence to be inferred that he was insensible to the wonders which surrounded him at Rome; that he did not appreciate the epic sublimity of Michael Angelo, the pure intelligence of Raphael; his admiration of ancient sculpture is attested by his written precepts. Of the antique, certainly, no trace of imitation is to be found in his works; but perhaps the bold style of design, which he had adopted in opposition to the meagre taste of his German predecessors, was confirmed by the swelling outlines of Michael Angelo. If he imitated Raphael in any thing, it was in composition; and if in that great quality of art he has any superior, it is in Raphael alone.