"St. Joseph had an office, and it was not possible that poverty could have obliged him to forego those comforts for his child, which scarcely the meanest beggars are without." Another fertile subject of dispute among the Spanish artists and theologians, was the number of nails used in the Crucifixion, some arguing for three, and some for four, and drawing their proofs on either side from the vision. of some saint!

The precepts as to the proper modes of painting the Virgin, are innumerable. The greatest caution against any approach to nudity is of course requisite. Nay, Pacheco says, "What can be more foreign from the respect which we owe to the purity of Our Lady the Virgin, than to paint her sitting down, with one of her knees placed over the other, and often with her sacred feet uncovered and na ked?" We scarcely ever, therefore, see the feet of the Virgin in Spanish pictures. Carducho speaks more particularly on the impropriety of painting the Virgin unshod, since it is manifest that she was in the habit of wearing shoes, as is proved by "the much venerated relic of one of them, from her divine feet, in the Cathedral of Burgos !"

A painter had a penance inflicted on him at Cordova, for painting the Virgin at the foot of the Cross in a hooped petticoat, pointed boddice, and a saffron-colored head-dress; St. John had pantaloons, and a doublet with points. This chastisement Pa checo considers richly deserved. Don Luis Pas

qual also erred greatly, in his Marriage of the Virgin, representing her without any mantle, in a Venetian petticoat, fitting very close in the waist, covered with knots of colored ribbon, and with wide round sleeves," a dress," adds Pacheco, " in my opinion highly unbecoming the gravity and dignity of our Sovereign Lady." Nor were there wanting awful examples of warning to painters, as in the story related by Martin de Roa, in his State of Souls in Purgatory. "A painter," so runs the legend, "had executed in youth, at the request of a gentleman, an improper picture. After the painter's death, this picture was laid to his charge, and it was only by the intercession of those Saints whom he had at various times painted, that he got off with severe torments in Purgatory. Whilst there, however, he contrived to appear to his confessor, and prevailed upon him to go to the gentleman for whom this picture was painted, and entreat him to burn it. The request was complied with, and the painter then got out of Purgatory!"

The author cannot close this too lengthy article without citing the Life of the Virgin written by Maria de Agreda, whose absurd and blasphemous vagaries were "swallowed whole" by the Spanish nation-an unanswerable proof and a fitting result of the blight inflicted by Jesuitism and the Inquisition. Bayle says, "the only wonder is, that the Sorbonne confined itself to saying that her proposition was false, rash, and contrary to the doctrines

of the Gospel, when she taught that God gave the Virgin all he could, and that he could give her all his own attributes, except the essence of the Godhead." The condemnation of Maria de Agreda's Life of the Virgin was not carried in the Sorbonne without the greatest opposition and tumult. The book was censured at Rome, notwithstanding all the efforts of the Spanish ambassador. The Spanish feeling, with reference to the Virgin, and more particularly to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, went far beyond the rest of Papal Europe; it was impossible for the Pope and the French Church to sanction at once the absurdities that Spain was quite ready to adopt. (See Sir Edmund Head's Hand-Book of the History of the Spanish and French Schools of Painting.)

A MELANCHOLY PICTURE OF THE STATE OF THE FINE ARTS IN SPAIN.

A most interesting article on the present state of the fine arts in Spain, may be found in the Appendix to Sir Edmund Head's Hand-Book of the History of the Spanish and French schools of Painting. On the 13th of June, 1844, a Royal ordinance was issued, establishing a Central Commission "de Monumentos Historicos y Artisticos del Reino," with local or provincial commissions, to act in concert with the former body. The chief object of the Commission was, to report upon the condition of works of art, antiquities, libraries, etc., contained in the numerous con

vents and monasteries, which had been suppressed, and what measures had been adopted for their preservation. The members of the Commission were divided into three sections, one for libraries and archives, another for painting and sculpture, and a third for architecture and archæology.

The first annual report of the Central Commission to the Secretary of State for the Home Department is printed in pamphlet form, and embraces the proceedings of the Commission from July 1st, 1844, to July 1st, 1845.

"Nothing can be more melancholy than the picture of Spain drawn by this Commission. They tell us that the most valuable contents of the conventual libraries had been thrown away or mutilated, and that thousands of volumes had been sold as waste paper for three or four reals the arroba, and had been exported to enrich foreign libraries. A hope had been entertained of forming collections in each province, of pictures and other works of art; the Commission was soon undeceived as to the possibility of effecting this. Baron Taylor and a host of foreign dealers had in some provinces carried off all they could lay their hands upon; in others the Commissioners tell us, 'Many of the most esteemed works of art, the glory and ornament of the most sumptuous churches, had perished in their application to the vilest uses; in others scarcely any record was preserved of what had been in existence at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, and no

inventory or catalogue of any kind had been made.' Our only consolation perhaps is that these books and works of art will be better appreciated in other countries, and we may derive comfort from the views expressed by Madame Hahn-Hahn.*

"It is clear that in such a state of things the plunder and destruction of pictures must have been enorIn the summary of the proceedings of the

mous.

*"I cannot forbear quoting Madame Hahn-Hahn's reflections on the Museum of Seville, and the custody of pictures in that city in 1841.

"It is wretched to see how these invaluable jewels of pictures are preserved! Uncleaned' (this is at least some comfort), 'without the necessary varnish, sometimes without frames, they lea against the walls, or stand unprotected in the passages where they are copied. Every dauber may mark his squares upon them, to facilitate his drawing; and since these squares are permanent in some pictures in order to spare these admirable artists the trouble of renewing them, the threads have, in certain cases, begun to leave their impression on the picture. The proof of this negligence is the fact that we found to-day the mark of a finger-nail on the St. Augustine, which was not there on the first day that we saw it. We can only thank God if nothing worse than a finger-nail make a scar on the picture! It stands there on the ground, without a frame, leaning against the wall. One might knock it over, or kick one's foot through it! There is to be sure a kind of ragged custode sitting by, but if one were to give him a couple of dollars he would hold his tongue; he is, moreover, always sleeping, and yawns as if he would put his jaws out. He does not forget, however, on these occasions to make the sign of the cross with his thumb, opposite his open mouth, for fear the devils should fly in-such is the common belief. You see clearly that with this amount of neglect and want of order, the same fate awaits all the Murillos here as has already befallen Leonardo's Last Supper at Milan. These are all collected in two public buildings, in the church of the Caridad and in the Museum.