industrious and sober poor are some of the best of its citizens. A man may be ugly as sin, poor, wretched, ignorant, and yet feel and inspire pure and delicate affection; a man may wear kid gloves, and be as gay as a peacock, and have no feeling deeper than words. When men sneer and contemn the poor and ill-favoured, be sure that the Bible is not in their library.

To return to Bega, Boileau, whom the French place very high as a critic, and who, though not the genius they consider him, was yet a very clever man, says, speaking of Dutch art

rather his feelings and sentiment, which were very acute. He understood thoroughly the effect of a composition; he knew well the effect of light and shade, and their due proportion, and the repose required in a painting and an engraving. He knew how to bring out his little personages upon simple backgrounds, to detach them from each other, less by the essential differences of tones than by the play of light and chiaroscuro. A figure treated in demi-tint, or cast frankly in the shade, supports the figure that is lighted up so brightly

a kind of link between the different parts. The art of lighting up a picture was the distinctive talent of Cornelius Bega. We have seen "Interiors of this master rival, in harmony and brilliance of effect, the finest works of Adrian; and we may particularly quote those which figure at Amsterdam, in the celebrated collections of Smeth and Van Leyden, as well as those which were scattered by the Laperrière sale in 1817. In general, Bega is very sober in details, unless he undertakes to paint the studio of an alchemist; for then the subject allows a great quantity of utensils, of Bohemian glasses, of Leyden bottles, of furnaces, of stills of various dimensions, vases in every shape, vials of all colours; all, in fact, that we suppose would be found in the laboratory of a learned man seeking the philosophical stone, without reckoning papers covered by equations and cabalistic figures. Cornelius Bega, however, even in his " Alchemists," has never failed in harmony, that is to say, in producing a harmonious whole, making the smaller lights give way to the larger, bringing in here a bit and there a bit, and strengthening the whole by bold floods of shadow.

We must allow that in touch Bega is inferior to his master. Sometimes his painting is dry and hollow; one would fancy it was unfinished; but if it has not the soft firmness, the roundness of Ostade, it is still pleasing and agreeable. His picture in the Louvre is not one of his best. His "Dance at an Inn at Dresden is full of spirit and power, redolent of truth, rich in caricatures, but badly executed in comparison with others.

Look at that fiddler in the engraving (p. 281), at his mouth and moustache, at that mysterious head poked in at the door above; observe the heavy-nosed Dutchman, with an arm round an old woman's neck, and that other "greasy citizen " with his arm round that fat wench's neck; mark the pair who are dancing, the man with his old cap in hand, and a ludi

crous attempt at grace; examine the countenance of that sot, who can hardly draw his pot from his mouth to grin a horrid grin at the dancers. Then look up at the roof, see how pointed are the details, how exquisite the contrast of light and shade. Everything combines to make it a gem of Dutch art in its peculiar way. It is also a sketch of manners in an age when physical and animal enjoyment appeared all men had to live for.

Bega has been much more finished in style, when he has attempted pictures of a nobler style, conceived in the ideas of a Miéris and a Metzu. The catalogue of the famous Poullain sale, drawn up by Lebrun in 1780, says, speaking of a Bega: "The interior of a chamber, in which is seen a young woman standing up and singing before a music-book placed on a table. A man is accompanying her with the violin." This picture is of a very superior order to any of the others from the studio of Bega, and is painted with more care and finish than usual.

But it was as an engraver that Cornehus displayed his genius. He was a real artist with the steel-point. The vigorous command of chiaroscuro, the art of bringing up the composition, of detaching each figure, the keen comic humour of his mind, all are visible and admirably rendered. His personages, maliciously ugly, sly-looking, are lighted up with Rembrandt-like vigour. White paper, which should always play a part in line-engraving, is made prominent use of by him. Fine proofs of Bega are therefore remarkable for a careful economy of labour. Some are naire and simple, such as the "Wife and her Husband." In those miserable huts where lived the laborious poor-industrious, frugal, and clean-there is light enough. Bega gives them plenty of sun; that luxury of the poor. The Dutchman loves the great luminary. These engravings are as happy as they are bold.

Bega belongs truly to the class of great artists.

OF DUJARDIN's life and character, of his strange marriage, and his sudden death at Venice, we have already spoken (p. 261). But there is much still to be said of his genius and charac. teristics as an artist.

