tiful gate called
Puerta del Sol; part of the town walls with their towers; the parochial
church of San Roman; the tower of the church of St. Thomas; and two or
three other similar towers. Several private houses contain single rooms
of the same architecture, more or less ornamental. The most considerable
of these is situated opposite the church of San Roman, and belongs to a
family residing at Talavera. They have quitted the house in Toledo,
which is in a ruinous state. The Moorish saloon is a fine room of about
sixty feet in length by upwards of forty high, and beautifully
ornamented. The Artesonado roof of cedar lets in already, in more than
one part, light and water; and half the remainder of the house has
fallen.

The good pictures in Toledo are not very plentiful. It is said some of
the convents possessed good collections, which were seized, together
with all their other property. Many of these are to be seen in the
gallery called the Museo Nacional, at Madrid. Others have been sold.
Those of the cathedral have not been removed; but they are not numerous:
among them is a St. Francisco, by Zurbaran; and a still more beautiful
work of Alonzo del Arco, a St. Joseph bearing the Infant. It is in a
marble frame fixed in the wall, and too high to be properly viewed: but
the superiority of the colouring can be appreciated, and the excellence
of the head of the saint. In the smaller sacristy are two pictures in
Bassano's style, and some copies from Raphael, Rubens, and others. At
the head of the great sacristy, there is a large work of Domenico
Theotocopuli, commonly called El Greco, (the head of the school of
Toledo) which I prefer much to the famous Funeral of the Count Orgaz, in
the church of Santo Tonie, which, according to some, passes for his
masterpiece. In the first are traits of drawing, which forcibly call to
mind the style of the best masters of the Roman school, and prove the
obligation he was under to the instructions of his master Michel Angelo.
The subject is the Calvary. The soldiery fill the back ground. On the
right hand the foreground is occupied by an executioner preparing the
cross, and on the left, by the group of females. The erect figure of the
Christ is the principal object, and occupies the centre, somewhat
removed from the front. This is certainly a fine picture; the
composition is good, and the drawing admirable, but the colouring of the
Greco is always unpleasing.

In the Funeral of Count Orga