everything so charmingly that his book is truly a joy to the soul.

I should love to quote many pages to show the felicity of his style; but let this tribute to Paris on page 92 suffice:

"You will not find in Madrid anything of the sad ascetic dignity or the bravura of Spain. And if you compare her with Paris, how infinitely must she fall short of that beautiful city of spaces, where is the sweetness of a river, where the sun is lovely in its temperance, and the playing of the light upon the water is like the music of the flute, and the bridges bear you over almost like a sigh, though one of them has flung itself across the gulf with the joy of a perfect thought. And does she not hold herself back, as it were, from the river, so that a certain breadth and largeness, wanting in the Seine itself, may be added to it, by means of a due sense of proportion, of form? There the lucid streets that run like streams beneath the trees, lead ever towards some vistaed loveliness, and the buildings are like thoughtful prayers, perfectly expressive, or like the immense laughter of youth, or like the gorgeous unfulfilled boasts of a young man.

"Ah! Paris, city of light, the capital of the modern world, what Athens was, what Rome was, you are to the world to-day, the centre of our civilisation, where the arts are considered of a due importance, and you yourself are a beloved being to be adorned and cared for by your citizens. How should we imitate you in our solid heaviness, our sordid poverty, our blatant wealth; we who have gathered ourselves together into an immense crowd, and dubbed our frightful heaps of bricks and mortar, a city; our crowd of thoughtless inarticulate breadwinners, citiHow different is life in your streets, from that of London. or any other city! I have watched Spring pass up the streets, gay with the so various life of the City of Light. It is enough, I have seen the last wonder of the world. For there abide these three, Rome, London and Paris - the first is Prospero, who has known many tragedies; the second is Caliban, beastly and inarticulate; the last is Miranda, my dear darling, from whose lips has fallen the word - humanity. And if Rome who gave her life, and London who is envious in her mire, bow down to her,

zens.

who is the City of Light; how should Madrid look but ridiculous when she compares herself with her."

Yet there is another passage on page 71 that I must quote, for it contains a much needed rebuke to a class of American tourists of whom, alas! we find too many:

"I came to the inn at last, to find it full of tourists, Americans, who under the guidance of one of their number had been 'doing' the city, as they informed me. They seemed to think I should be glad of their company. At dinner, which is an early meal in Avila, they told each other their adventures. But he who was the leader and guide began to speak of Santo Tomás in a loud voice, so that we all might benefit by his knowledge. I did not hear the beginning of his discourse, for I was talking with an old Spaniard who sat beside me; but my attention was caught when I heard him say, . . . . 'so I spat right there on the tomb, and the monk didn't dare say anything, but he just looked; I can't tell you easily how he looked.'

"My Spanish friend moved in his seat and asked me, 'It is of the tomb of Torquemada that he speaks?' I did not know, but at his request I asked.

"'Yes, sir, 'Im telling you, aren't I? I spat right there on the tomb. I'm a free-born American, a liberty-loving, educated Independant minister, and I'm glad to have the chance to show these Spanish idolaters what I think of their man-burning devils.' 'And so say all of us,' said a young man across the table, with a laugh, while the others smiled and seemed to enter into the spirit of the thing.

"A small part of this I told my neighbor; but, alas, he had understood.

"But it is too long ago, surely it is too long ago to bear malice,' he said, in a quiet but agitated voice. We are Christians, it is very necessary to forgive, is it not so?'

"But that strident voice that was used to domineer over many congregations would not have it so.

"And yet,' said my friend to me in the hubbub that followed, and yet it was us he burned; if we have forgiven, why should he remember?' . .

"It was night when I returned to Santo Tomàs, but the

Father was waiting for me in the sacristy. After a minute he said, 'My son, you are troubled, you are angry, what has happened? It is not well to sleep when one is angry.' And somehow I told him all. Once or twice he smiled, but there were tears in his eyes as he led me, in the midst of that great room, to the bare slab of slate beneath which Torquemada sleeps. 'It

is true,' he said, 'we have forgiven him.' There was a long silence, and then with a great deference he turned towards me and said, 'If you will, señor, we will pray for him and for us all, because is it not so?-where one who is in trouble is left unaided, there passes an executioner; and where two or three are gathered together in unkindness, there is the Inquisition.' As we knelt I saw him wipe away the mark of scorn from the grave with the sleeve of his cloak."

Mr. Ricketts' book on the Prado is an admirable guide to that fine gallery. It has often been called a gallery of masterpieces, and as it is rather off the beaten track, those who visit it are apt to overrate its importance, placing it above the Louvre and the galleries of Florence, with neither of which can it compare. Still, it is one of the world's greatest collections, and now that Velasquez is in such high favor and the art dealers are working up such a craze for the pictures of El Greco, it is of especial in

terest.