Far less elaborate than many of his contemporaries, Karel was above all picturesque, that is to say, he knew how to transfer his subject to the canvas in an effective and pleasing manner, not merely slavishly copying nature, but interpreting her mysteries. He knew how to co-ordain and combine the features of his undertaking, to simulate disorder and careless

ness.

He knew the difference between the beautiful in reality, and the picturesque in painting. Regent-street is a more symmetrical and beautiful street than any of the crooked lanes and half-paved alleys of Constantinople; but the artist would pass Regent-street with disdain, and delight in the confusion and diversity of an Eastern landscape. A grand and symmetrical palace would please the eye of an artist, and give him pleasure when he gazed on it; but to paint, he would turn eagerly to the crumbling ruin, and even the motley farmhouse or the house with the seven gables. What is often delightful in the actual and the real, does not give any of that ideality which is wanted in a picture. From St. Peter's at Rome we turn with delight in painting to a group of Calabrian bandits, just as we should turn in person from the Calabrian bandit to the great church. Karel felt all this when even he descended to the rank of a caricaturist. It has been reasonably enough argued, that an old cart-horse, a cow, a donkey, or a goat, is always a more picturesque object than a splendid horse. If, certainly, we turn to the wretched daubs of racehorses, this may be true. But the Arab steed of the desert, the tall cavalry of the battle-field, yield quite as much matter of interest to the artist as the most ancient animal that ever excited our sympathy by its limping gait. Wouvermans has proved this effectually.

The same may be said of the earth. A smooth and wellclipped lawn is not half so pleasing to the eye, in a painter's

landscape, as a rough rock clad with moss and crowned by stunted bushes, with here and there a patch of green, just to bring the gray spots out in bolder relief. A rough, rude, unequal surface, is better than a regular line, for all the purposes of art.

The ardent student of nature, the traveller in search of the picturesque and lovely, will, like the artist, shun the richly cultivated park, the low, fertile meadow, the garden laid out in alleys with beds of flowers that show every hue of the rainbow, and turn gladly to arid and uncultivated wastes. Few persons in the world love the exquisite loveliness of our own calmer features in scenery more than we do ourselves; but when we have felt our souls elevated most towards our Creator, when our minds have been imbued with admiration of the beautiful, the sublime, and the grand, it has been while climbing the hills of Switzerland; when roaming over the vast prairies and beneath the leafy arches of the American continent; or upon the wide ocean in a storm. We prefer the park and the meadow as our dwelling place; we remember the other as a mighty panorama that warmed our hearts to emotions which nowhere else were experienced.

Dujardin never chose the merely symmetrical and beautiful. He selected subjects which, perhaps, trifling in reality, were picturesque when transferred to paper. A Swiss peasant-girl always looks well in a picture. She rarely or never does in real life.

If the Dutch painters have secured a wide place for themselves in history, it is not by the sublimity of their expression or the grandeur of their thoughts; it is rather by devoting themselves to what grave classic men call the secondary items - colour, chiaroscuro, and touch! Chiaroscuro has intellectual beauty in it, because it awakens in the mind the idea of a happy harmony between the characters of the scene and of the day which illumines it. Pleasant and agreeable subjects require a serene light, and terrible events and scenery are better illustrated by the light of a sinister and dark sky.

"An artist," says a critic, whose name we do not recollect, "is very much below the dignity of his profession, who thinks it a matter of indifference what kind of weather there was the day Cæsar was assassinated." Karel Dujardin, who knew so admirably how to combine and arrange soft lights, dark clouds, affects in his crucifixions terrible and marked contrasts, a rough opposition between clear light and dark shadows-a rough and suitable effect, when painting so solemn and at the same time so terrible a subject.

Most of the paintings of Karel are extremely well preserved; and on the general subject of the preservation and cleaning of pictures a few words may be said.

Many volumes have been written on the art of cleaning pictures, of restoring them, of moving them about, and of re-canvassing them. M. Xavier de Burtin, in his "Theoretical and Practical Treatise on the Knowledge required by every Amateur," indicates many methods which may be used for cleaning pictures, and lays it down as a law that an amateur should know all the necessary processes, and put them in practice himself.

