THE DODO AND ITS KINDRED.[19]

"Weighed in the balance, hero-dustIs vile as mortal clay;"

for he built no stately mausoleum, merely a common vault, to receive the imperial dead. This omission, in 1617, Philip III. undertook to supply; and Giovanni Battista Crescenzi, an Italian, was selected as the architect. For thirty-four years did he and his successors labour at this royal necropolis, which when finished "became, under the name of the Pantheon, the most splendid chamber of the Escurial."—(Vol. i. p. 412.)

Mr Stirling's second volume opens with a graphic account of the decay of Spanish power under Philip IV., and an equally graphic description of this, the chief architectural triumph of his long inglorious reign. The Pantheon was "an octagonal chamber 113 feet in circumference, and 38 feet in height, from the pavement to the centre of the domed vault. Each of its eight sides, excepting the two which are occupied by its entrance, and the altar, contain four niches and four marble urns; the walls, Corinthian pilasters, cornices and dome, are formed of the finest marbles of Toledo and Biscay, Tortosa and Genoa; and the bases, capitals, scrolls, and other ornaments, are of gilt bronze. Placed beneath the presbytery of the church, and approached by the long descent of a stately marble staircase, this hall of royal tombs, gleaming with gold and polished jasper, seems a creation of Eastern romance.... Hither Philip IV. would come, when melancholy—the fatal taint of his blood was strong upon him—to hear mass, and meditate on death, sitting in the niche which was shortly to receive his bones." Yet this was the monarch whose quick eye detected the early genius of Velasquez, and who bore the palm as a patron from all the princes of his house, and all the sovereigns of Europe. Well did the great painter repay the discriminating friendship of the king, and so long as Spanish art endures, will the features of Philip IV. be known in every European country; and his fair hair, melancholy mien, impassive countenance and cold eyes, reveal to all time the hereditary characteristics of the phlegmatic house of Austria.

Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velasquez was born at Seville in 1599. Here he entered the school of Herrera the Elder, a dashing painter, and a violent man, who was for ever losing alike his temper and his scholars. Velasquez soon left his turbulent rule for the gentler instruction of Francisco Pacheco. In his studio the young artist worked diligently, while he took lessons at the same time of a yet more finished artist—nature; the nature of bright, sunny, graceful Andalusia. Thus, while Velasquez cannot be called a self-taught painter, he retained to the last that freedom from mannerism, and that gay fidelity to nature, which so often—not in his case—compensate for a departure from the highest rules and requirements of art.

While he was thus studying and painting the flowers and the fruits, the damsels and the beggars, of sunny Seville, there arrived in that beautiful city a collection of Italian and Spanish pictures. These exercised no small influence on the taste and style of the young artist; but, true to his country, and with the happy inspiration of genius, it was to Luis Tristan of Toledo, rather than to any foreign master, that he directed his chief attention; and hence the future chief of the Castilian school was enabled to combine with its merits the excellencies of both the other great divisions of Spanish art.At the end of five years spent in this manner, he married Pacheco's daughter, who witnessed all his forty years' labours and successes, and closed his dying eyes. At the age of twenty-three, Velasquez, anxious to enlarge his acquaintance with the masterpieces of other schools, went to Madrid; but after spending a few months there, and at the Escurial, he returned to Seville—soon, however, to be recalled at the bidding of the great minister and Mæcenas, Olivarez. Now, in 1623, set in the tide of favour and of fame, which henceforward was not to flag or ebb till the great painter lay stretched, out of its reach, on the cold bank of death. During this summer he painted the noble portrait of the king on horseback, which was exhibited by royal order in front of the church of San Felipe, and which caused the all-powerful Count-duke to exclaim, that until now his majesty had never been painted. Charmed and delighted with the picture and the painter, Philip declared no other artist should in future paint his royal face; and Mr Stirling maliciously adds that "this resolution he kept far more religiously than his marriage vows, for he appears to have departed from it during the life-time of his chosen artist, in favour only of Rubens and Crayer." (Vol. ii. p. 592.) On the 31st of October 1623, Velasquez was formally appointed painter in ordinary to the king, and in 1626 was provided with apartments in the Treasury. To this period Mr Stirling assigns his best likeness of the equestrian monarch, of which he says—"Far more pleasing than any other representation of the man, it is also one of the finest portraits in the world. The king is in the glow of youth and health, and in the full enjoyment of his fine horse, and the breeze blowing freshly from the distant hills; he wears dark armour, over which flutters a crimson scarf; a hat with black plumes covers his head, and his right hand grasps a truncheon."—(P. 595.)

In 1628, Velasquez had the pleasure of showing Rubens, who had come to Madrid as envoy from the Low Countries, the galleries of that city, and the wonders of the Escurial; and, following the advice of that mighty master, he visited Italy the next year. On that painter-producing soil, his steps were first turned to the city of Titian; but the sun of art was going down over the quays and palaces of once glorious Venice, and, hurrying through Ferrara and Bologna, the eager pilgrim soon reached Rome. In this metropolis of religion, learning, and art, the young Spaniard spent many a pleasant and profitable month: nor, while feasting his eyes and storing his memory with "its thousand forms of beauty and delight," did he allow his pencil a perfect holiday. The Forge of Vulcan and Joseph's Coat were painted in the Eternal City. After a few weeks at Naples, he returned to Madrid in the spring of 1631. Portrait-painting for his royal patron, who would visit his studio every day, and sit there long hours, seems to have been now his main occupation; and now was he able to requite the friendly aid he had received from the Count-duke of Olivarez, whose image remains reflected on the stream of time, not after the hideous caricature of Le Sage, but as limned by the truthful—albeit grace-conferring—pencil of Velasquez.

In 1639, leaving king and courtiers, lords and ladies, and soaring above the earth on which he had made his step so sure, Velasquez aspired to the grandest theme of poet, moralist, or painter, and nobly did his genius justify the flight. His Crucifixion is one of the sublimest representations conceived by the intellect, and portrayed by the hand of man, of that stupendous event. "Unrelieved by the usual dim landscape, or lowering clouds, the cross in this picture has no footing upon earth, but is placed on a plain dark ground, like an ivory carving on its velvet pall. Never was that great agony more powerfully depicted. The head of our Lord drops on his right shoulder, over which falls a mass of dark hair, while drops of blood trickle from his thorn-pierced brows. The anatomy of the naked body and limbs is executed with as much precision as in Cellini's marble, which may have served Velasquez as a model; and the linen cloth wrapped about the loins, and even the fir-wood of the cross, display his accurate attention to the smallest details of agreat subject."—(Vol. ii. p. 619.) This masterpiece now hangs in the Royal Gallery of Spain at Madrid.

The all-powerful Olivarez underwent, in 1643, the fate of most favourites, and experienced the doom denounced by the great English satirist on "power too great to keep, or to resign." He had declared his intention of making one Julianillo, an illegitimate child of no one exactly knew who, his heir; had married him to the daughter of the Constable of Castile, decked him with titles and honours, and proposed to make him governor of the heir-apparent. The pencil of Velasquez was employed to hand down to posterity the features of this low-born cause of his great patron's downfall, and the portrait of the ex-ballad singer in the streets of Madrid now graces the collection of Bridgewater House. The disgrace of Olivarez served to test the fine character of Velasquez, who not only sorrowed over his patron's misfortunes, but had the courage to visit the disgraced statesman in his retirement.

