To conduct you through all these apartments, or seven rooms, with the
methodical precision of an experienced guide, is equally beyond my
inclination and ability. Much as I may admire one or two _Titians_, one or
two of the _Caracci_ school, the same number of _Veroneses_ and
_Schidones_, and a partial sprinkling of indifferent _Raffaelles_, I should
say that the boast of this collection are the pictures by _Rubens and
Vandyke_. Of the former there are some excellent portraits; but his two
easel pictures--the one, the _Fall of the Damned_, and the other the
_Beatitude of the Good_--are marvellous specimens of art. The figures,
extending from heaven to earth, in either picture, are linked, or grouped
together, in that peculiarly bold and characteristic manner which
distinguishes the pencil of the master.[45] The colouring throughout is
fresh, but mellow and harmonious. Among the larger pictures by this
renowned artist, are _Susanna and the Elders_, and _the Death of Seneca_;
the latter considered as a distinguished production. But some of the whole
length portraits, by the same hand, pleased me better. The pictures of
Rubens occupy more particularly the fourth room. Vandyke shines in the
second, sixth, and seventh rooms: in which are some charming whole length
portraits--combining, almost, the dignity of Titian with the colouring of
Rembrandt:--and yet, more natural in expression, more elegant in attitude,
and more beautiful in drawing, than you will find in the productions of
either of these latter artists.

If the art, whether of sculpture or of painting, take not deep root, and
send forth lusty branches laden with goodly fruit, at Munich--the fault can
never be in the _soil_, but in the waywardness of the _plant_. There is
encouragement from every quarter; as far as the contemplation of art, in
all its varieties, and all its magnificence, can be said to be a stimulus
to exertion. When the re-action of a few dozen years of peace shall have