Of two pictures in the Cabinet at Madrid, the principal is that of Christ praying in the Garden, with an Angel on high pointing to a Cross and a Crown of Thorns on the ground, scarcely discernible. The open but drooping arms of the Saviour express his entire resignation to the will of his Father. The most poetic singularity of this picture is its chiaroscuro: Christ receives his light from Heaven, the Angel from Christ: at a distance on lower ground, and nearly evanescent, are the three Disciples _in graceful and picturesque attitudes_, and farther off, the approaching host of captors. At first sight, the whole seems to be divided into two masses only of light and darkness, but on inspection, the ambient medium and the more and less of distinctness in the objects as they approach the light or recede from it, is divinely expressed. There is a tale, which even Lomazzo and Scanelli repeat, that Correggio parted with this picture to his apothecary for four scudi, which he owed him; that afterwards it was sold for five hundred crowns to Pirrho Count Visconti, who resold it for seven hundred and fifty gold doubloons, to the Marchese Camarena, Governor of Milan, by whom it was bought in commission for Philip the Fourth. Every day discovers some copy, or, if you choose to believe those who wish to dispose of them, some duplicate or triplicate of this picture. Padre Resta possessed not one, but four, all of which he insisted on being believed in as originals: one on copper, another on wood, which Lelio Orsi was said to have copied on canvass; a third, likewise on panel but somewhat worm-eaten, disposed of to Monsignor Marchetti, and a fourth again on copper. Some of these are probably in England. The companion of this picture is the Madonna dressing the Infant, with Joseph planing a board in the back-ground; a performance though inferior in style to the former, not less original from the pentimenti still discoverable in the two principal figures. The Duke of Alba possesses of Correggio, in figures somewhat less than Nature, Mercury teaching Cupid to read in the presence of Venus. Venus has the singular attribute of wings, and of a bow in her left hand; and Mengs persuades himself to discover in her forms a reminiscence of an imitation of the Apollino, formerly in the Villa Medici at Rome. The characteristic excellence of the execution, and an evident pentimento in the arm of the Mercury, leave no doubt of its having a better claim to originality than the duplicates in France and Germany. It formerly made part of the collection of Charles the First, and Sandrart saw it in the Palace of Whitehall, from whence it was purchased by an ancestor of the Duke of Alba.