The triumphal entrance of Philip IV. into Lerida, the surrender of Breda, and portraits of the royal family, exercised the invention and pencil of Velasquez till the year 1648, when he was sent by the king on a roving mission into Italy—not to teach the puzzled sovereigns the mysterious privileges of self-government, but to collect such works of art as his fine taste might think worthy of transportation to Madrid. Landing at Genoa, he found himself in presence of a troop of Vandyck's gallant nobles: hence he went to Milan, Padua, and Venice. At the latter city he purchased for his royal master two or three pictures of Tintoret's, and the Venus and Adonis of Paul Veronese. But Rome, as in his previous visit, was the chief object of his pilgrimage. Innocent X. welcomed him gladly, and commanded him to paint, not only his own coarse features, but the more delicate ones of Donna Olympia, his "sister-in-law and mistress." So, at least, says our author; for the sake of religion and human nature, we hope he is mistaken. For more than a year did Velasquez sojourn in Rome, purchasing works of art, and enjoying the society of Bernini and Nicolas Poussin, Pietro da Cortona and Algardi. "It would be pleasing, were it possible, to draw aside the dark curtain of centuries, and follow him into the palaces and studios—to see him standing by while Claude painted, or Algardi modelled, (enjoying the hospitalities of Bentivoglio, perhaps in that fair hall glorious with Guido's recent fresco of Aurora)—or mingling in the group that accompanied Poussin in his evening walks on the terrace of Trinità de Monte."—(Vol. ii. p. 643.) Meanwhile the king was impatiently waiting his return, and at last insisted upon its being no further delayed; so in 1651 the soil of Spain was once more trod by her greatest painter. Five years later, Velasquez produced his extraordinary picture, Las Meniñas—the Maids of Honour, extraordinary alike in the composition, and in the skill displayed by the painter in overcoming its many difficulties. Dwarfs and maids of honour, hounds and children, lords and ladies, pictures and furniture, are all introduced into this remarkable picture, with such success as to make many judges pronounce it to be Velasquez's masterpiece, and Luca Giordano to christen it "the theology of painting."

The Escurial, from whose galleries and cloisters we have been thus lured by the greater glory of Velasquez, in 1656 demanded his presence to arrange a large collection of pictures, forty-one of which came from the dispersed and abused collection of the only real lover of the fine arts who has sat on England's throne—that martyr-monarch whom the pencil of Vandyck, and the pens of Lovelace, Montrose, and Clarendon, have immortalised, though their swords and counsels failed to preserve his life and crown. In 1659 the cross of Santiago was formally conferred on this "king of painters, and painter of kings;" and on St Prosper's day, in the Church of the Carbonera, he was installed knight of that illustrious order, the noblest grandees of Spain assisting at the solemn ceremonial. The famous meeting on the Isle of Pheasants, so full of historic interest, between the crowns and courts of Spain and France, to celebrate the nuptials of Louis XIV. and Maria Theresa, was destined to acquire an additional though melancholyfame, as the last appearance of the great painter in public, and the possible proximate cause of his death. To him, as aposentador-mayor, were confided all the decorations and arrangements of this costly and fatiguing pageant: he was also to find lodging on the road for the king and the court; and some idea of the magnitude of his official cares may be derived from the fact, that three thousand five hundred mules, eighty-two horses, seventy coaches, and seventy baggage-waggons, formed the train that followed the monarch out of Madrid. On the 28th of June the court returned to Madrid, and on the 6th of August its inimitable painter expired.

The merits of Velasquez are now generally appreciated in England; and the popular voice would, we think, ratify the enthusiastic yet sober dictum of Wilkie, "In painting an intelligent portrait he is nearly unrivalled." Yet we have seen how he could rise to the highest subject of mortal imagination in the Crucifixion; and the one solitary naked Venus, which Spanish art in four hundred years produced, is his. Mr Stirling, though he mentions this picture in the body of his book, assigns it no place in his valuable and laboriously compiled catalogue, probably because he was unable to trace its later adventures. Brought to England in 1814, and sold for £500 to Mr Morritt, it still remains the gem of the library at Rokeby. Long may the Spanish queen of love preside over the beautiful bowers of that now classic retreat! We sum up our notice of Velasquez in Mr Stirling's words:—"No artist ever followed nature with more catholic fidelity; his cavaliers are as natural as his boors; he neither refined the vulgar, nor vulgarised the refined.... We know the persons of Philip IV. and Olivarez as familiarly as if we had paced the avenues of the Pardo with Digby and Howell, and perhaps we think more favourably of their characters. In the portraits of the monarch and the minister,

'The bounding steeds they pompously bestride,Share with their lords the pleasure and the pride,'

and enable us to judge of the Cordovese horse of that day, as accurately as if we had lived with the horse-breeding Carthusians of the Betis. And this painter of kings and horses has been compared, as a painter of landscapes, to Claude; as a painter of low life, to Teniers: his fruit-pieces equal those of Sanchez Cotan or Van Kessel; his poultry might contest the prize with the fowls of Hondekooter on their own dunghill; and his dogs might do battle with the dogs of Sneyders."—(Vol. ii. p. 686.)

While Velasquez, at the height of his glory, was painting his magnificent Crucifixion, a young lad was displaying hasty sketches and immature daubs to the venders of old clothes, pots, and vegetables, the gipsies and mendicant friars that frequented the Feria, or weekly fair held in the market-place of All Saints, in the beautiful and religious city of Seville. This was Bartolemè Estevan Murillo, who, having studied for some time under Juan del Castillo, on that master's removal to Cadiz in 1640, betook himself to this popular resource of all needy Sevillian painters. Struck, however, by the great improvement which travel had wrought in the style of Pedro de Moya, who revisited Seville in 1642, the young painter scraped up money sufficient to carry him to Madrid, and, as he hoped, to Rome. But the kindness of Velasquez provided him a lodging in his own house, and opened the galleries of the Alcazar and the Escurial to his view. Here he pursued his studies unremittingly, and, as he thought, with a success that excused the trouble and expense of an Italian pilgrimage. Returning, therefore, in 1645 to Seville, he commenced that career which led him, among the painters of Spain, to European renown, second only to that of Velasquez. The Franciscans of his native city have the credit of first employing his young genius, and the eleven large pictures with which he adorned their convent-walls at once established his reputation and success. These were painted in what is technically called his first or cold style; this was changed before 1650 into his second, or warm style, which in its turn yielded to his last, or vapoury style. So warm, indeed, had his colouring become, that a Spanish critic, in the nervous phraseologyof Spain, declared his flesh-tints were now painted with blood and milk. In this style did he paint for the chapter The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, in which the ladies of Seville admired and envied the roundness of a ministering maiden's naked arm; and a large picture of St Anthony of Padua, which still adorns the walls of the cathedral baptistery. Of this famous gem some curious stories are told: Don Fernando Farfan, for instance, relates that birds had been seen attempting to perch upon some lilies in a vase by the side of the kneeling saint; and Monsieur Viardot (Musées d'Espagne, p. 146) informs us that a reverend canon, who showed him the picture, recounted how that, in 1813, the Duke of Wellington offered to purchase it for as many gold onzas as would cover its surface; while, in 1843, Captain Widdrington was assured that a lord had expressed his readiness to give £40,000 for the bird-deluding picture. The belief in the gullibility of travellers is truly remarkable and wide-spread; thus, at Genoa, in 1839, our excellent cicerone gratified us with the information, that, sixteen years before, the English Duke Balfour had in vain offered £1600 for Canova's beautiful basso-relievo of the Virgin Clasping the Corpse of our Saviour, which graces the ugly church of the poor-house in that superb city. In 1658, Murillo laboured to establish a public academy of art; and, in spite of the jealousies and contentions of rival artists, on the 1st of January 1660, he witnessed its inauguration. The rules were few and simple; but the declaration to be signed by each member on admission would rather astonish the directors of the Royal Academy in London. We would recommend it to the consideration of those Protestant divines who are so anxious to devise a new test of heresy in the Church of England: thus it ran—"Praised be the most holy sacrament, and the pure conception of Our Lady." Nothing, perhaps, can show more strongly the immense influence religion exercised on art in Spain than the second clause of this declaration. It was the favourite dogma of Seville: for hundreds of years sermons were preached, books were written, pictures painted, legends recorded in honour of Our Lady's spotless conception; and round many a picture by Cano, or Vargas, or Joanes, is yet to be read the magic words that had power to electrify a populace,—"Sin Pecado Concebida." The institution thus commenced flourished for many years, and answered the generous expectations of its illustrious founder.

