in a fit of fraternal enthusiasm, added three magnificent Titians. The matrimonial negotiations falling through, and Charles quitting Madrid with some suddenness, these were left behind. Probably the portrait by Velasquez remained incomplete owing to the same haste. About a quarter of a century later we find the picture-gallery of Charles causing Philip some heart searchings. The King of England had fallen on the scaffold at Whitehall, his exiled son had received sympathy from Philip, and Lord Clarendon was entertained as English Ambassador at the Court of Spain. That there was little, love between the English Commonwealth and the King of Spain we may gather from the following extracts from Cromwell's speeches :— Why, truly, your great enemy is the Spaniard. He is a natural enemy. He is naturally so; he is naturally so throughout, by reason of that enmity that is in him against whatsoever is of God. That (Spain) is the party that brings all your enemies before you. It doth for so it is now that Spain bath espoused that Interest which you have all along hitherto been conflicting with-Charles Stuart's Interest. It must have been painful to the feelings of a Catholic Majesty to have dealings with regicides who regarded him as Anti-Christ personified, yet the Whitehall pictures were for sale! It cannot have been wholly pleasant to sympathize with an exiled prince, and at the same time to make arrangements to decorate your walls with the masterpieces of art which have been reft from his murdered father; yet pictures are pictures! To realize the artist king's temptations, we must remember that those gems of the Louvre Gallery, Titian's "Entombment," and "Supper at Emmaus," the exquisite "Antiope" of Correggio, and the lovely "Pastoral" by Giorgione, all came from the collection of Charles the First. Alonzo de Cardenas was accordingly sent as ambassador to the Commonwealth with directions to buy as many pictures as he could. He purchased the Pearl" Madonna of Raffael for 20007., and apparently about forty other pictures. It required, at any rate, eighteen mules to transport his purchases from the sea-coast to the capital, and Lord Clarendon had to be presented with a hasty and somewhat unceremonious congé, in order that he should not witness the Whitehall pictures arriving in Madrid. In 1628, King Philip and his painter received a guest equally welcome to each of them in the magnificent person of Peter Paul Rubens. Great cheer was made for him by the king. It was said that he had never entertained any prince so gorgeously as he did the Flemish painter. Rubens, having come on a political mission to the king, had brought with him an acceptable offering of pictures by himself, and presently began to paint his portrait. For Velasquez he had valuable counsels. The Spanish painter's heart had, for some time past, been set on a journey to Italy to see more of the works of the great Venetians, and to behold with his eyes the frescoes of Michael Angelo, which, until now, had only reached him in the form of incomplete copy or inadequate engraving. Philip had not liked to part with his painter for the length of time necessary for this expedition, but it seems that the opinion of Rubens as to its importance decided him in its favor, and, next year, Velasquez set sail for Venice. Had he wished it, his journey through Italy might have been almost of the nature of a royal progress, so profuse was the hospitality proffered to him by all dignitaries, from the Pope downward. But Velasquez came to study painting, not to be fêted, and seems to have avoided lavish hospitality where he could, and to have begged leave when at Rome to be allowed to quarter himself in some less stately abode than the Palace of the Vatican. In Italy, as elsewhere, the chief events of his life were the pictures that he painted. At Venice we find that he studied and copied Titian, Tintoret, and Paul Veronese two copies from Tintoret, namely "The Crucifixion" and "The Last Supper, he presented to his patron, King Philip. It is interesting to read that Velasquez did not acquiesce in the opinion, then general in Italy, as to the absolute supremacy of Raffael, and that he called Titian the first of the Italians. Still more so that he greatly admired that famous but little appreciated masterpiece, Michael Angelo's Last Judgment," and copied many groups from it. Velasquez paid in all two visits to Italy. On the second occasion he was commissioned by his royal master to purchase, at his own discretion, works of art of all kinds. The great equestrian statue of himself with which Philip adorned his capital probably indirectly resulted from these visits to Italy. It was executed by the Florentine Tacca from a fine painting by Velasquez now in the gallery of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The most important painting executed by Velasquez toward the end of his career, and by some considered his masterpiece, was the large group at Madrid known as "The Maids of Honor.' Into this painting Velasquez introduced a portrait of himself working at an easel. King Philip was mightily interested in the progress of this picture, and visited the painter daily during its production. At length, during one of these visits, Velasquez laid down palette and brushes, and declared the painting finished. "Not quite." said the king, "one detail is lacking," and taking up a brush he began to work on the portrait of the painter. With a few touches he sketched on his breast the cross of the order of knighthood of Santiago, one of the highest honors it was in his power to bestow. The life of Velasquez was one singularly devoid of adventure, almost of event. He was born, he married, he came to Madrid and was well received by the king, he mnade two journeys to Italy, and he died. If there was much more than this to tell of him it has not been told, and the catalogue of his paintings is the most important part of his biography. Still, if the record is a slight one, the man it discloses is of an eminently pleasing and complete personality. His close friendship with the whimsical king, which extended over a period of thirty years, and was seemingly unshadowed by any difference, except Philip's unwillingness to part with him when he wished to sail for Italy, suggests a quite exceptional discretion and lovableness in him. When the ambitious arrogance of Olivares became too much for Philip to bear, and the great minister was degradNEW SERIES.