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184 Charles's reign, or even before it, to purchase for him in Italy the works of the great masters. A special agent, Nicholas Lanier, was sent to join him. In 1627-29 were carried on the negotiations which ended in the purchase from Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of much of his famous collection, of which the most precious portion was Mantegna's masterpiece. Nys bid against Richelieu, against Marie de' Medici, and her kinsman the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Month by month he was able to announce new successes—Correggios, Titians, Raffaelles—some of them sent home by Lanier, and at length, at the beginning of 1629, he secured, with "the Duke's collection of marbles and certain other pictures," for the price of £10,500, the great "Triumph" itself, "a thing rare and unique and its value past estimation."

The pictures from the date of their arrival in England have never left Hampton Court. They were valued for sale by the agents of the Commonwealth at £1000, but Cromwell had them reserved for himself. It may well be, as has been said, that their austere majesty appealed to him. William III. arranged them in the long "Queen's Gallery," now hung with the tapestries from Charles le Brun's designs which were bought for George I. Within the present reign they have been moved to the Communication Gallery, which connects the apartments of the King with those of the Queen.

We see them now under almost every conceivable disadvantage. They are arranged, it is true, in