The attention of the pious Don Miguel Mañara de Leca, the "benevolent Howard" of Seville, was attracted about 1661 to the pitiable state of the brotherhood of the holy charity, and its hospital of San Jorge: he resolved to restore it to its pristine glory and usefulness; and, persevering against all discouragements and difficulties, in less than twenty years, at an expense of half-a-million of ducats, he accomplished his pious design. For the restored church Murillo painted eleven pictures, of which eight, according to Mr Stirling, are the finest works of the master. Five of these were carried off by plundering Soult, but "the two colossal compositions of Moses, and the Loaves and Fishes, still hang beneath the cornices whence springs the dome of the church, "like ripe oranges on the bough where they originally budded." Long may they cover their native "walls, and enrich, as well as adorn, the institution of Mañara! In the picture of the great miracle of the Jewish dispensation, the Hebrew prophet stands beside the rock in Horeb, with hands pressed together, and uplifted eyes, thanking the Almighty for the stream which has just gushed forth at the stroke of his mysterious rod.... As a composition, this wonderful picture can hardly be surpassed. The rock, a huge, isolated, brown crag, much resembles in form, size, and colour, that which is still pointed out as the rock of Moses, by the Greek monks of the convent of St Catherine, in the real wilderness of Horeb. It forms the central object, rising to the top of the canvass, and dividing it into two unequal portions. In front of the rock, the eye at once singles out the erect figure of the prophet standing forward from the throng; and the lofty emotion of that great leader, looking with gratitude to heaven, is finely contrasted with the downward regardsof the multitude, forgetful of the Giver in the anticipation or the enjoyment of the gift. Each head and figure is an elaborate study; each countenance has a distinctive character, and even of the sixteen vessels brought to the spring, no two are alike in form."—(Vol. ii. p. 859.) But Cean Bermudez, who enjoyed the privilege of seeing all these eight masterpieces hanging together in their own sacred home, preferred The Prodigal's Return, and St Elizabeth of Hungary—with whose touching history the eloquent pens of the Count Montalembert and Mr A. Phillipps have made us familiar—to all the rest.

The Franciscan convent, without the city walls, was yet more fortunate than the hospital of Mañara, for it possessed upwards of twenty of this religious painter's works. Now, not one remains to dignify the ruined halls and deserted cloisters of that once magnificent convent: but seventeen of these pictures are preserved in the Seville Museum; among them Murillo's own favourite—that which he used to call "his own picture"—the charity of St Thomas of Villanueva. In 1678, Murillo painted three pictures for the Hospital de los Venerables, two of which, the Mystery of the Immaculate Conception, and St Peter Weeping, were placed in the chapel. "The third adorned the refectory, and presented to the gaze of the Venerables, during their repasts, the blessed Virgin enthroned on clouds, with her divine Babe, who, from a basket borne by angels, bestowed bread on three aged priests." These were nearly his last works; for the art he so loved was now about to destroy her favourite son: he was mounting a scaffolding to paint the higher parts of a great altar-piece for the Capuchin church at Cadiz, representing the espousals of St Catherine, when he stumbled, and ruptured himself so severely, as to die of the injury. On the 3d of April 1682, he expired in the arms of his old and faithful friend, Don Justino Neve, and was buried in the parish church of St. Cruz, a stone slab with his name, a skeleton and "Vive moriturus," marking the spot—until the "Vandal" French destroyed the last resting-place of that great painter, whose works they so unscrupulously appropriated. Was the last Lord of Petworth aware of this short epitaph, when he caused to be inscribed on the beautiful memorial to his ancestors which adorns St Thomas's Chapel in Petworth Church, the prophetic,[18]solemn words—"Mortuis moriturus?"

We have ranked Murillo next to Velasquez: doubtless there are many in England who would demur to this classification; and we own there are charms in the style of the great religious painter, which it would be vain to look for in any other master. In tenderness of devotion, and a certain soft sublimity, his religious pictures are unmatched; while in colouring, Cean Bermudez most justly says—"All the peculiar beauties of the school of Andalusia—its happy use of red and brown tints, the local colours of the region, its skill in the management of drapery, its distant prospects of bare sierras and smiling vales, its clouds, light and diaphanous as in nature, its flowers and transparent waters, and its harmonious depth and richness of tone—are to be found in full perfection in the works of Murillo."—(Vol. ii. p. 903.) Mr Stirling draws a distinction, and we think with reason, between the favourite Virgin of the Immaculate Conception and the other Virgins of Murillo: the �� of the former is far more elevated and spiritualised than that of any of the latter class; but, even in his most ordinary and mundane delineation of the sinless Mary, how sweet, and pure, and holy, as well as beautiful, does our Lord's mother appear! But perhaps it is as a painter of children that Murillo is most appreciated in England; nor can we wonder that such should be the case, when we remember what the pictures are which have thus impressed Murillo on the English mind. The St John Baptist with the Lamb, in the National Gallery; Lord Westminster's picture of the same subject; the Baroness de Rothschild's gem at Gunnersbury, Our Lord, the Good Shepherd, as a Child: Lord Wemyss's hardly inferior repetition ofit; the picture of our Lord as a child, holding in his hands the crown of thorns, in the College at Glasgow; with the other pictures, in private collections, of our Lord and St John as children, have naturally made Murillo to be regarded in England as emphatically the painter of children: and how exquisite is his conception of the Divine Babe and His saintly precursor! what a sublime consciousness of power, what an expression of boundless love, are seen in the face of Him who was yet

"a little child,Taught by degrees to prayBy father dear, and mother mild,Instructed day by day."

The religious school of Spanish painting reached its acmé in Murillo; and, at the risk of being accounted heterodox, we must, in summing up his merits, express our difference from Mr Stirling in one respect, and decline to rank the great Sevillian after any of the Italian masters. Few of Murillo's drawings are known to be in existence. Mr Stirling gives a list of such as he has been able to discover, nearly all of which are at the Louvre. We believe, in addition to those possessed by the British Museum and Mr Ford, there are two in the collection at Belvoir Castle: one, a Virgin and Child; the other, an old man—possibly St Francis—receiving a flower from a naked child.

After Velasquez and Murillo, it may seem almost impertinent to talk of the merits of other Spanish painters; yet Zurbaran and Cano, Ribera and Coello, demand at least a passing notice. Francisco de Zurbaran, often called the Caravaggio of Spain, was born in Estremadura in 1598. His father, observing his turn for painting, sent him to the school of Roelas, at Seville. Here, for nearly a quarter of a century, he continued painting for the magnificent cathedral, and the churches and religious houses of that fair city. About 1625, he painted, for the college of St Thomas Aquinas, an altar-piece, regarded by all judges as the finest of all his works. It represents the angelic doctor ascending into the heavens, where, on clouds of glory, the blessed Trinity and the Virgin wait to receive him; below, in mid air, sit the four doctors of the Church; and on the ground are kneeling the Emperor Charles V., with the founder of the college, Archbishop Diego de Deza, and a train of ecclesiastics. Mr Stirling says of this singular picture, "The colouring throughout is rich and effective, and worthy the school of Roelas; the heads are all of them admirable studies; the draperies of the doctors and ecclesiastics are magnificent in breadth and amplitude of fold; the imperial mantle is painted with Venetian splendour; and the street view, receding in the centre of the canvass, is admirable for its atmospheric depth and distance."—(Vol. ii. p. 770.) In 1650, Philip IV. invited him to Madrid, and commanded him to paint ten pictures, representing the labours of Hercules, for a room at Buen-retiro. Almost numberless were the productions of his facile pencil, which, however, chiefly delighted to represent, the legends of the Carthusian cloister, and portray the gloomy features and sombre vestments of monks and friars; yet those who have seen his picture of the Virgin with the Infant Saviour and St John, at Stafford House, will agree with Mr Stirling that, "unrivalled in such subjects of dark fanaticism, Zurbaran could also do ample justice to the purest and most lovely of sacred themes."—(Vol. 11. p. 775)

Alonzo Cano, born at Grenada in 1601, was, like Mrs Malaprop's Cerberus, "three gentlemen in one;" that is, he was a great painter, a great sculptor, and a great architect. As a painter, his powers are shown in his full-length picture of the Blessed Virgin, with the infant Saviour asleep on her knees, now in the Queen of Spain's gallery; in six large works, representing passages in the life of Mary Magdalene, which still adorn the great brick church of Getafe, a small village near Madrid; and in his famous picture of Our Lady of Belem, in the cathedral of Seville. Mr Stirling gives a beautifully-executed print of this last Madonna, which, "in serene, celestial beauty, is excelled by no image of the Blessed Virgin ever devised in Spain."—(P. 803.)

