Commission with reference to pictures, which I shall proceed to give, the reader will see that all sorts of obstacles to any claim of the central government were raised by the local authorities; such a course was sometimes no doubt the result of genuine Spanish obstinacy, strong in local attachments, and hating all interference; but it too often probably originated in the desire to conceal peculation and robbery on the part of the alcalde, or the parish priest, or the sacristan, or the porter of a suppressed convent. Let us remember that in all probability no one of these functionaries ever received the salary which was due to him, and that the unfortunate monks turned out of their convents had neither interest
- [Footnote:
'The Caridad was a hospital or charitable institution. The pictures were brought thither from Murillo's own studio; there are five—Moses, the Feeding of the Five Thousand, the St. Juan de Dios, a little Salvator Mundi, and a small John the Baptist; the sixth, the pendant to the St. Juan de Dios, the St. Elizabeth with the Sick, has been carried to the Museum at Madrid. It is very questionable whether these fine pictures will be still in the Caridad in ten years' time. Nothing would be easier than to smuggle out the two small pictures! A painter comes—copies them—does not stand upon a few dollars more or less—takes off the originals and leaves the copies behind in their places, which are high up and badly lighted—the pictures are gone for ever! This sort of proceeding is not impossible here, and Baron Taylor's purchases for Paris prove the fact. It cannot of course be done without corruption and connivance on the part of the official guardians; and after all one has hardly the courage to lament it. The pictures are, in fact, saved—they are protected and duly valued; whilst to me it is completely a matter of indifference whether a custode, on account of this sort of sin, suffer a little more or a little less in Purgatory.'"—Reisebriefe, ii. s. 126-8.]
