brilliant discoveries to which it led; the patient investigation of the laws of weight and motion, must all be looked upon as forming but a part of his real merits, as merely particular demonstrations of the spirit in which he everywhere withstood the despotism of ignorance, and appealed boldly from traditional opinions to the judgment of reason and common sense. He claimed and bequeathed to us the right of exercising our faculties in examining the beautiful creation which surrounds us. Idolised by his friends, he deserved their affection by numberless acts of kindness; by his good humour, his affability, and by the benevolent generosity with which he devoted himself, and a great part of his limited income, to advance their talents and fortunes. If an intense desire of being useful is everywhere worthy of honour; if its value is immeasurably increased when united to genius of the highest order; if we feel for one, who, notwithstanding such titles to regard, is harassed by cruel persecution, then none deserve our sympathy, our admiration, and our gratitude, more than Galileo."

BORN June 15, 1606. His father was a miller, named Gerretz, who lived near Leyden, on the banks of the Rhine. Hence Rembrandt assumed the higher-sounding title of Van Ryn, in exchange for his paternal appellation. The miller was sagacious enough to perceive that his son had talent, but not to discover the direction in which it lay; and sent him to study Latin, and qualify himself for one of the learned professions at the University of Leyden. He had no turn for scholarship; indeed, through life, his literary acquirements were decidedly below par: but he showed great expertness in drawing any object which caught his notice. The miller wisely yielded to what appeared the natural bent of his son's genius, and suffered him to pursue painting as a profession. He studied first for three months at Amsterdam, in the school of Jacob Van Swannenberg, then six months with Peter Lastman, and six with Jacob Pinas. It is somewhat surprising that he should have continued so long with these masters, from whom he could learn no more than the rudiments of execution. Had they been better, he would have gained little but manual skill from them; for, from the first, his style was essentially his own. Nature was his preceptress, and his academy was his father's mill. There he found those unique effects of light and shadow which distinguish his pictures from all others. The style of art which astonished his contemporaries by its novelty and power, and will ever continue to influence the practice of later artists, was founded on and formed out of the brilliant contrasts exhibited by a beam of light admitted through a narrow aperture, and rapidly subsiding into darkness: a spectacle which, familiar to his childhood, seems to have left an indelible impression on his imagination. He studied

VOL. III.

R

with great assiduity, but seems to have scarcely been conscious of his own strength until the commendation of his fellow-students roused him. At the suggestion of one of them he took a painting which he had just finished to an amateur at the Hague, who gave the best proof of his approbation by paying a hundred florins for it on the spot. The sudden acquisition of so much wealth almost turned the young artist's head. He went on foot to the Hague; but he posted home to his father's mill in a chariot. Extravagance, however, was not one of his characteristics, and this was his last, as it was his first act of ostentatious disbursement.

He remained for some time in his native village, induced, perhaps, by the facilities which the banks of the Rhine presented to him for the study of landscape. Even in that department of art he selected those phases of nature which harmonized with his usual management of chiar' oscuro: such as effects of twilight, or the setting sun, or any combinations of clouds, rocks, trees, or other objects, which formed large masses of shade relieved by light concentrated in one spot. But being frequently summoned to Amsterdam by commissions for portraits, he settled in that city in 1630. At the same time he married a pretty peasant girl from Ramsdorp, whose portrait he has often introduced in his pictures. He received several pupils into his house, who paid largely for his instructions.

One of Rembrandt's earliest and most steadfast patrons was the burgomaster Six, for whom he painted the celebrated picture now in the National Gallery, of The Woman taken in Adultery.' If this be an average specimen of his style at this time, no wonder can be felt that his reputation rose to a prodigious height, and that he obtained large prices for his performances. The style of this picture, though approaching to the elaborate finishing of Mieris or Gerard Dow, is yet as broad as in any of his subsequent works, after he had adopted a bolder method of execution. Refinement of character we never must expect in Rembrandt; but in this picture we are not shocked by that uncalled-for coarseness which debases many of his later works. In the figure of Christ especially, there is some attempt to rise above the level of common life, which he usually contents himself with copying. The picture exhibits his usual grandeur and solemnity of light and shade, and is remarkable for brilliancy of colouring.