Cano was, perhaps, even greater in sculpture than in painting; and so fond of the former art, that, when wearied of pencil and brush, he wouldcall for his chisel, and work at a statue by way of rest to his hands. On one of these occasions, a pupil venturing to remark, that to substitute a mallet for a pencil was an odd sort of repose, was silenced by Cano's philosophical reply,—"Blockhead, don't you perceive that to create form and relief on a flat surface is a greater labour than to fashion one shape into another?" An image of the Blessed Virgin in the parish church at Lebrija, and another in the sacristy of the Grenada cathedral, are said to be triumphs of Spanish painted statuary.—(Vol. iii., p. 805) After a life of strange vicissitudes, in the course of which, on suspicion of having murdered his wife, he underwent the examination by torture, he died, honoured and beloved for his magnificent charities, and religious hatred of the Jews, in his native city, on the 3d of October 1667.

The old Valencian town of Xativa claims the honour of producing Josè de Ribera, el Spagnoletto; but though Spain gave him birth, Italy gave him instruction, wealth, fame; and although in style he is thoroughly Spanish, we feel some difficulty in writing of him as belonging wholly to the Spanish school of art, so completely Italian was he by nurture, long residence, and in his death.

Bred up in squalid penury, he appears to have looked upon the world as not his friend, and in his subsequent good fortunes to have revelled in describing with ghastly minuteness, and repulsive force, all "the worst ills that flesh is heir to." We well recollect the horror with which we gazed spell-bound on a series of his horrors in the Louvre—faugh! At Gosford House are a series of Franciscan monks, such as only a Spanish cloister could contain, painted with an evident fidelity to nature, and the minutest details of dress that is almost offensive—even the black dirt under the unwashed thumb nail is carefully represented by his odiously-accurate and powerful pencil.

"Non ragioniam di lorMa guada e passa."

Had the bold buccaneers of the seventeenth century required the services of a painter to perpetuate the memory of their inventive brutality, and inconceivable atrocities, they would have found in El Spagnoletto an artist capable of delineating the agonies of their victims, and by taste and disposition not indisposed to their way of life. Yet in his own peculiar line he was unequalled, and his merits as a painter will always be recognised by every judge of art. He died at Naples, the scene of his triumphs, in 1656.

The name of Claudio Coello is associated with the Escurial, and should have been introduced into the sketch we were giving of its artists, when the mighty reputation of Velasquez and Murillo broke in upon our order. He was born at Madrid about the middle of the seventeenth century, and studied in the school of the younger Rigi. In 1686 he succeeded Herrera as painter in ordinary to Charles II. This monarch had erected an altar in the great sacristy of the Escurial, to the miraculous bleeding wafer known as the Santa Forma; and on the death of its designer, Rigi, Coello was called upon to paint a picture that should serve as a veil for the host. On a canvass six yards high, by three wide, he executed an excellent work, representing the king and his court adoring the miraculous wafer, which is held aloft by the prior. This picture established his reputation, and in 1691 the chapter of Toledo, still the great patrons of art, appointed him painter to their cathedral. Coello was a most careful and painstaking painter, and his pictures, says our author, (vol. iii., p. 1018) "with much of Cano's grace of drawing, have also somewhat of the rich tones of Murillo, and the magical effect of Velasquez." He died, it is said, of disappointment at the success of his foreign rival, Luca Giordano, in 1693.

With Charles II. passed away the Spanish sceptre from the house of Austria, nor, according to Mr Stirling, would the Genius of Painting remain to welcome the intrusive Bourbons:—

Old times were changed, old manners gone,A stranger filled the Philips' throne;And art, neglected and oppressed,Wished to be with them, and at rest.

But we must say that Mr Stirling, in his honest indignation againstFrance and Frenchmen, has exaggerated the demerits of the Bourbon kings. Spanish art had been steadily declining for years before they, with ill-omened feet, crossed the Pyrenees. It was no Bourbon prince that brought Luca da Presto from Naples to teach the painters of Spain "how to be content with their faults, and get rid of their scruples;" and if the schools of Castile and Andalusia had ceased to produce such artists as those whose praises Mr Stirling has so worthily recorded, it appears scant justice to lay the blame on the new royal family.Pictor nascitur, non fit—no, not even by the wielders of the Spanish sceptre. In a desire to patronise art, and in munificence towards its possessors, Philip V., Ferdinand VI., and Charles III., fell little short of their Hapsburg predecessors, but they had no longer the same material to work upon. The post which Titian had filled could find no worthier holder under Charles III., than Rafael Mengs, whom not only ignorant Bourbons, but theconoscentiof Europe regarded as the mighty Venetian's equal; and Philip V. not only invited Hovasse, Vanloo, Procaccini, and other foreign artists to his court, but added the famous collection of marbles belonging to Christina of Sweden to those acquired by Velasquez, at an expense of twelve thousand doubloons. To him, also, is due the completion of the palace of Aranjuez, and the design of La Granja; nor, when fire destroyed the Alcazar, did Philip V. spare his diminished treasures, in raising up on its time-hallowed site a palace which, in Mr Stirling's own words, "in spite of its narrowed proportions, is still one of the largest and most imposing in Europe."—(Vol. iii., p. 1163.)

Ferdinand VI. built, at the enormous expense of nineteen millions of reals the convent of nuns of the order of St Vincent de Sales, and employed in its decoration all the artistic talent that Spain then could boast of. Nor can he be blamed if that was but little; for if royal patronage can produce painters of merit, this monarch, by endowing the Academy of St Ferdinand with large revenues, and housing it in a palace, would have revived the glories of Spanish art.

His successor, Charles III., an artist of some repute himself, sincerely loved and generously fostered the arts. While King of the Two Sicilies, he had dragged into the light of day the long-lost wonders of Herculaneum and Pompeii; and when called to the throne of Spain and the Indies, he manifested his sense of the obligations due from royalty to art, by conferring fresh privileges on the Academy of St Ferdinand, and founding two new academies, one in Valencia, the other in Mexico. If Mengs and Tiepolo, and other mediocrities, were the best living painters his patronage could discover, it is evident from his ultra-protectionist decree against the exportation of Murillo's, pictures, that he fully appreciated the works of the mighty dead; and, had his spirit animated Spanish officials, many a masterpiece that now mournfully, and without meaning, graces the Hermitage at St Petersburg, or the Louvre at Paris, would still be hanging over the altar, or adorning the refectory for which it was painted, at Seville or Toledo. Even Charles IV., "the drivelling tool of Godoy," was a collector of pictures, and founder of an academy. In his disastrous reign flourished Francisco Goya y Lucientes, the last Spanish painter who has obtained a niche in the Temple of Fame. Though portraits and caricatures were his forte, in that venerable museum of all that is beautiful in Spanish Art—the cathedral at Toledo—is to be seen a fine religious production of his pencil, representing the Betrayal of our Lord. But he loved painting at, better than for the church; and those who have examined and wondered at the grotesque satirical carvings of the stalls in the cathedral at Manchester, will be able to form some idea of Goya's anti-monkish caricatures. Not Lord Mark Kerr, when giving the rein to his exuberant fancy, ever devised more ludicrous or repulsive "monsters" than this strange successor to the religious painters of orthodox Spain. But when the vice, and intrigues, and imbecility of the royal knives and fools, whom his ready graver had exposed to popular ridicule, had yielded to the unsupportable tyranny of French invaders, the same indignant spirit that hurried the water-carriers of Madrid into unavailing conflictwith the troops of Murat, guided his caustic hand against the fierce oppressors of his country; and, while Gilray was exciting the angry contempt of all true John Bulls at the impudence of the little Corsican upstart, Goya was appealing to his countrymen's bitter experience of the tender mercies of the French invaders. He died at Bordeaux in 1828. Mr Stirling closes his labours with a graceful tribute to those of Cean Bermudez, "the able and indefatigable historian of Spanish art, to whose rich harvest of valuable materials I have ventured to add the fruit of my own humble gleanings—" a deserved tribute, and most handsomely rendered. But, before we dismiss this pleasant theme of Spanish art, we would add one artist more to the catalogue of Spanish painters—albeit, that artist is a Bourbon!