Mr. Ricketts is a painter, and so has a technical knowledge which is of great value. But unlike most painters he has a catholic knowledge of art in its larger aspects and the literary skill to make plain his views. He knows his subject, and can tell what he knows. He reviews in detail the contents of the gallery, and his judgments usually leave little to be desired.

The central figure in the Prado is of course Velasquez, and Mr. Ricketts' consideration of his work is the most judicious. that has fallen under my observation. He admires his truth, his perfect sincerity his detachment of view, his marvellous technique, as much as anyone can; but he also perceives his limitations, which many others do not. He sees that while Velasquez is the greatest of all realists, his absolute incapacity to grasp the ideal condemns him forever to a second rank. If

one wishes to be assured of this, it is not necessary to leave the Prado to find the proof. One has only to turn from the masterly portraits of Velasquez to Titian's portrait of Charles V at the Battle of Mühlberg to see what a gulf there lies between genius and talent, even when at its highest, as in Velasquez. Titian has not idealized Charles. It is a perfect likeness. We see before us a small man on horseback alone on the borders of a wood. We see the plain features and the projecting under-jaw, just as they were in life. But the genius of the supreme master has given to this paltry figure all the majesty of imperial power. If no one told us that it was an emperor who rides there in armor with his lance at rest, we should still know his station, and should realize that upon his nod hung the fortunes of a world. Velasquez, least imaginative of men, cannot paint like that.

Like most critics, Mr. Ricketts admires the broad brush work of Titian, Velasquez and Rembrandt in their later days, and attributes it to a growing mastery of their craft. Yet I suspect that this is a delusion, and that these masters painted so, not because they wished to, but because they had to. With the long sight that comes with advancing years they had to stand further from the canvas and paint with a longer brush, producing the sketchy effects imitated by so many modern artists. We may well believe that the masters would, had their eyes permitted, gladly have returned to the detailed perfection of their younger days, rendered more effective by a wider experience and a deeper insight into the eternal verities.

I cannot share Mr. Ricketts' admiration for Titian's "La Gloria," the picture which Charles V took with him into his retirement at Yuste and on which his dying eyes were fixed. It seems to me a poor thing, painted by command and without conviction. But there are in the gallery so many glorious masterpieces by the master that one need not cavil over that; and to them all Mr. Ricketts does full justice.

And he does well in calling attention to the incomparable collection of Rubens' works which to my mind are the Prado's supreme attraction. Nowhere else can one see Rubens in such splendor. The room in which hangs his masterpieces, mostly the product of his full maturity, when the shadows had almost

vanished from his work and when, inspired by the blonde beauty of his second wife, he accomplished prodigies that have never been parallelled in painting, fairly dazzle the eyes. The sight of those rooms would alone repay the fatigues and expense of a journey to a city far more remote than Madrid.

II. THREE BOOKS ON ITALY.*

I have loved Tuscany much, and have wandered through it not a little beneath the summer's sun; but my ideal of happiness would be to start out upon a bright, crisp morning in October with Mr. Hutton's book in hand, following his footsteps day by day, and seeing all the beautiful things of which he speaks. The autumn would merge into winter, the winter turn to spring and the glory of the summer give place to December's chill long before the quest was finished, so many are the lovely things in art and nature to which he points the way. He writes with a fullness of knowledge that is truly encyclopædic and with an enthusiasm and a joy in all gracious and beautiful things that is contagious. He has too much to tell, his book is too crammed with information, for him to indulge in the fine writing that characterizes his book on Spain. Always we wish that he would tell us more. But he has so much to point out that he can only say, "Look," and then pass on.

Much as he loves the art of Tuscany, he loves still more the Tuscan landscape- sweetest of all landscapes save those of Umbria. I cannot refrain from quoting this brief description on page 368, of the view from the summit of Mount Falterona, which will give a taste of his quality:

"It was there I waited the dawn. For long in the soft darkness and silence I had watched the mountains sleeping under the few summer stars. Suddenly the earth seemed to stir in her sleep, in every valley the dew was falling, in all the forests there was a rumour, and among the rocks where I lay I caught a

* FLORENCE and NORTHERN TUSCANY, WITH GENOA, by Edward Hutton (the Macmillan Company).

THE CITIES OF ITALY, by Arthur Symons (E. P. Dutton & Company). ITALICA, by William Roscoe Thayer (Houghton, Mifflin & Company).