Within the Royal Armeria are many interesting objects. Although the veneration with which we regard a sword which the hand of Cortes once upon a time touched, or a particular suit of armour in which the body of Columbus was once encased, like a jelly in a mould, may savour, perhaps, of hero-worship, idolatry, and superstition, we must acknowledge the imputation that we are subject to it. Here are the swords of Philip II. and of Francisco Pizarro, conquerors of Peru, and there that of Charles V., Emperor of Germany, together with his entire armour--the actual suit in which he was painted by Titian. Several revolvers of the seventeenth century, and a war-saddle of the Cid, are also exhibited. For anyone who wishes to enjoy a feast of pictures uninterruptedly, and we suppose that is not an unnatural taste, the Madrid gallery is the place. Few but English travellers go there, the Spaniards seeming to care as little about the glories of their Murillos and Velasquez', as they do about Leech or Cruikshank, and perhaps not so much. There is plenty of space for the loiterer in the gallery, and in its silence he may dream away in peace a few happy hours. There are pictures here, of course, on which genius has stamped its impress, and on which all who are capable of appreciating the beauty of art gaze with admiration. That wondrous Crucifixion, for instance, by Velasquez, produces at once an impression which roots one to the spot. In the midst of a waste of lonely darkness, hangs heavily on a coarse stake of wood the dead form of the wearied man. The end of all his misery, the relief brought by death, seems to be distinctly delineated in the attitude of that forsaken, emaciated form,--with half its face veiled by the dank hair which falls over it as the head bows forward at the last mortal spasm,--a sight at which the words "It is finished" rise instinctively to our lips while we gaze at that marvellous production of perfect art. The next picture on which the eye falls is one of a brighter character--The Assumption of the Virgin, by Murillo. The look of childish, confiding innocence in the gentle face is beyond expression. As there have been inspired writers, surely there have been also inspired painters, and this Spanish master must have been one of them, during the composition of this immortal work. Close at hand is the famous picture of the infant St. John, by the same hand. Beside the beautiful boy is a gentle lamb. The little animal has crept confidingly, without a symptom of fear, to the child's side. As it should be with so pure a subject, the colouring and general treatment are nobly simple, and that is the source of its beauty.