Near the little town of Azpeitia, in Biscay, stands the magnificent college of the Jesuits, built on the birth-place of Ignatius Loyola. Here, in a low room at the top of the building, are shown a piece of the bed in which he died, and his autograph; and here among its cool corridors and ever-playing fountains, in 1839, was living the royal painter—the Infante Don Sebastian. A strange spectacle, truly, did that religious house present in the summer of 1839: wild Biscayan soldiers and dejected Jesuits, red boynas and black cowls, muskets and crucifixes, oaths and benedictions, crossed and mingled with each other in picturesque, though profane disorder; and here, released from the cares of his military command, and free to follow the bent of his disposition, the ex-commander-in-chief of the Carlist forces was quietly painting altar-pieces, and dashing off caricatures. In the circular church which, of exquisite proportions, forms the centre of the vast pile, and is beautiful with fawn-coloured marble and gold, hung a large and well-painted picture of his production; and those who are curious in such matters may see a worse specimen of his royal highness's skill in Pietro di Cortona's church of St Luke at Rome. On one side of the altar is Canova's beautiful statue of Religion preaching; on the other the Spanish prince's large picture of the Crucifixion; but, alas! it must be owned that the inspiration which guided Velasquez to his conception of that sublime subject was denied to the royal amateur. In the academy of St Luke, adjoining the church, is a well-executed bust of Canova, by the Spanish sculptor Alvarez. We suspect that, like Goya, the Infante would do better to stick to caricature, in which branch of art many a pleasant story is told of his proficiency. Seated on a rocky plateau, which, if commanding a view of Bilbao and its defenders, was also exposed to their fire, 'tis said the royal artist would amuse himself and his staff with drawing the uneasy movements, and disturbed countenances, of some unfortunate London reporters, who, attached to the Carlist headquarters, were invited by the commander-in-chief to attend his person, and enjoy the perilous honour of his company. Be this, however, as it may, we think we have vindicated the claim of one living Bourbon prince to be admitted into the roll of Spanish painters in the next edition of theAnnals.

In these tumultuous days, when

"Royal heads are haunted like a maukin,"

over half the Continent, and even in steady England grave merchants and wealthy tradesmen are counselling together on how little their sovereign can be clothed and fed, and all things are being brought to the vulgar test ofL. s. d., it is pleasant to turn to the artistic annals of a once mighty empire like Spain, and see how uniformly, for more than five hundred years, its monarchs have been the patrons, always munificent, generally discriminating, of the fine arts—how, from the days of Isabella the Catholic, to those of Isabella the Innocent, the Spanish sceptre has courted, not disdained, the companionship of the pencil and the chisel. Mr Stirling has enriched his pages with many an amusing anecdote illustrative of this royal love of art, and suggestive, alas! of the painful reflection, that the future annalist of the artists of England will find great difficulty in scraping together half-a-dozen stories of a similar kind. With the one striking exception of Charles I., we know not who among our sovereigns can be compared, as a patron of art, to any ofthe Spanish sovereigns, from Charles V. of the Austrian to Charles III. of the Bourbon race. Lord Hervey has made notorious George II's ignorance and dislike of art. Among the many noble and kingly qualities of his grandson, we fear a love and appreciation of art may not be reckoned; and although, in his intercourse with men of genius, George IV. was gracious and generous, what can be said in favour of his taste and discernment? The previous life of William IV., the mature age at which he ascended the throne, and the troublous character of his reign, explain why art received but slight countenance from the court of the frank and noble-hearted Sailor Prince; but we turn with hope to the future. The recent proceedings in the Court of Chancery have made public a fact, already known to many, that her Majesty wields with skilful hand a graceful graver, and the Christmas plays acted at Windsor are a satisfactory proof that English art and genius are not exiled from England's palaces. The professors, then, of that art which Velasquez and Rubens, Murillo and Vandyck practised, shall yet see that the Crown of England is not only in ancient legal phrase, "the Fountain of Honour," but that it loves to direct its grateful streams in their honoured direction. Free was the intercourse, unfettered the conversation, independent the relations, between Titian and Charles V., Velasquez and Philip IV.; let us hope that Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, will yet witness a revival of those palmy days of English art, when Inigo Jones, and Vandyck, and Cowley, Waller, and Ben Jonson, shed a lustre on the art-loving court of England!

The extracts we have given from Mr Stirling's work will have sufficiently shown the scope of theAnnals, and the spirit and style in which they are written. There is no tedious, inflexible, though often unmanageable leading idea, or theory of art, running through these lively volumes. In the introduction, whatever is to be said on the philosophy of Spanish art is carefully collected, and the reader is thenceforward left at liberty to carry on the conclusions of the introduction with him in his perusal of theAnnals, or to drop them at the threshold. We would, however, strongly recommend all who desire to appreciate Spanish art, never to forget that she owes all her beauty and inspiration to Spanish nature and Spanish religion. Remember this, O holyday tourist along the Andalusian coast, or more adventurous explorer of Castile and Estremadura, and you will not be disappointed with her productions. Mr Stirling has not contented himself with doing ample justice to the great painters, and slurring over the comparatively unknown artists, whose merits are in advance of their fame, but has embraced in his careful view the long line of Spanish artists who have flourished or faded in the course of nearly eight hundred years; and he has accomplished this difficult task, not in the plodding spirit of a Dryasdust, or with the curt dulness of a catalogue-monger, but with the discriminating good taste of an accomplished English gentleman, and in a style at once racy and rhetorical. There are whole pages in theAnnalsas full of picturesque beauty as the scenes or events they describe, and of melody, as an Andalusian summer's eve; indeed, the vigorous fancy and genial humour of the author have, on some few occasions, led him to stray from those strict rules of ��, which we are old-fashioned enough to wish always observed. But where the charms and merits are so great, and so many, and the defects so few and so small, we may safely leave the discovery of the latter to the critical reader, and satisfy our conscience by expressing a hope that, when Mr Stirling next appears in the character of author—a period not remote, we sincerely trust—he will have discarded those few scentless flowers from his literary garden, and present us with a bouquet—

"Full of sweet buds and roses,A box where sweets compacted lie."

But if he never again put pen to paper, in these annals of the artists of Spain he has given to the reading public a work which, for utility of design, patience of research, and grace of language, merits and has won the highest honours of authorship.

