Rothenstein tells us, the portrait was finished and is now at
Strathfieldsaye. A sanguine is in the British Museum. His exploits in
Rome may have been exaggerated, though he was quite capable of eloping
with a nun from a convent, as is related, or going around the top of
the Cecilia Metella tomb supported only by his thumbs. The agility and
strength of Goya were notorious, though in a land where physical
prowess is not the exception. He was picador, matador, banderillero by
turns in the bull ring. After a stabbing affray he escaped in the
disguise of a bull-fighter.

If he was a _dompteur_ of dames and cattle, he was the same before his
canvas. Anything that came to hand served him as a brush, an old brown
stick wrapped up in cloth, a spoon--with the latter he executed that
thrilling Massacre, May 2, 1808, in the Prado. He could have painted
with a sabre or on all fours. Reckless to the degree of insanity, he
never feared king or devil, man or the Inquisition. The latter reached
out for him, but he had disappeared, after suffering a dagger-thrust
in the back. When on the very roof of his prosperity, he often slipped
downstairs to the company of varlets and wenches; this friend of the
Duchess of Alba seemed happier dicing, drinking, dancing in the
suburbs with base-born people and gipsies. A _genre_ painter, Goya
delighted in depicting the volatile, joyous life of a now-vanished
epoch. He was a historian of manner as well as of disordered souls,
and an avowed foe of hypocrisy.

Not "poignantly genteel," to use a Borrovian phrase, was he. Yet he
could play the silken courtier with success. The Arabs say that "one
who has been stung by a snake shivers at a string," and perhaps the
violence with which the painter attacked the religious may be set down
to the score of his youthful fears and flights when the Inquisition
was after him. He was a sort of Voltaire in black and white. The
corruption of churchmen and court at this epoch seems almost
incredible. Goya noted it with a boldness that meant but one
thing--friends high in power. This was the case. He was admired by the
king, Charles IV, and admired--who knows how much!--by his queen,
Marie Louise of Parma, Goya painted their portraits; also painted the
portraits of the royal favourite and prime minister and Prince de la
Paz, Manuel Godoy--favourite of both king and queen. Him, Goya left in
effigy for the scorn of generations to come. "A grocer's family who
have won the