There are some very fine private cabinets of pictures in Antwerp, which are opened to strangers with all that alacrity and politeness which in England, in such cases, we are so lamentably and notoriously deficient in. In one of these we saw the celebrated "Chapeau Pâle" of Rubens. I was disappointed in it; probably from having had my expectations too highly raised by hearing its beauties extravagantly extolled. In fact, the subject does not call forth any great powers either of genius or execution. It is simply the portrait of a handsome woman with a very attractive countenance, and dressed in a very becoming grey beaver hat and feather; and both the lady and her hat are most beautifully painted. We saw some landscapes by Rubens, some of which were very fine. There is no branch of painting which the versatile genius of this wonderful man did not lead him to attempt, and none in which he did not succeed. His Scriptural and historical paintings, upon which rests his fame; his allegories, portraits, and landscapes, are well known: but I have seen a miniature picture of his performance, beautifully finished--a piece of fruit and flowers, very well executed, though in an uncommon style--and lastly, _an interior_, not a servile copy of Teniers, Ostade, or Gerard Douw, but marked with his own characteristic originality of manner and expression. This last piece is in the possession of a Flemish gentleman at Ghent. At Antwerp we saw some beautiful landscapes by Asselins and Dietrichsen; a very fine Holy Family by Murillo; and the Death of Abel by Guido. The whole figure of Abel prostrate on the earth, but especially the touching, the more than human expression of his face as he looks up at his brother and his murderer, is one of the finest things I ever beheld in painting. It is in that upward look of pathetic supplication and unutterable feeling that Guido is unrivalled--it is his characteristic excellence. We saw some very fine paintings both by Italian and Flemish artists, but the fascination of the former, in spite of myself, riveted my eyes upon their never-satiating beauties. It is impossible not to feel the decided superiority of the Italian over the Flemish school of painting, in force, delicacy, and dignity of expression; in the power of transposing _soul_ into painting, if I may so express myself, and in all that constitutes the greatness and the sublimity of the art. But the Flemish artists laboured under great natural disadvantages. They did not live beneath the brilliant sky that sheds its tints of beauty over the happier climates of Italy and Provence; they did not dwell in the enchanting vales and sunny mountains, or gaze upon the caverned rocks and romantic solitudes which formed and perfected the genius of a Claude Lorraine, Vernet, Salvator Rosa, and Poussin. Fate threw Berghem and Both, and Cuyp, under unkinder skies, and amidst less picturesque scenes; but in genius they are perhaps equal, if not superior, to the French and Italian