What was the Dodo? When was the Dodo? Where is the Dodo? are all questions, the first more especially, which it is fully more easy to ask than answer. Whoever has looked through books on natural history—for example, that noted but now scarce instructor of our early youth, theThree Hundred Animals—must have observed a somewhat ungainly creature, with a huge curved bill, a shortish neck, scarcely any wings, a plumy tuft upon the back—considerably on the off-side, though pretending to be a tail,—and a very shapeless body, extraordinarily large and round about the hinder end. This anomalous animal being covered with feathers, and having, in addition to the other attributes above referred to, only two legs, has been, we think justly, regarded as a bird, and has accordingly been named the Dodo. But why it should be so named is another of the many mysterious questions, which require to be considered in the history of this unaccountable creature. No one alleges, nor can we conceive it possible, that it claims kindred with either of the only two human beings we ever heard of who bore the name: "And after him (Adino the Eznite) was Eleazar the son of Dodo, the Ahohite, one of the three mighty men with David, when they defied the Philistines that were there gathered together to battle, and the men of Israel were gone away." Our only other human Dodo belonged to the fair sex, and was the mother of the famous Zoroaster, who flourished in the days of Darius Hystaspes, and brought back the Persians to their ancient fire-worship, from the adoration of the twinkling stars. The name appears to have been dropped by both families, as if they were somewhat ashamed of it; and we feel assured that of such of our readers as admit that Zoroaster must have had a mother of some sort, very few really remember now-a-days that her name was Dodo. There were no baptismal registers in those times; or, if such existed, they were doubtless consumed in the "great fire"—a sort of periodical, it may be providential, mode of shortening the record, which seems to occur from time to time in all civilised countries.

But while the creature in question,—we mean the feathered biped—has been continuously presented to view in those "vain repetitions" which unfortunately form the mass of our information in all would-be popular works on natural history, we had actually long been at a stand-still in relation to its essential attributes—the few competent authorities who had given out their opinion upon this, as many thought, stereotyped absurdity, being so disagreed among themselves as to make confusion worse confounded. The case, indeed, seemed desperate; and had it not been that we always entertained a particular regard for old Clusius, (of whom by-and-by,) and could not get over the fact that a Dodo's head existed in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and a Dodo's foot in the British Museum, London, we would willingly have indulged the thought that the entire Dodo was itself a dream. But, shaking off the cowardly indolence which would seek to shirk the investigation of so great a question, let us now inquire into a piece of ornithological biography, which seemed so singularly to combine the familiar with the fabulous. Thanks to an accomplished and persevering naturalist of our own day—one of the most successful and assiduous inquirers of the younger generation—we have now all the facts, and most of the fancies, laid before usin a splendid royal quarto volume, just published, with numerous plates, devoted to the history and illustration of the "Dodo and its Kindred." It was, in truth, the latter term that cheered our heart, and led us again towards a subject which had previously produced the greatest despondency; for we had always, though most erroneously, fancied that the great misformed lout of ourThree Hundred Animalswas all alone in the wide world, unable to provide for himself, (and so, fortunately, without a family,) and had never, in truth, had either predecessors or posterity. Mr Strickland, however, has brought together thedisjecta membraof a family group, showing not only fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, but cousins, and kindred of all degrees. Their sedate and somewhat sedentary mode of life is probably to be accounted for, not so much by their early habits as their latter end. Their legs are short, their wings scarcely existant, but they are prodigiously large and heavy in the hinder-quarters; and organs of flight would have been but a vain thing for safety, as they could not, in such wooded countries as these creatures inhabited, have been made commensurate with the uplifting of such solid bulk, placed so far behind that centre of gravity where other wings are worked. We can now sit down in Mr Strickland's company, to discuss the subject, not only tranquilly, but with a degree of cheerfulness which we have not felt for many a day: thanks to his kindly consideration of the Dodo and "its kindred."

The geographical reader will remember that to the eastward of the great, and to ourselves nearly unknown, island of Madagascar, there lies a small group of islands of volcanic origin, which, though not exactly contiguous among themselves, are yet nearer to each other than to the greater island just named, and which is interposed between them and the coast of Southern Africa. They are named Rodriguez, Bourbon, and Mauritius, or the Isle of France. There is proof that not fewer than four distinct species of large-bodied, short-winged birds, of the Dodo type, were their inhabitants in comparatively recent times, and have now become utterly extinct. We say utterly, because neither proof nor vestige of their existence elsewhere has been at any time afforded; and the comparatively small extent, and now peopled state of the islands in question, (where they are no longer known,) make the continuous and unobserved existence of these birds, so conspicuous in size and slow of foot, impossible.

Now, it is this recent and total extinction which renders the subject one of more than ordinary interest. Death is an admitted law of nature, in respect to theindividualsof all species. Geology, "dragging at each remove a lengthened chain" has shown how, at different and distant eras, innumerable tribes have perished and been supplanted, or at least replaced, by other groups of species, entire races, better fitted for the great climatic and other physical changes, which our earth's surface has undergone from time to time. How these changes were brought about, many, with more or less success, (generally less,) have tried to say. Organic remains—that is, the fossilised remnants of ancient species—sometimes indicate a long continuance of existence, generation after generation living in tranquillity, and finally sinking in a quiet grave; while other examples show a sudden and violent death, in tortuous and excited action, as if they had been almost instantaneously overwhelmed and destroyed by some great catastrophe.

Several local extinctions of elsewhere existing species are known to naturalists—such as those of the beaver, the bear, and the wolf, which no longer occur in Great Britain, though historically known, as well as organically proved by recent remains, to have lived and died among us. Their extinction was slow and gradual, and resulted entirely from the inroads which the human race—that is, the increase of population, and the progress of agriculture and commerce—necessarily made upon their numbers, which thus became "fewby degrees, and beautifully less." The beaver might have carried on business well enough, in his own quiet way, although frequently incommoded by the love of peltry on the part of a hat-wearing people; but it is clear that no man with a small family, anda few respectable farm-servants, could either permit a large and hungry wolf to be continually peeping at midnight through the key-hole of the nursery, or allow a brawny bruin to snuff too frequently under the kitchen door, (after having hugged the watch-dog to death,) when the serving-maids were at supper. The extirpation, then, of at least two of those quondam British species became a work of necessity and mercy, and might have been tolerated even on a Sunday between sermons—especially as naturalists have it still in their power to study the habits of similar wild beasts, by no means yet extinct, in the neighbouring countries of France and Germany.

But the death of the Dodo and its kindred is a more affecting fact, as involving the extinction of an entire race, root and branch, and proving that death is a law of thespecies, as well as of the individuals which compose it,—although the life of the one is so much more prolonged than that of the other that we can seldom obtain any positive proof of its extinction, except by the observance of geological eras. Certain other still existing species, well known to naturalists, may be said to be, as it were, just hovering on the brink of destruction. One of the largest and most remarkable of herbivorous animals—a species of wild cattle, the aurochs or European bison (B. priscus)—exists now only in the forest of Bialowicksa, from whence the Emperor of Russia has recently transmitted a living pair to the Zoological Society of London. Several kinds of birds are also evidently on their last legs. For example, a singular species of parrot, (Nestor productus,) with the termination of the upper mandible much attenuated, peculiar to Phipps's Island, near Norfolk Island, has recently ceased to exist there in the wild state, and is now known as a living species only from a few surviving specimens kept in cages, and which refuse to breed. The burrowing parrot from New Zealand is already on the road to ruin; and more than one species of that singular and wingless bird, calledApteryx, also from the last-named island, may be placed in the same category. Even in our own country, if the landed proprietors were to yield to the clamour of the Anti-Game-Law League, the red grouse or moor-game might cease to be, as they occur nowhere else on the known earth save in Britain and the Emerald Isle.

The geographical distribution of animals, in general, has been made conformable to laws which we cannot fathom. A mysterious relationship exists between certain organic structures and those districts of the earth's surface which they inhabit. Certain extensive groups, in both the animal and vegetable kingdom, are found to be restricted to particular continents, and their neighbouring islands. Of some the distribution is very extensive, while others are totally unknown except within a limited space, such as some solitary isle,

"Placed far amid the melancholy main."

