latter competed, the credit of the master was considered at stake as well as their own. Murillo soon distinguished himself in the school of Castillo; his first commissions from public bodies were a Madonna del Rosario, with St. Domingo, painted for the college of Santo Tomas; and a Virgin, with St. Francis and other saints, for the convent of “la Regina.” In these works the artist followed, in some degree, the style of Castillo. His master having removed to Cadiz, the young painter remained without recommendation and without employment, and was compelled to do coarse altar-pictures and saints for the _feria_, or market, which was held once a week in the parish “Omnium Sanctorum,” and which seems to have been chiefly devoted to the commerce with South America. The paintings offered in this market, or fair, for sale, were generally the work of the most inferior artists, and the expression “pintura de feria” is still proverbially applied to pictures of the lowest class. Such was the rapidity with which these works were done, that it appears it was not uncommon for the artist to produce his saint while the purchaser was cheapening the bargain, and the Spanish writer, whose authority is chiefly followed in this memoir, goes so far as to say, that a San Onofre was presently transformed to a San Cristobal, or a Virgen del Carmen to a San Antonio, or even to the representation of the Souls in Purgatory. Better artists, however, occasionally condescended to paint such pictures, and with some augmentation of price; but even the worst performers were known, in some instances, to acquire such dexterity by this work, that very little additional study in the regular schools converted them into respectable artists. This singular mode of attaining mechanical facility must therefore be reckoned among the causes which influenced the executive style of the Sevillian painters; and Murillo, among others, no doubt benefited by his practice in the _feria_.