-VOL. LIII., No. 3. 21 ed, the court painter insisted on keeping up friendly relations with the man who had befriended him in early life, probably not without risk to himself of loss of royal favor. Though his powers were, from the first, admitted without question, Velasquez, when criticism came his way, took it with a modesty rare in any age. "Some of the painters tell me," said Philip to him one day, "that your pictures are unequal, and that you only paint heads really well." "They are mistaken, Sire,'' replied Velasquez; "no one paints heads really well." One of his signed portraits of the king received some rather severe criticism, and was pronounced a falling-off. Velasquez calmly painted the figure out, and altered the inscription to " "Velasquez un-painted this." He died at the age of sixty-one, after a brief illness; the king's confessor attended him in his last moments, and his body lay in state in the gorgeous robes of the Order of Santiago. His wife, the companion of nearly forty years of his life, survived him only eight days, as though his strong and sweet personality had sustained her life. King Philip, the model of innumerable portraits, lived for five years after the death of the painter. They were five years of disaster culminating in the defeat of Villa Viciosa, by which finally the kingdom of Portugal was rent away from the Spanish monarchy. A despatch containing news of this calamity was brought to the now aged king. Philip read it, and as he grasped its meaning the paper he held slipped from his slim trembling fingers, and dropped to the floor. Consciousness forsook him, for a while he lay in a kind of lethargy, and then the imperturbable king subsided into the supreme imperturbability of death.Nineteenth Century. tom of the receiver at the same instant. If the atmosphere were removed, a pound of lead and a pound of feathers would fall to the earth in the same time. In the atmosphere, dense, solid bodies approximate closely to the velocity they would acquire in vacuo. If, however, the figure of the falling body be such, that it presents an expanded horizontal surface large relatively to its weight, then its downward progress is much impeded by the resistance of the air. The density of the atmosphere increases as we approach the earth's surface; a falling body must there fore meet increasing resistance, and if the column of air which it displaces be only thick enough, instead of obeying the law of acceleration, it will descend with a constantly diminishing speed. Taking advantage of this circumstance, aeronauts descend safely from altitudes of several thousand feet. The parachute, by means of which these descents are effected, is simply an enormous umbrella, so constructed that the air expands it in its descent. Its large surface meets with so much resistance in passing down through the air, that the aeronaut is enabled to descend with safety, and alights gently on the earth. Recently, the parachute has been brought prominently into notice, and, notwithstanding one or two unfortunate accidents, the practicability of this appliance has been thoroughly demonstrated. The force of gravity tends to impart to a falling body a velocity of thirty-two feet every second during which it operates upon that body, and a parachute is merely a contrivance for diminishing this velocity. In the seeds and fruits of many plants we find interesting applications of this principle. Plants differ from animals in this respect, that while the latter are free to move about from place to place, plants, as a rule, are fixed to one spot. The egg of a bird or reptile is in many ways analogous to a vegetable seed; but while an animal, in virtue of its locomotive power, can deposit its eggs where it pleases, a plant is unable to do so with its seeds. Moreover, young birds or reptiles after they are hatched, having power to move about, can disperse themselves in search of food and other requirements. When a seed, on the other hand, germinates, the young seedling, unless in one or two very exceptional cases, has no power to change its place. For this reason seeds are furnished with appliances for securing their dispersion unnecessary in the case of an egg. Were a plant to let its ripe seeds fall straight to the earth, the resulting seedlings would be so crowded that hardly any of them could attain maturity. A The natural agency of which plants most frequently avail themselves for the dissemination of their seeds is the wind. the distance to which a seed will be carried depends on two things: first, the extent of surface exposed to the lateral force of the wind; secondly, the length of time during which the wind can act on that surface. The second of these, all things considered, is the more important factor. slowly-falling seed has a better chance of being blown away than one which falls more rapidly, for the latter, even if it should present a larger surface to the wind, runs more risk of falling while there is no wind. The longer a seed takes to fall the less likelihood is there that the air will continue motionless until it reaches the earth. Although, then, we do very