"In the present state of science," says Mr Strickland, "we must be content to admit the existence of this law, without being able to enunciate its preamble. It doesnotimply that organic distribution depends on soil and climate; for we often find a perfect identity of these conditions in opposite hemispheres, and in remote continents, whose faunæ and floræ are almost wholly diverse. It does not imply that allied but distinct organisms have been adduced, by generation or spontaneous development, from the same original stock; for (to pass over other objections) we find detached volcanic islets, which have been ejected from beneath the ocean, (such as the Galapagos, for instance,) inhabited by terrestrial forms allied to those of the nearest continent, though hundreds of miles distant, and evidently never connected with them. But this fact may indicate that the Creator, in forming new organisms to discharge the functions required from time to time by the ever vacillating balance of nature, has thought fit to preserve the regularity of the system by modifying the types of structure already established in the adjacent localities, rather than to proceedper saltumby introducing forms of more foreign aspect."

In conformity with this relation between geographical distribution and organic structure, it has been ascertained that a small portion of the indigenous animals and plants of the islands of Rodriguez, Bourbon, and the Isle of France, are either allied to or identical with the productions ofcontinental Africa, a larger portion with those of Madagascar, while certain species are altogether peculiar to the insular group above named.

"And as these three islands form a detached cluster, as compared to other lands, so do we find in them a peculiar group of birds, specifically different in each island, yet allied together in their general characters, and remarkably isolated from any known forms in other parts of the world. These birds were of large size and grotesque proportions, the wings too short and feeble for flight, the plumage loose and decomposed, and the general aspect suggestive of gigantic immaturity. Their history is as remarkable as their origin. About two centuries ago, their native isles were first colonised by man, by whom these strange creatures were speedily exterminated. So rapid and so complete was their extinction, that the vague descriptions given of them by early navigators were long regarded as fabulous or exaggerated; and these birds, almost contemporaries of our great-grandfathers, became associated in the minds of many persons with the griffin and the phœnix of mythological antiquity."

The aim and object of Mr Strickland's work is to vindicate the honesty of the rude voyagers of the seventeenth century; to collect together the scattered evidence regarding the Dodo and its kindred; to describe and depict the few anatomical fragments which are still extant of those lost species; to invite scientific travellers to further and more minute research; and to infer, from the authentic data, now in hand, the probable rank and position of these creatures in the scale of nature. We think he has achieved his object very admirably, and has produced one of the best and most interesting monographs with which it is our fortune to be acquainted.

So far as we can see, the extension of man's more immediate influence and agency is the sole cause of the disappearance of species in modern times—at least we have no proof that any of these species have perished by what can be called a catastrophe: this is well exemplified by what we now know of the Dodo and its kindred.

The islands of Mauritius and Bourbon were discovered in the sixteenth century, (authorities differ as to the precise period, which they vary from 1502 to 1545,) by Pedro Mascaregnas, a Portuguese, who named the latter after himself; while he called the former Cerne, a term applied by Pliny to an island in another quarter. Of this Cerne nothing definite was ascertained till the year 1598, when the Dutch, under Jacob Cornelius Neck, finding it uninhabited, took possession, and changed its name to Mauritius. In the narrative of the voyage, of which there are several accounts in different tongues, we find the following notice:—

"This island, besides being very fertile in terrestrial products, feeds vast numbers of birds, such as turtle-doves, which occur in such plenty that three of our men sometimes captured one hundred and fifty in half a day, and might easily have taken more by hand, or killed them with sticks, if we had not been overloaded with the burden of them. Grey parrots are also common there, and other birds, besides a large kind bigger than our swans, with large heads, half of which is covered with skin like a hood. These birds want wings, in place of which are three or four thickish feathers. The tail consists of a few slender curved feathers of a gray colour. We called themWalckvogel, for this reason, that, the longer they were boiled, the tougher and more uneatable they became. Their stomachs, however, and breasts, were easy to masticate. Another reason for the name was that we had an abundance of turtle-doves, of a much sweeter and more agreeable flavour."—De Bry'sIndia Orientalis, (1601,) pars v. p. 7.

These walckvogel were the birds soon afterwards called Dodos. The description given by Clusius, in hisExotica, (1605,) is chiefly taken from one of the published accounts of Van Neck's voyage, but he adds the following notice, as from personal observation:—

"After I had written down the history of this bird as well as I could, I happened to see in the house of Peter Pauwius, Professor of Medicine in the University of Leyden, a leg cut off at the knee, and recently brought from the Mauritius. It was not very long, but rather exceeded four inches from the knee to the bend of the foot. Its thickness, however, was great, being nearly four inches in circumference; and it was covered with numerous scales, which in front were wider and yellow, but smaller and dusky behind. The upper part of the toes was also furnished with single broad scales, while thelower part was wholly callous. The toes were rather short for so thick a leg: the claws were all thick, hard, black, less than an inch long; but the claw of the hind toe was longer than the rest, and exceeded an inch."

A Dutch navigator, Heemskerk, remained nearly three months in the Mauritius, on his homeward voyage in 1602; and in a published journal kept by Reyer Cornelisz, we read ofWallichvogels, and a variety of other game. One of Heemskerk's captains, Willem van West-Zanen by name, also left a journal—apparently not published until 1648—at which time it was edited in an enlarged form by H. Soeteboom. We there find repeated mention ofDod-aarsenor Dodos; and the sailors seem to have actually revelled in these birds, without suffering from surfeit or nausea like Van Neck's crew. As this tract is very rare, and has never appeared in an English form, we shall avail ourselves of Mr Strickland's translation of a few passages bearing on the subject in question:—

"The sailors went out every day to hunt for birds and other game, such as they could find on land, while they became less active with their nets, hooks, and other fishing-tackle. No quadrupeds occur there except cats, though our countrymen have subsequently introduced goats and swine. The herons were less tame than the other birds, and were difficult to procure, owing to their flying amongst the thick branches of the trees. They also caught birds which some nameDod-aarsen, othersDronten. When Jacob Van Neck was here, these birds were calledWallich-vogels, because even a long boiling would scarcely make them tender, but they remained tough and hard, with the exception of the breast and belly, which were very good; and also because, from the abundance of turtle-doves which the men procured, they became disgusted with dodos. The figure of these birds is given in the accompanying plate: they have great heads, with hoods thereon; they are without wings or tail, and have only little winglets on their sides, and four or five feathers behind, more elevated than the rest; they have beaks and feet, and commonly, in the stomach, a stone the size of a fist...."The dodos, with their round sterns, (for they were well fattened,) were also obliged to turn tail; everything that could move was in a bustle; and the fish, which had lived in peace for many a year, were pursued into the deepest water-pools...."On the 25th July, William and his sailors brought some dodos, which were very fat; the whole crew made an ample meal from three or four of them, and a portion remained over.... They sent on board smoked fish, salted dodos, land-tortoises, and other game, which supply was very acceptable. They were busy for some days bringing provisions to the ship. On the 4th of August, William's men brought fifty large birds on board theBruyn-Vis; among them were twenty-four or twenty-five dodos, so large and heavy, that they could not eat any two of them for dinner, and all that remained over was salted."Another day, Hoogeven (William's supercargo) set out from the tent with four seamen, provided with sticks, nets, muskets, and other necessaries for hunting. They climbed up mountain and hill, roamed through forest and valley, and, during the three days that they were out, they captured another half-hundred of birds, including a matter of twenty dodos, all which they brought on board and salted. Thus were they, and the other crews in the fleet, occupied in fowling and fishing."

"The dodos, with their round sterns, (for they were well fattened,) were also obliged to turn tail; everything that could move was in a bustle; and the fish, which had lived in peace for many a year, were pursued into the deepest water-pools....

"On the 25th July, William and his sailors brought some dodos, which were very fat; the whole crew made an ample meal from three or four of them, and a portion remained over.... They sent on board smoked fish, salted dodos, land-tortoises, and other game, which supply was very acceptable. They were busy for some days bringing provisions to the ship. On the 4th of August, William's men brought fifty large birds on board theBruyn-Vis; among them were twenty-four or twenty-five dodos, so large and heavy, that they could not eat any two of them for dinner, and all that remained over was salted.

