After some dashing sketches by Rubens we come, on the last wall, to Velazquez again : "Don Balthasar Carlos in Infancy." Then to a glorious Rubens, clear as crystal, "The Holy Family with Elizabeth and John the Baptist"; Gainsborough's charming portrait of little Miss Haverfield; Reynolds' very popular "Mrs. Richard Hoare with her Infant Son," and, better still, the bewitching "Nelly O'Brien." Lastly another Velazquez, sombre and noble : the same little Don, but now older and on h pony ; and another vivid Rubens : "Christ's Charge to S. Peter."

In the next room, XXVII, the favourite picture is probably that of the little Italian boy reading, which used to be hidden away downstairs. This is part of a fresco on plaster, by Vincenzo Foppa, and it was originally painted on the wall of the palace in the Via de' Bossi at Milan. Sir Richard Wallace bought it, together with the Beccafumi (No. 59.5), on the opposite wall, in 1872. Other remarkable pictures in the room are the two Luinis, so gentle and soothing; the very beautiful Andrea del Sarto, one of his finest works ; a Murillo; a Ruisdael ; the curious great allegory by Pourbus ; and one of Bronzino's several austere portraits of Eleanor of Toledo.

In the next room, XVIII, we find the French masters of the eighteenth century, the Fete Galante school. Here is Fragonard, with the delicious "Schoolmistress" (No. 404), and the adorable little boy as Pierrot. Here is Lepicie, a predecessor of Meissonier in minuteness but more homely in his sympathies. Here is Madame Vigee le Brun. Here is the accomplished Nattier. Here are Greuze, Watteau and Pater.

In the next room, XIX, we find some of them again, but the dominating figure here is Boucher.

In Room XX Greuze reigns, but an Englishman is permitted to enter in the person of George Morland with a pretty domestic scene, "A Visit to the Boarding School," hung here no doubt to show how like him was his French contemporary, so seldom seen in London, Louis Leopold Boilly. Morland was born in 1763 and was dead by 1804, worn out by dissipation. Boilly, two years his senior, lived on till 1845. His two pictures illustrating "The Sorrows of Love" have great charm. On the wall dividing Rooms XX and XXI are a number of Bonington's water colours, proving that he was equally a master of interiors with dramatic scenes in progress and of landscape. And what a colourist ! Morland's life was short, but Bonington's, with no contributory recklessness on his part, was tragically shorter : only twenty-seven years. I have marked in particular among these water colours, Nos. 656, 700, 701, 704, 727, 733. In Room XXI we find two excellent portraits by De Vos, a formal little Claude with an enchanted ship in it, more Greuze, and a Pater, No. 397, artificial but very pleasing. And here, as in every other room, are specimens of furniture, all French and all remarkable. The many clocks, too, should be studied. 'More furniture is in the last and circular room, more tapestry, more Greuze, and a sumptuous service of Augsburg silver gilt plate.

Upstairs are other pictures not of the highest rank. A visitor not finding an old favourite should inquire of the attendant and it will, if possible, be shown to him. The catalogue is one of the best if not quite the best that I know.

THE "LAUGHING " CAVALIER,

AFTER THE PICTURE BY FRANS HALS IN THE WALLACE COLLECTION