I must not recapitulate all the charms of
the picture of San Augustin, Saint Joseph, or
the Dead Christ, or ] shall be thought a
greater bore than Schwartzenlicht, who
is bound by rule not to agree in admiring
any painter till he is dead, and safely
beyond the reach of envy,—out of the
hearing of damning biographies and
contradictory eulogies. Else should I like to
learnedly inflict on you the beauties of that
best Concepcion (for Murillo is called par
excellence, "the painter of conceptions"); the
glory of that blue robe; the singularity of
the crescent-moon the Virgin stands on; the
rapture of that burst of saffron sunrise that
brings out the pure, pitiful woman, with her
arms meekly crossed upon her bosom, and
her serene, adoring eyes turned exultingly
heavenward. It is the vision of a child-
betrothed, dead on the eve of marriage.

And now, having seen the pictures in the
old convent, we troll off with a guide—in
fact, our old friend Rose, who assures the
"gentlemens" that if we give ourselves to
him, he would show us all the wonders of
the world for four dollars—to the Hospital
of the Brotherhood of the Charity, where
there are more Murillos, particularly that
truly Spanish picture, The Thirst. This
building was revived in the seventeenth
century, by Don Miguel Vicentolo, a knight
of Calatrava, who was converted by a great
light from heaven on his way, in a fit of
anger, to scold a toll-collector at the gates of
Seville who had refused to let some hams of
his pass. A few crowns left him by a beggar
began the work, which is at once a
soup-kitchen, a refuge for the houseless, an
almshouse, and a hospital. Murillo painted for
the church of this hospice, at the instigation
of his friend, the charitable Don, no fewer
than eleven pictures. The ceiling is a forest
of ornaments. The dome is like a gold cup
hung up to serve as a bell. The altar is
a pile of twisted pillars and carving. The
pulpit is a little gilt goblet, with a flower-
stalk base. The two great pictures of Murillo
still hang facing each other with quiet
critical approval under the cornices and window
beneath the dome, and above the side
chapel; where priests all day bow and kneel.
They are sketchy, low-toned pictures, not
very luminous or brilliant, but full of nature
and of the thirsty passion of a hot, drouthy
country. The huge brown rock divides the
"Sed" picture in two. Moses, in a violet
robe, thanks the Almighty for the copious
torrent splashing down its music-water
among the fifteen bystanders, among whom is
Aaron grateful yet amazed. Those sixteen
jars and pans show a passionate thirst of
which Englishmen have only read—thirst
become a lust and desire, which destroys
even a moiher's affection. There is a mother
draining out a jug, and straining back her
head to keep the child in her arms from the
coveted treasure. There is a less suffering
mother giving her youngest and more helpless
child to drink, and restraining the elder
Esau from the cup he so ravenously desires.
Then there is the mounted boy, and there are
the children holding up their pitchers intreatingly
to be filled. Then come camels and
mules, dogs and sheep, all parched and pining
for the draught: and, in the distance, winding
down among the rocks, more thirsty people
and more thirsty animals. The miracle of the
Loaves and Fishes is as badly composed as
its fellow is admirably put together ("Quite
cut in two," grumbles Schwartzenlicht,
delighted to find something to condemn, because
praise is elevating another man, blame
lowering another man); but still admirable
for its old women, young women, and
children.

And while we look at these pictures in the
silent church, some paupers, in their hospital
dress, are playing dominoes with stolid eagerness
on a bench in the porch, and the sister
of charity in the blue robe and white
starched cowl, who has silently led us into
the chapel, is praying on her knees beside
the pulpit, the round ebony beads running
through her thin fingers, as, with rapt eyes
she stares vacantly at the curious carved
and coloured Crucifixion which forms the
altarpiece. And now that we have seen the
two little panels of Our Saviour and Saint
John, and the carrion bishop in his cloth of
gold, which Murillo said to the arrogant
painter Valdez Real requires you to hold
your nose as you look at it, we snatch one
glimpse at the midnight view of the angel
helping San Juan de Dios to carry a sick
man on his shoulders. The good woman rises,
slips the key from her belt, receives our fee
with a silent bend of the head—as much as
to say, He who giveth to the poor, lendeth to
the Lord—and lets us out once more into the
quiet cloister.

I feel better that night as I sit in my
red-tiled bedroom at the hotel, and read at my
little iron table slabbed with marble, thinking
of the gentle, generous painter of Seville—
the alms-giving, heaven-taught painter of
heavenly things, of whom it was recorded as
the noblest eulogy upon his tombstone (long
since ground to pieces by the ponderous
wheels of bullying French cannon) that he
ever lived as if about to die.

                 MY TWO PARTNERS.

                               I.

WHY do men become chimney-sweeps;
dust-contractors; sausage-makers;
meat-salesmen; and soap-manufacturers? Why
do men in large orchestras play upon kettle-drums, cymbals, trombones, and serpents,
instead of choosing violins, flutes, and
clarinets? I cannot make it out.

                               II.

I AWOKE one morning, and found myself