gave

As Rembrandt's practice became more and more lucrative, he way to a vice which certainly is not the besetting one of artists, and grew insatiably avaricious. His engravings were sought with even more

avidity than his pictures; and he left unemployed no artifice by which their popularity might be turned to account. Impressions were taken off and circulated when the plates were half finished, then the work was completed, and the sale recommenced. Alterations were then made in the perfect engraving, and these botched prints were again sent into the market. Impressions of the same plate in all these stages of transformation were eagerly sought by the idle foppery of collectorship; and it was held a serious impeachment of taste not to possess proofs of the little Juno with and without a crown; the young Joseph with the face light, and the same Joseph with his face dark; the woman with the white bonnet, and the same woman without a bonnet; the horse with a tail, and a horse without a tail, &c. Ungentlemanly tricks were practised to enhance the price of his works. He often expressed an intention of quitting Amsterdam altogether. Once he was announced to be dangerously ill; at another time he was reported to be dead. It is strange that he should not have felt these petty artifices to be unworthy of his genius, and unnecessary to his fame or fortune; but it seems not improbable that some of his eccentricities were played off to attract attention. Being occupied one day in painting the picture of a burgomaster and his family, word was brought that his favourite monkey was dead. He made great parade of his distress, and as some alleviation of it, proceeded to paint the monkey into the picture. The civic dignitary remonstrated in vain against this extraordinary addition to the family group: Rembrandt refused to finish the picture unless the monkey kept his place, and accordingly it was allowed to remain. That he was not unconscious of the absurdity of such caprices, may be inferred from his quick turn for humour, and the shrewdness and sagacity of his remarks.

The roughness and apparent negligence in the execution of his works astonished many of the Dutch connoisseurs, who had been so used to minute delicacy of finish as to consider it essential to excellence. To these critics he replied in a tone of irony, requesting that when they perceived anything particularly wrong in his works, they would believe that he had a motive for it. To others who examined his pictures too closely, he observed, that the smell of the paint was unwholesome, adding a very just observation, that the picture is finished when the painter has expressed his intention.

Numerous copies of Rembrandt's pictures were made by his pupils, which he retouched and sold as originals. Sandraart asserts that he gained one thousand two hundred florins yearly by this commerce. It

is proper, however, to state that most of the great masters have, more or less, availed themselves of the labour of their scholars.

In one respect, however, Rembrandt acted worthily of his genius. He never allowed the love of gain to interfere with or limit the time and labour which were required to give excellence to his paintings. The bravura of hand by which his later works are distinguished, has led to an idea that he painted them carelessly and with great dispatch. No doubt he wrought with firmness and decision when his plan was fixed; but various studies are extant, which show that, before commencing a picture, he constructed and reconstructed his design with indefatigable attention. This was especially the case with his historical works; yet in portrait painting he was scarcely less particular. Frequently when the picture was considerably advanced, struck by some new arrangement, an effect of light, a happy turn of drapery, a better position of the head, he would begin again; and the patience of the sitter was sometimes so much tried by a succession of these alterations, that works would have been left unfinished on the artist's hands, but for that confidence in the ultimate excellence of the pictures, which rendered his employers anxious to possess them at any outlay of time, patience, or money.

Descamps, the French biographer of the Flemish painters, enlarges on Rembrandt's misfortune in not having been born in Italy, or, at least, not having spent some years there. "How different a painter would he have been," he says, "had he been familiar with the works of Raphael and Titian." That he would have been a different painter may be doubted; that he would have been a better one is still less probable. Descamps adds, that he owed his genius to nature and instinct alone; a much more rational remark, and so true, that it appears almost demonstrable that no system of discipline or education would have materially altered his turn of mind. He was sufficiently well acquainted, through the medium of prints, casts, and marbles, with the leading works both of ancient and modern art; but he had no taste for refinement, and he knew that what is called high art was not his vocation. He had collected quantities of old armour, rich draperies, grotesque ornaments, and military weapons, which he jocularly called his antiques; and he made no scruple of deriding the exclusive claims to taste set up by particular schools. He felt that he had no occasion to ask his passport to reputation from others; but that, as Fuseli expresses it, he could enter the temple of fame by forging his own keys.

Few painters, indeed, have so full a claim to the merit of originality as Rembrandt. It would be hard to point out any of his predecessors