"Another day, Hoogeven (William's supercargo) set out from the tent with four seamen, provided with sticks, nets, muskets, and other necessaries for hunting. They climbed up mountain and hill, roamed through forest and valley, and, during the three days that they were out, they captured another half-hundred of birds, including a matter of twenty dodos, all which they brought on board and salted. Thus were they, and the other crews in the fleet, occupied in fowling and fishing."

In regard to the appellations of these birds, it is not altogether easy to determine the precise date at which the synonymous termDodars, from which our name of Dodo is by some derived, was introduced. It seems first to occur in the journal of Willem van West-Zanen; but that journal, though written in 1603, appears to have remained unpublished till 1648, and the name may have been an interpolation by his editor, Soeteboom. Matelief's Journal, also, which makes mention ofDodaersen, otherwiseDronten, was written in 1606, and Van der Hagen's in 1607; but Mr Strickland has been unable to find an edition of either work of earlier date than 1646, and so the occurrence of these words may be likewise due to the officiousness of editors. Perhaps the earliest use of the word Dodars may date from the publication of Verhuffen's voyage, (1613,) where, however, it occurs under the corrupt form ofTotersten. There seems little doubt that the name of Dodo is derived from the Dutch root,Dodoor, which signifiessluggard, and is appropriate to the leisurely gait and heavy aspect of the creatures in question.Dodars is probably a homely or familiar phrase among Dutch sailors, and may be regarded as more expressive than elegant. Our own Sir Thomas Herbert was the first to use the name of Dodo in its modern form, and he tells us that it is a Portuguese word.Doudo, in that language, certainly signifies "foolish," or "simple," and might have been well applied to the unwary habits and defenceless condition of these almost wingless and totally inexperienced species; but, as none of the Portuguese voyagers seem to have mentioned the Dodo by any name whatever, nor even to have visited the Mauritius, after their first discovery of the island by Pedro Mascaregnas already named, it appears far more probable that Dodars is a genuine Dutch term, altered, and it may be amended, by Sir Thomas Herbert, to suit his own philological fancies.

The Dutch, indeed, seem to have been inspired with a genuine love of Dodos, and never allowed even the cooing of the delicately tender turtle-doves to prevent their laying in an ample store of the more solid, if less sentimental species. Thus, Van der Hagen, who commanded two ships which remained for some weeks at the Mauritius in 1607, not only feasted his crews on great abundance of "tortoises,dodars, gray parroquets, and other game," but salted large quantities, for consumption during the voyage. Verhuffen touched at the same island in 1611, and it is in his narrative (published at Frankfort in 1613) that Dodos are calledTotersten. He describes them as having—

"A skin like a monk's cowl on the head, and no wings; but, in place of them, about five or six yellow feathers: likewise, in place of a tail, are four or five crested feathers. In colour they are gray; men call themToterstenorWalckvögel; they occur there in great plenty, insomuch that the Dutch daily caught and ate many of them. For not only these, but in general all the birds there, are so tame that they killed the turtle-doves, as well as the other wild pigeons and parrots, with sticks, and caught them by the hand. They also captured the totersten or walckvögel with their hands; but were obliged to take good care that these birds did not bite them on the arms or legs with their beaks, which are very strong, thick, and hooked; for they are wont to bite desperately hard."

We are glad to be informed, by the above, of this attempt at independence, or something at least approaching to the defensive system. It forms an additional title, on the part of the Dodo, to be regarded, at all events by the Dutchcuisiniers, as "une pièce de resistance."

Sir Thomas Herbert, already named, visited the Mauritius in 1627, and found it still uninhabited by man. In hisRelation of some yeares' Travaile, which, for the amusement of his later years, he seems to have repeatedly rewritten for various editions, extending from 1634 to 1677, he both figures and describes our fat friend. His narration is as follows:—

"The dodo, a bird the Dutch call walckvögel or dod-eersen: her body is round and fat, which occasions the slow pace, or that her corpulencie; and so great as few of them weigh less than fifty pound; meat it is with some, but better to the eye than stomach, such as only a strong appetite can vanquish; but otherwise, through its oyliness, it cannot chuse but quickly cloy and nauseate the stomach, being indeed more pleasurable to look than feed upon. It is of a melancholy visage, as sensible of nature's injury in framing so massie a body to be directed by complimental wings, such indeed as are unable to hoise her from the ground, serving only to rank her amongst birds. Her head is variously drest; for one half is hooded with down of a dark colour, the other half naked, and of a white hue, as if lawn were drawn over it; her bill hooks and bends downwards; the thrill or breathing-place is in the midst, from which part to the end the colour is of a light green, mixt with pale yellow; her eyes are round and bright, and instead of feathers has a most fine down; her train (like to a China beard) is no more than three or four short feathers; her leggs are thick and black; her talons great; her stomach fiery, so that as she can easily digest stones; in that and shape not a little resembling the ostrich."—(P. 383.)

François Cauche, an account of whose voyage, made in 1638, is published in theRelations Véritables et Curieuses de l'Isle de Madagascar, (Paris, 1651) states that he saw in the Mauritius birds called Oiseaux de Nazaret, larger than a swan, coveredwith black down, with crested feathers on the rump, "as many in number as the bird is years old." In place of wings there are some black curved feathers, without webs. The cry is like that of a gosling.

"They only lay one egg, which is white, thesize of a halfpenny roll; by the side of which they place a white stone, of the dimensions of a hen's egg. They lay on grass, which they collect, and make their nests in the forests; if one kills the young one, a gray stone is found in the gizzard. We call them Oiseaux de Nazaret. The fat is excellent to give ease to the muscles and nerves."

Here let us pause a moment, to consider what was the probable size of a halfpenny roll in the year 1638. How many vast and various elements must be taken to account in calculating the dimensions of that "pain d'un sol!" Macculloch, Cobden, Joseph Hume, come over and help us in this our hour ofknead! Was corn high or low? were wages up or down? were bakers honest or dishonest? was there a fixed measure of quantity for these our matutinal baps? Did town-councils regulate their weight and quality, or was conscience left controller, from the quartern loaf downwards to the smallest form assumed by yeast and flour?

"Tell me where was fancy bread?"

Does no one know precisely what was the size of a halfpenny roll in the year 1638? In that case, we shall not mention the dimensions of the Dodo's egg.

There is no doubt that the bird recorded by Cauche was the true Dodo, although it is probable that he either described it from memory, or confused it with the descriptions then current of the cassowary. Thus he adds that the legs were of considerable length, that it had only three toes, and no tongue—characters (with the exception of the last, inapplicable, of course, to either kind) which truly indicate the latter species. This name of "bird of Nazareth" has, moreover, given rise to a false or phantom species, calledDidus Nazarenusin systematic works, and is supposed to have been derived from the small island or sandbank of Nazareth, to the north-east of Madagascar. Now Dr Hamel has recently rendered it probable that no such island or sandbank is in existence, and so we need not seek for its inhabitants: at all events, there is no such bird as the Nazarene Dodo—Didus Nazarenus.

The next piece of evidence regarding the Dodo is highly interesting and important, as it shows that, at least in one instance, this extraordinary bird was transported alive to Europe, and exhibited in our own country. In a manuscript preserved in the British Museum, Sir Hamon Lestrange, the father of the more celebrated Sir Roger, in a commentary on Brown'sVulgar Errors, andaproposof the ostrich, records as follows:—

"About 1638, as I walked London streets, I saw the picture of a strange fowle hong out upon a cloth, and myselfe, with one or two more then in company, went in to see it. It was kept in a chamber, and was a great fowle somewhat bigger than the largest turkey-cock, and so legged and footed, but stouter and thicker, and of a more erect shape; coloured before like the breast of a young cock fesan, and, on the back, of dunn or deare coulour. The keeper called it a Dodo; and in the end of a chimney in the chamber there lay a heape of large pebble stones, whereof hee gave it many in our sight, some as bigg as nutmegs, and the keeper told us she eats them, (conducing to digestion); and though I remember not how farr the keeper was questioned therein, yet I am confident that afterwards shee cast them all againe."

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