w element, he sought to direct it wisely and
kindly, thereby laying Velazquez under a debt of gratitude that the
painter never repudiated. Indeed there were stronger ties in the
making, for in the spring of 1618, when the young artist was on the
threshold of his wonderful career, Pacheco gave him his daughter Juana
for wife, "encouraged," he says, "by his virtues, his fine qualities,
and the hopes which his happy nature and great talent raised in me."
The kind old painter is not remembered to-day by his pictures, or even
by his "Book of Portraits of Illustrious Personages," and other
quaintly titled works from his pen. He lives because he helped to make
Velazquez a great painter, and recorded his impression of his
son-in-law's earliest works, the various "Bodegones," of which several
may be seen in London to-day. Others are in Berlin and St. Petersburg.
From these pictures of the secular life Velazquez passed to religious
subjects--"Christ in the House of Martha" (National Gallery) and the
"Adoration of the Magi" (Prado) belong to these early years.

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PLATE III.--THE INFANTE PHILIP PROSPER

This picture hangs in the Imperial Gallery of Vienna. It is the work
of the painter's last period, and shows us the little son of Philip IV.
by his second wife. The lad died some two years after the picture was
painted; it has been restored, not too cleverly.

[Illustration: Plate III.]

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In 1622, Velazquez, already the father of two children, made his first
journey to Madrid, and was allowed to visit the royal palaces. He did
not stay long in Castile, and his return to the capital was brought
about by the divinity that shapes men's ends. Philip III. was dead;
his son Philip IV. had selected as friend and adviser the Count
Olivarez, son of the Governor of the Alcazar in Seville. Olivarez had
many friends in the city that wears the "Modo" for its badge, in
recognition of unswerving loyalty to Alfonso the Learned. Doubtless he
had heard about the work of the young painter and had seen some
examples of it, and he wished to strengthen himself in the capital by
bringing accomplished men from his own city to official posts in
Madrid. So he sent for Velazquez, who journeyed a second time to the
north, now in the company of Pacheco, and on arrival there painted a
lost portrait of a Gentle