ries their works remain of
chronological interest to students of painting. But to the larger
public which these papers address, they are of little importance,
having exercised but slight influence on contemporaneous art.

The exception already noted was in Spain, and there only in the case
of a single painter. Francisco Goya y Lucientes, "Pintor Espanol," as
he delighted to call himself, would be, indeed has been, a fascinating
subject for picturesque biography. Charles Yriarte, the well-known
French art critic, has given the world a most interesting and complete
story of Goya's life, which, though it is only separated from our own
day by a span of seventy years, chronicles the exploits of one who
in the history of art must hark back to Benvenuto Cellini in the
sixteenth century to find his parallel.

Goya was born March 31, 1746, at Fuente de Todos, in the province of
Aragon. The son of a small farmer, he was placed when very young
in the local Academy of Fine Arts at Saragossa, where he received
instruction from Bayen and Luzan, painters little known outside of
Spain. The swashbuckler instincts which were to govern him through
life manifested themselves here, where in a street brawl he laid low
three of his adversaries. He found it prudent to evade both justice
and the vengeance which followed swift and sure in those days in
Spain, by flying to Madrid. Soon after his arrival in the capital,
however, in continuation of his old mode of life, he was picked up for
dead in one of the low quarters of the town. Surviving the poignard,
but again threatened with arrest, he joined a _quadrilla_ of
bull-fighters, in whose company he went from town to town, giving
exhibitions of his prowess in the national sport.

[Illustration: THE GARROTED MAN. FROM AN ETCHING BY GOYA.

There is a tradition that this etching was made from nature, the
model--some malefactor executed by the strangling method employed in
Spain--being studied by Goya from his chamber window.]

With all this, painting must have been somewhat of an interlude;
but Goya had early shown signs of great talent, and before he left
Saragossa, his master, Josepha Bayen, had confidence enough in
his future to entrust the happiness of his daughter to his care by
permitting his marriage to her. Goya's biographer notes that through
all the various adventures of his career he had the utmost care for
the material comfort of this lady. Her character must impress us
to-day as