to the care of a merchant in Amsterdam, but here an accident destroyed the intentions of his father, and rekindled his old affection for design. He happened to make the acquaintance of a painter on glass, who lent him some studies, which Govaert, being unable to copy by day, employed himself in imitating during the hours which should have been given to sleep, collecting all the broken ends of candles from the kitchen to furnish himself with the requisite amount of artificial light; but this could not continue for any length of time without attracting attention, and being discovered, he incurred a still heavier infliction of paternal wrath, and the interdict from painting was laid upon him more rigorously than ever. The final abandonment of his beloved pursuits appeared to be inevitable, when, just at this juncture, Lambert Jacobs, a celebrated preacher, happened to visit Cleves. The eloquence and exemplary life of the preacher procured for him ready admission into the houses of the best families in the place, and the treasurer, among others, was pleased with the opportunity of welcoming so famous a preacher and so excellent a man beneath his hospitable roof. But Lambert Jacobs was something more than a pulpit orator; he dabbled a little in the fine arts, and was a respectable painter. He was, therefore competent both to discern the promising abilities of Govaert, and to combat and destroy the prejudices of his father. In fine, the treasurer of

THE YOUNGER PALMA.

27

Cleves was content to place his son under the tuition of the reverend painter, and the pupil was made happy by the act. Govaert's application to his art, and the generous emulation which sprung up between himself and his fellow-pupil, Backer, soon enabled him to make such rapid strides in his new profession that it yielded him some amount of emolument. Afterwards, accompanied by the friend and fellowstudent, just alluded to, he attached himself to Rembrandt, and profited so largely by his studies under that master, that many of Flinck's productions passed current, and it is believed, still pass current for those of the more illustrious Fleming.

The younger PALMA's early efforts had the good fortune to attract the notice of a generous and discriminating patron. He was not more than fifteen when he copied Titian's St. Lawrence, in the church of the Jesuits; and during its progress, Guido Ubaldo, duke of Urbino, pleased himself by watching the youthful artist's active pencil. One day while the duke was hearing mass, Palma hit off a rapid and striking likeness of that prince; the circumstance did not escape the observation of some of the domestics, who informed their master of it. The duke sent for the young painter, liberally rewarded him both for the portrait and the copy from Titian; and, charmed with the genius which was apparent in these productions, carried Palma with him in his suite to Urbino, gave him every facility

for the prosecution of his studies, and afterwards furnished him with the means of continuing them at Rome.

JEAN BAPTISTE WEENINX's earliest predilections appear to have been for books; and either to gratify or subdue them, his mother placed him with a bookseller; but the boy's fondness for books and reading soon gave way to a more powerful propensity, and every leisure moment was consumed in sketching whatever his fancy dictated. The bookseller's remonstrances were made in vain; his young charge was transferred to the care and instruction of a woollen draper, who found the future artist as inveterately bent upon sketching and designing as the bookseller had done. For every other description of employment, young Weeninx had the utmost distaste, and made no secret of it. At length his mother, loving her offspring too well to persist in thwarting the bent of his genius, placed him with an artist named Micker, from whose studio he afterwards passed into that of Abraham Bloemart. Here the boy found his true vocation, and applied himself perseveringly to the study of his art, sketching incessantly from nature, and indicating his feeling for the picturesque by the subjects with which he filled his teeming sketch-book.

The boyhood of PIERRE DE NEYN would supply another illustration of the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. At the early age of twelve, he

CAMBIASO, MIGNARD.

29

was compelled to engage in the laborious occupation of his father, a stone-mason. Notwithstanding his mechanical employment, he possessed a mind which craved acquaintanceship with the abstract sciences. Out of his slender earnings he contrived to buy a few books which treated of mathematics, architecture, and perspective, and by the aid of these, and the operations of his own clear and intelligent mind, he acquired such a thorough mastery over these sciences, that his brother artists consulted him as an authority, and he became a public instructor.

LUCA CAMBIASO, with the daring of genius, undertook, at seventeen years of age, the execution of a fresco on the façade of a house. So juvenile was the artist's appearance, that some Florentine painters who had mounted the scaffold for the purpose of inspecting the work in progress, mistook him for a colour-grinder. Seeing him prepare his palette and pencils, and advance towards the unfinished fresco, the well-meaning painters interposed in order to prevent the rash youth from defacing a work which, as they conceived, he was quite incompetent to take any part in; but a few strokes of the pencil soon dissipated their incredulity, which gave way to a feeling of admiration and astonishment.

PIERRE MIGNARD, destined by his father to follow the profession of a surgeon, betrayed a happy facility in sketching portraits when only eleven years old. In accompanying the practitioner with whom he was

placed, in his visits to the sick, far from listening to the recital of the symptoms of their malady, or to the course of treatment prescribed by his master, young Pierre employed himself in sketching the aspects and attitudes of the patients or of those who attended on them; and mention is made of a picture which he produced at twelve years of age, and in which he introduced the doctor, his wife, children, and domestics, which is reported to have been executed with so much skill, as to astonish the circle in which he lived, and give undoubted intimations of future renown.

We cannot refuse a tribute of admiration to the boyish enthusiasm and hearty devotion to art of JEAN BAPTISTE GAULI, better known as BACICI. At fourteen years of age, alone, unfriended, and with nothing to sustain him in the present but his hopes of the future, we find him setting out from the atelier of Borgognone, with his portfolio under his arm, and boldly soliciting a passage to Rome in a vessel which was on the eve of sailing from Genoa, with the envoy of that republic on board. Nothing daunted by the refusal of the captain, he presents himself, with his brave boy's heart beating stoutly within him, at the door of the envoy; tells his simple story, his love of his profession, his desire for advancement, and his humble circumstances, to

Holomatist, who, pleased with the frank, hopeful

the lad, takes him into his own suite, and