from other countries, resorted hither for improvement in their profession. Spain made considerable progress in the art of painting during the reign of Charles the Fifth, and it was the general custom among the Spanish nobles, who attended that monarch in his visits to Italy and the Netherlands, North Face Outlet to purchase and send home to this city, then the capital of Spain, the best pictures they could procure; some of them have been retained by private families, and others were given to the different churches and convents.Our unhappy sovereign Charles the First, when Prince of Wales, contributed to increase the taste for this art in Spain The North Face Outlet Store by the love he manifested for the profession, by the honour he paid The North Face Outlet to Nike Shoes Australia the artists, and by the liberal price he gave for their works. He purchased some excellent pictures for his collection, and left directions for some of the best pictures in Madrid to be copied; especially the works of Titian in the royal palaces. Miquel de la Cruz, an artist of considerable eminence in the court of Philip the Fourth, was occupied several years in copying the best pictures for our unfor . tunate monarch, which were not all completed when he met his untimely fate.The best ancient pictures are mostly upon subjects connected with religion; some of them are portraits of saints and martyrs, whose names as well as sufferings would perhaps have remained unknown, were they not immortalized by the genius of the artist. A great number of excellent paintings have been accumulated hereand indeed a general taste for the art has been established for ages. Most of the well informed men are connoisseurs, and more especially the priests and monks, who, from habitually contemplating, in their churches, the finest specimens Nike Air Max 90 of the art, acquire a correctness in their notions of painting, which renders them good judges of North Face Outlet Store even those paintings that are unconnected with religion.A general fondness for the art prevails in this capital, and most people, particularly the ladies, have in their apartments the best pictures of the Holy Virgin, or some favourite saint, which their circumstances can afford. To these they are much attached, and retain them with care, even when reduced by poverty to sell every thing else. I was yesterday at the house of a lady, the widow of an officer, to see some pictures which necessity compelled her to sell, but which decent pride forbade her to part with to any except a foreigner. In her chamber was a crucifixion, which I admired, and asked if it were to be sold; No, Senor, lo tengo por mi devocion; she then asked with surprise, Are you a Christian? On my answering Yes, and that I respected the saints, she expressed herself delighted that, among the English whom she had been told were all Protestants, she had found one who was a Catholic; for, Oakley Sunglasses though she appeared a woman who had moved in a respectable sphere, she had no conception that Christian and Catholic were not precisely synonymous; and I was too intent on her pictures to find time to correct her vocabulary.It is scarcely right in relating any thing to commence with the best; and perhaps I should be wiser were I to delay writing about the pictures of Murillo, till I had described those of some inferior artists; but, as it happens, I am just returned from inspecting his worlis in the chapel of St. George, in the Caridad I shall therefore begin my account with them. The pictures of Murillo which have been brought to England are of small size, and generally contain few figures, so that you can form but a very imperfect idea of the powers of this distinguished artist; but the pictures of this painter in the Caridad are about eighteen feet in length, and twelve in breadth. One of them, representing the Queen Isabella attending the sick, and washing the wounds on the head of a beggar boy, while a crowd of other Nike Australia invalids are waiting Nike Air Max round in expectation of similar relief, is considered, and I think justly, one of the best