y about it! The woman is in a
stiff black dress, with a ruff and a few pearls; a yellow curtain is
behind her--the simplest arrangement that can be conceived; but this
great man knew how to rise to his occasion; and no better proof can
be shown of what a fine gentleman he was than this his homage to the
vice-Queen. A common bungler would have painted her in her best clothes,
with crown and sceptre, just as our Queen has been painted by--but
comparisons are odious. Here stands this majestic woman in her every-day
working-dress of black satin, LOOKING YOUR HAT OFF, as it were. Another
portrait of the same personage hangs elsewhere in the gallery, and it is
curious to observe the difference between the two, and see how a man of
genius paints a portrait, and how a common limner executes it.

Many more pictures are there here by Rubens, or rather from Rubens's
manufactory,--odious and vulgar most of them are; fat Magdalens, coarse
Saints, vulgar Virgins, with the scene-painter's tricks far too evident
upon the canvas. By the side of one of the most astonishing color-pieces
in the world, the "Worshipping of the Magi," is a famous picture of Paul
Veronese that cannot be too much admired. As Rubens sought in the first
picture to dazzle and astonish by gorgeous variety, Paul in his seems
to wish to get his effect by simplicity, and has produced the most noble
harmony that can be conceived. Many more works are there that merit
notice,--a singularly clever, brilliant, and odious Jordaens, for
example; some curious costume-pieces; one or two works by the Belgian
Raphael, who was a very Belgian Raphael, indeed; and a long gallery
of pictures of the very oldest school, that, doubtless, afford much
pleasure to the amateurs of ancient art. I confess that I am inclined
to believe in very little that existed before the time of Raphael.
There is, for instance, the Prince of Orange's picture by Perugino, very
pretty indeed, up to a certain point, but all the heads are repeated,
all the drawing is bad and affected; and this very badness and
affectation, is what the so-called Catholic school is always anxious to
imitate. Nothing can be more juvenile or paltry than the works of the
native Belgians here exhibited. Tin crowns are suspended over many
of them, showing that the pictures are prize compositions: and pretty
things, indeed, they are! Have you ever read an Oxford prize-poem! Well,
these pictures are worse even than the Oxford poems--an