Returning to my favourite, or, as I consider it, the best National Gallery example of Raphael, 'Pope Julius II.,' this is a work of art which may be examined by both artist and amateur with unqualified pleasure and instruction. It ranks with such realistic masterpieces as Rembrandt produced, and it is almost as unaffected as the 'Portrait of a Tailor,' by Moroni, No. 697. It is painted in a rich colour scheme of red; warm, ruddy complexion, scarlet cap, and cape lined with white fur, and a soft, creamy under robe of some woolly material, with red and gold tassels on the chair behind. The hands and finger rings are splendidly painted, the expression is masterly in its combination of power and repose. Anyone can tell at a glance that this is a true likeness of the Pope, taken when he had an hour of leisure, and faithfully reproduced without any attempt to idealise. It is said not to be so well authenticated as some of the other works by this painter, but for the purpose with which I now write it is better than any of the others, and of most value as a study for the copyist. The Garvagh Raphael, 744, 'The Madonna, Infant Christ and St. John,' is a picture not too dear at the price it was bought for, viz. 9,000_l._, for it is well worth 2,000_l._ more than the 'Ansidei Madonna,' in consideration of its superior composition, chiaroscuro, drawing, and colour. It is all beautiful and human. The comely mother with two lovely children beside her gives us the true divinity of holy maternity; the landscape behind is deliciously and tenderly painted, and the only blemish in the composition is that discordant and mannered pillar behind the Madonna, placed there for the too obvious reason of throwing her face, with that of Christ, into better relief, as in the Ansidei picture, and, like it, spoiling the concord with its heaviness and the stiff, stage-wing-like uniformity of the two windows behind. 168, 'St. Catherine of Alexandria,' is a sentimental study of a robust and soft-handed young woman, with a sketchy background in umbery tones. It looks like an experiment of Raphael's, and in pose is almost grotesque in its lackadaisical rapture, yet it is finely painted as to flesh tones and other details. So also is No. 269, 'The Vision of a Knight,' which is, as an example of this painter at the age of seventeen, positively marvellous; yet for all that, although the design is good, and the composition freer than the general laws at the time laid down, as a study for the young painter it is not good; it will make him too easily satisfied with himself and with his drawing. Still, it has its special interest to the painter, as revealing what Raphael could do in his early student days.