every word she is writing is read by him who, it is plain, from his indignation, is the person of all others from whom she would conceal it. He has stolen behind her on tiptoe, carefully holding his sword close to his side, that she may not hear him. A story of love and jealousy could not be better, and has rarely well, told.

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The subjects of these two painters, when they rose above those scenes in which vice is a matter of traffic, are either card or music parties, or music lessons. In Her Majesty's collection are fine specimens of both, "The Blue Boddice " being the very finest picture by Terburg I ever saw-a work which, had he painted nothing else, would have placed him at the top of the Art.

The materials offered by Terburg and Metsu to the eye are admirably suited to a display of colour and execution. Petticoats of the costliest satins, bordered with silver; jackets of the richest velvets, trimmed with ermine; polished cuirasses; embroidered swordbelts; the most picturesque of boots and of slouched hats; tables covered with Persian carpets; richlyornamented silver dishes and tankards; projecting chimneys of variegated marbles; and all relieved from backgrounds of dark tapestries, and presented to us with a delicacy of finish sometimes equal to Van Eyck, but with the addition of a suavity of manner unknown to the early Art of any country, first adopted, from Nature, by Correggio, and from him introduced by Rubens and Rembrandt into their schools.

When speaking of colour, I have spoken of De

Hooge. But I must here say something more of this original painter; perhaps, with the exception of Rembrandt, the most original of the Dutch school. Scarcely anything is known of his history; but he seems from the very commencement of his studies to have aimed at a single object, to which throughout his life he never ceased to devote himself, till at last he succeeded in it beyond any other painter, unless it be Claude. This object was to express light. For the subjects of his early pictures he chose interiors, generally filled with music-parties, and all within. the apartment was subdued to a very low and cool tone, for the sole purpose of giving splendour to gleams of sunshine seen through windows or doors. But, as he advanced, he acquired the superior power of spreading light throughout his compositions without interfering with the brilliancy of its source. He painted the effects of sunbeams upon walls with a truth and a taste unequalled before or after him; and the out-door scenes of his best time have a luminous quality which he did not acquire by studying pictures, but with which he was at last rewarded for his close observation of tones in Nature to which ordinary eyes are sealed. A picture, formerly in the possession of Mr. Wells, in which a man sits drinking in the open air, while a woman stands near him, and a little girl at a short distance, is a fine specimen of his best period, and so is one, much like it in subject, in the collection of Lady Peel. The finest of his interiors that I have seen is, "The Card-Players," in Her Majesty's collection, of which I attempted a description in the Section on Colour.

Italy is sometimes called "the land of poetry;" but Nature impresses the varied sentiment of her varying moods as eloquently on flat meadows and straight canals, as on mountains, valleys, and winding streams; and visits the mill and the cottage with the same splendid phenomena of light and shadow as she does the palace. This was well understood by Cuyp and Ruysdael, and their most impressive pictures are often made out of the fewest and the simplest materials.

There is a small "Sunset" by Cuyp in the Dulwich collection. It has not a tree, except in the extreme distance, nor scarcely a bush, but it has one of the finest skies ever painted, and this is enough, for its glow pervades the whole, giving the greatest value to the exquisitely-arranged colour of a near group of cattle,-bathing the still water and distance. in a flood of mellow light, and turning into golden ornaments a very few scattered weeds and brambles that rise here and there from the broadly-shadowed foreground into the sunshine, gaining great importance from their nearness to the eye.

In the hands of Ruysdael, a windmill and a stunted tree or two are sufficient, under the effects with which he envelops them, to impress us infinitely beyond anything that can be effected by an ordinary painter, with the most magnificent materials of Alpine scenery. Solemnity is the charm of his pictures; tranquil and soothing, it never, with him, degenerates into melancholy. Though I know no work of his hand that does not command admiration, I like him best in the flat and open scenery of his own country, or of the

sea that washes its shores, where he shows himself by far the greatest of all the marine painters of his time.

Of the younger Teniers, whose landscape compositions are incomparably his best works, there are admirable specimens at Dulwich, and one very fine one in the collection of the Marquis of Westminster. The power of giving importance to trifles, which Fuseli ascribes to Rembrandt, who, as he said, "could pluck a flower in every desert," is shared with him by those of whom I have been speaking; and "we derive," as Constable said, "the pleasure of surprise from the works of the best Dutch painters, in finding how much interest the Art, when in perfection, can give to the most ordinary subjects."

The wealthy Burgomasters of the period under notice, appear to have been liberal patrons of Art, but they were not infallible judges; for neither Cuyp nor Ruysdael were appreciated while they lived.

respect to Cuyp, we learn from Mr. Smith the astounding fact, that "by a reference to numerous Dutch catalogues of the principal collections sold in Holland, down to 1750, there is no example of any picture by his hand selling for more than thirty florins, or something less than three pounds sterling!" The heartless mannerisms of Bergham and Both, which represent neither Dutch nor Italian Art, being hybrid mixtures of the two, were in greater request, and are still more valued than they deserve to be; while, among the painters of familiar life, Dow and Mieris seem to have been more popular than Ostade, Terburg, Metsu, De Hooge, or Nicholas Maas; and, in subjects of a higher class than theirs, Vanderwerf gained a reputa

tion which has long ceased to connect itself with his pictures. With respect to him, it is clear that, even to the time of Reynolds, his name was one of importance, or Sir Joshua would not have devoted so large a space in his "Journey through Flanders and Holland" to an exposure of the vices of his style; whose remarks on Vanderwerf I would recommend to the careful perusal of the student, for a clear explanation of important principles of Nature, that should never be, but often are, lost sight of.

In this brief sketch of the Flemish and Dutch schools, I have been obliged to omit any mention of some painters of first-rate excellence in their several branches of Art. I have not space to say anything of Paul Potter, Emanuel de Witt, William Vandervelde, Louis Vadder (who visited Italy to much better purpose than Both or Bergham), Arnold Vanderneer, and others, if of less note, yet not therefore noteless.