King, for the belief was rife that the King of Spain was really more
horsey than artistic.

The pictures were selected with great care, and the finest horses to be
found were secured, regardless of cost. Several weeks were consumed in
preparations, and at last the cavalcade started away, with Rubens in the
carriage and eleven velvet suits in his chest, as he himself has told us.
It was a long, hard journey to Madrid. There were encounters with
rapacious landlords, and hairbreadth escapes in the imminent deadly
custom-house. But in a month the chromatic diplomat arrived and entered
Madrid at the head of his company, wearing one of the velvet suits, and
riding a milk-white charger.

Rubens followed orders and wrote Signor Chieppo at great length, giving a
minute account of every incident and detail of the journey and of his
reception at Madrid. While at the Court he kept a daily record of
happenings, which was also forwarded to the Secretary.

These many letters have recently been given to the public. They are in
Italian, with a sprinkling here and there of good honest Dutch. All is
most sincere, grave and explicit. Rubens deserved great credit for all
these letters, for surely they were written with sweat and lamp-smoke.
The work of the toiler is over all, but we must remember that at that
time he had been studying Italian only about a year.

The literary style of Rubens was Johnsonese all his life, and he made his
meaning plain only by repetitions and many rhetorical flounderings. Like
the average sixteen-year-old boy who sits himself down and takes his pen
in hand, all his sprightliness of imagination vanished at sight of an
ink-bottle. With a brush his feelings were fluid, and in a company grace
dwelt upon his lips; but when asked to write it out he gripped the pen as
though it were a crowbar instead of a crow's-quill.

But Chieppo received his reports; and we know the embassy was a
success--a great success. The debonair Fleming surprised the King by
saying, "Your Majesty, it is like this"--and then with a few bold strokes
drew a picture.

He modestly explained that he was not much of a painter--"merely used a
brush for his own amusement"--and then made a portrait for the Minister
of State that exaggerated all of that man's good points, and ignored all
his failings. There was a cast in the Minister's eye, but Rubens waived
it. The Minister was delighted, and so was the King. He then made a
portrait of the King