een's apasentador, is retiring;
and near this door there hangs on the wall a mirror, which, reflecting
the countenance of the king and queen, shows that they form part of the
principal group, although placed beyond the bounds of the picture. The
room is hung with paintings which Palomino assures us are works of
Rubens; and it is lighted by three windows in the left wall, and by the
open door at the end, an arrangement of which an artist will at once
comprehend the difficulties. The perfection of art which conceals art,
was never better attained than in this picture. Velasquez seems to have
anticipated the discovery of Daguerre, and taking a real room, and real
chance grouped people, to have fixed them, as it were by magic, for all
time on his canvas. The little fair-haired Infanta is a pleasing study
of childhood; with the hanging-lip and full cheek of the Austrian
family, she has a fresh complexion and lovely blue eyes, and gives a
promise of beauty which as empress she never fulfilled. Her young
attendants, girls of thirteen or fourteen, contrast agreeably with the
ill-favoured dwarf beside them; they are very pretty, especially Dona
Isabel de Velasco, who died a reigning beauty, and their hands are
painted with peculiar delicacy. Their dresses are highly absurd, their
figures being concealed by long stiff corsets and prodigious hoops; for
these were the days when the mode was--

"Supporters, pooters, fardingales, above the loynes to weare;"

and the _guardainfante_, the oval hoop peculiar to Spain, was in full
blow; and the robes of a dowager might have curtained the tun of
Heidelberg, and the powers of Velasquez were baffled by the perverse
fancy of "Fribble, the woman's tailor." The gentle and majestic hound,
stretching himself and winking drowsily, is admirably painted, and seems
a descendant of the royal breed immortalized by Titian in portraits of
the Emperor Charles and his son.'

'The Spinners:' 'The scene is a large weaving-room, in which an old
woman and young one sit, the first at her spinning-wheel, and the
second winding yarn, with three girls beside them, one of whom plays
with a cat. In the background, standing within an alcove filled with the
light from an unseen window, are two other women displaying a large
piece of tapestry to a lady customer, whose graceful figure recalls that
which has given its name to Terburg's picture of "The Satin Gown." Of
the composition, the painter Mengs observed, "i