of many.

From the number of Madonnas in every European gallery, it would almost
seem that the old artists painted nothing else. The subject is one which
requires the highest genius to do it justice, and it is therefore
unpleasant to see so many still, inexpressive faces of the virgin and
child, particularly by the Dutch artists, who clothe their figures
sometimes in the stiff costume of their own time. Raphael and Murillo
appear to me to be almost the only painters who have expressed what,
perhaps, was above the power of other masters--the combined love and
reverence of the mother, and the divine expression in the face of the
child, prophetic of his mission and godlike power.

There were many glorious old paintings in the second story, which is
entirely taken up with pictures; two or three of the halls were devoted
to selected works from modern artists. Two of these I would give every
thing I have to possess. One of them is a winter scene, representing the
portico of an old Gothic church. At the base of one of the pillars a
woman is seated in the snow, half-benumbed, clasping an infant to her
breast, while immediately in front stands a boy of perhaps seven or
eight years, his little hands folded in prayer, while the chill wind
tosses the long curls from his forehead. There is something so pure and
holy in the expression of his childish countenance, so much feeling in
the lip and sorrowful eye, that it moves one almost to tears to look
upon it. I turned back half a dozen times from the other pictures to
view it again, and blessed the artist in my heart for the lesson he
gave. The other is by a young Italian painter, whose name I have
forgotten, but who, if he never painted anything else, is worthy a high
place among the artists of his country. It represents some scene from
the history of Venice. On an open piazza, a noble prisoner, wasted and
pale from long confinement, has just had an interview with his children.
He reaches his arm toward them as if for the last time, while a savage
keeper drags him away. A lovely little girl kneels at the feet of the
Doge, but there is no compassion in his stern features, and it is easy
to see that her father is doomed.

The Lower Belvidere, separated from the Upper by a large garden, laid
out in the style of that at Versailles, contains the celebrated
_Ambraser Sammlung_, a collection of armor. In the first hall I noticed
the complete armor of the Emperor Maximilian, for man and ho