There is also in the cathedral at Burgos a "Holy Family," without the painter's name. I strongly suspect it to be the production of Andrea del Sarto. There are likewise some Gothic paintings on wood, by Cornelis van Eyck; the fellows to them are in the gallery at Dresden. The works of the German school are not uncommon in Spain and some of them are exceedingly fine. We will seize the present opportunity to mention some pictures by Fra Diego de Leyva, who became a Carthusian friar in the _Cartuja_ of Miraflores when he had already reached his fifty-fourth year. Among his other compositions we may notice the Martyrdom of Santa Casilda. The executioner has cut off both her breasts, and the blood is gushing forth from the two large red places which mark the spot whence the flesh has been removed; the two breasts are lying at the Saint's side, while she herself is looking with an expression of feverish and convulsive ecstasy at a tall angel, with a thoughtful, melancholy face, who has brought her a palm-branch. These frightful pictures of martyrdom are very frequently to be met with in Spain, where the love of the real and the true in art is carried to the greatest lengths. The artist will not spare you one single drop of blood; you must see the severed nerves shrinking back, you must see the quivering of the living flesh, whose dark purple hue contrasts strongly with the bluish, bloodless whiteness of the skin, you must be shown the vertebræ cut through by the executioner's blade, and the gaping wounds that vomit forth water and blood from their livid mouths; every detail is rendered with horrible truthfulness. Ribera has painted some things in this style, sufficient to make El Verdugo[4] himself start back with affright. In sober truth, we require all the dreadful beauty and diabolical energy which characterize this great master, to enable us to support this flaying and slaughtering school of painting, which seems to have been invented by some hangman's assistant for the amusement of cannibals. We actually lose all desire to suffer martyrdom; and the angel, with his palm-branch, strikes us as a very poor compensation for such atrocious torments. But sometimes Ribera denies even this consolation to his victims, and allows them to writhe about in agony, like so many serpents, in the dull, menacing shade, that is not illuminated by a single ray from heaven.