often meet with fruits and seeds which expose an expanded lateral surface to the wind, contrivances which act by retarding the rapidity of their fall are equally common. Both provisions frequently occur together. Thus the fruits of the ash, maple, and plane have expanded membranous wings, and in well-developed specimens the wings are seen to be obliquely twisted. The fruit of the sycamore strongly resembles the screw-propeller of a steamship and in descending it acquires a rotatory motion. The membranous wing attached to the fruit of the lime acts in a similar manner. The object of this oblique twisting of the wing is to diminish the velocity of the descending fruit. Again, there are seeds so shaped that when dropped from the hand they rarely fall straight to the earth, but shoot aside in a slanting direction. This may be seen when a handful of the crescent-shaped seeds of the arrowgrass are slowly let fall. Winged seeds flutter in their descent, and, like the falling leaves described by Wordsworth, Eddying round and round, they sink, In this wavering parachute. In a variety of ways the velocity of a falling seed may be lessened, and of these we have a curious and interesting example in the parachute of hairs attached to the fruit of the dandelion. Like the daisy, sunflower, and thistle, the dandelion belongs to the great order compositæ. The members of this order are distinguished by their peculiar inflorescence. What most people call the flower in the daisy and dandelion is not a single flower, but an inflorescence or collection of florets, seated on the flattened summit of the stalk, and surrounded by a circle of green scales or bracts. This contracted inflorescence is called a capitulum, and the bracts surrounding it constitute the involucre. On account of this crowding together of small flowers, whereby the inflorescence is made to resemble a single large flower, the sepals of the individual florets are not required. These, in ordinary flowers, form the calyx or outer circle of green, leaf-like organs which protect the other parts. In composites the sepals are not necessary, for the involucre of bracts discharges their office and protects all the florets on the capitulum. Instead of green sepals, then, we find outside the corolla of each floret in the dandelion a circle of hairs. As the fruit ripens these hairs become very much developed and constitute the pappus a structure very characteristic of the composite order, though absent in the daisy, nipplewort, and some others. The sessile pappus is the more usual form, but in the dandelion each shuttleshaped fruit terininates above in a slender beak, which forms the handle, so to speak, of the inverted brush. When the pappus hairs are stalked in this way, the capitulum produces a feathery sphere or "clock." If the pappus be sessile each fruit presents the appearance of a shuttlecock, and the ripe capitulum resembles a mop. In the botanical name for groundsel-Senecio, from senex-there is an allusion to the hoary pappus. The bodies distributed by the aid of these hairs in the order compositæ are achenes, as the dry one-seeded fruits are called. The resemblance between a fruit of this description and a seed is so close, however, that for our present purpose the distinction may be neglected. That the pappus plays an important part in the life-history of the dandelion, might be inferred from the precautions taken by ་ nature to secure its perfect development. While the fruit is maturing, the bracts close up and cover in the florets, just as they did before the flowers expanded; the capitulum, in fact, re-assumes the appearance it had in the bud. Opening the quiver-like involucre at this stage, we find it full of fruits, crowded together on the receptacle. Each achene is tipped with a pencil of silky hairs, which becomes elevated as the apical beak of the fruit elongates. When the fruits are fully developed, the protecting bracts fold back, the receptacle, till now concave, becomes convexthe involucre cup is turned inside out in fact, causing the fruits to assume different inclinations, so that their beaks stand at an equal distance from one another. At the same time the vertical pappus hairs spread out till they almost stand at right angles to the beak. The brushes are thus converted into parachutes, and so arranged that they form a sphere. All these changes occur in co-ordination, and are executed with the utmost nicety and precision in an incredibly brief space of time. Thus there is evolved the beautiful feathery and symmetrical globe of fruit so familiar to every one as the dandelion "clock." While these changes are in progress, the flower-stalk becomes erect, the better to expose the seeds to the action of the wind. Under its influence the hairs of the pappus are still further dried, and the connection of each fruit below with the receptacle is gradually weakened, until at last it gives way and the seeds are scattered on the breeze. Without this provision the achenes of the dandelion would fall straight and quickly to the earth, forming a little heap at the base of the stem. So well, however, do these hairs serve their purpose that even in still air an achene falls very slowly, and the slightest current is sufficient to bear it a long distance away. The hairs on the top of the beak are not quite horizontal, but slope slightly in an upward direction; they thus present a lateral surface which causes the fruit to be borne faster and farther before the wind. A stalked pappus is better exposed than a sessile tuft of hairs; the slender beak therefore serves, like the straightening of the flower-stalk, to give the fruits a fair start. rangement in goat's-beard is very similar, but the achenes are larger, their beaks longer, and the feathery globe or The ar clock" |