After having examined and carefully appreciated every one of the processes proposed by this author, one of the most eminent critics of the day declares that he found most of them so dangerous, that, far from advising amateurs to clean their pictures themselves, he calls upon them to abstain from so delicate an operation, unless after long and careful study and much practical experience, which can only enable them to succeed.

Nevertheless," he remarks, "however inexperienced an amateur may be, there are two operations which he may himself undertake without difficulty, that is, washing his pictures and cleaning the varnish. A careful amateur may adopt the Dutch custom of cleaning his pictures twice a year; at the end of the winter, to carry off the coating of smoke which always alights upon them; at the end of the summer, to get rid of the fly-blows, so fatal to painting if they are allowed permanently to remain on canvas, panel, or copper. This cleaning is effected by means of a fine sponge dipped in cold clean water, and by drying it afterwards with a fine and old piece of linen. If the picture loses its enamel, pass over it a coat of white turpentine; this process does no harm to the painting, and first-rate connoisseurs look upon it as an indispensable method for preventing the extreme aridity of the picture."

Oil-painting alone admits of this cleaning, which at Venice was quite an art, and is even still to this day. There it was that Karel Dujardin executed one or two of his best works.

There is a slight irony, a gaiety, a wit, about Karel Dujardin, which makes us always recognise and welcome him; he is fond of rustic beauties; he has, in representing them, more delicacy than Bamboche, more nature than Berghem, though a less fertile and abundant genius. His sentiment is like that of Vandervelde, but he has neither the profundity nor the melancholy of Paul Potter. Even when he paints or engraves dead horses, his slaughter-house, his knacker's yard, has nothing of that sinister aspect which Paul Potter impregnates them with. But, as an engraver, he is by no means inferior to that master. It is impossible to carry further the science of the model, the intelligence of every detail of life, and every sign and mark of death. In the same way that he knew in his paintings exactly where to dash the pencil, so in his engravings he seatters his touches with vigour and intelligence. By a few bold outlines he indicates the bony outline of the animal, the joints and prominent parts.

More delicate than that of Laer, the pointe of Karel the engraver is always picturesque. He likes to show off the differences and contrasts of reality, the dirty wool of the sheep, the knotted and entangled fleeces, the hair of the pig reeking with the filth of the farm-yard, the pig itself wallowing in the mire with ineffable delight. Their snouts, their heads, are the beau-ideal of idleness. Never was the father of pork better rendered; never had he a more patient artist.

The pigs, the horses, the cow, in the picture of "The Shepherd behind the Tree," the ass in "The Peasant Girl," and the two mules, are models. They demonstrate the keen

observation and the laborious industry of the artist. Form, attitude, movement-all is true and real. His sheep and his goats are gems, and no serious critic will accuse him of mannerism here. His engravings, then, are extremely valuable. Everybody who has watched the progress of engraving knows "The Two Mules," published in 1652. It is founded on the fable of La Fontaine, the six lines of which, that refer to the picture, it would be a pity to translate from their native simplicity into English:

"Deux mulets cheminaient, l'un d'avoine chargé,
L'autre portant l'argent de la gabelle;
Celui-ci, glorieux d'une charge si belle,
N'eut voulu pour beaucoup en etre soulagé,
Il marchait d'un pas relevé,

En faisant sonner sa sonnette."

The two animals are admirably rendered. The one steps proudly along with his magnificent harness. But, despite his fine feathers, his leg is not better shaped, nor his form more elegant. The animals are the same, though differently equipped. Though his fringe is so glorious, his knees are lumpy and knotty. There is that quiet satire in this picture, of which Karel Dujardin was very fond.

Karel Dujardin is best known by his pictures of quacks, so admirably engraved by Boissieu. That of the Louvre (p. 284) is the most celebrated. On a bright and soft morning, a charlatan has erected a stand in a village. Elevated on a scaffold, in the costume of Il signor Scaramuccio, he is standing on tiptoe and making antics to half-a-dozen rustics. A man with a black mask accompanies him on a guitar, while a monkey chatters and makes faces. A great sign-board explains what is to be shown in the stable, which serves as a theatre, and open before the quack is his box of elixirs, alcuni barattoli di unguenti; but without waiting for the speech of Scaramouch, Punchinello pokes his nose through the curtain. The ruin in the distance, the cloak worn by one of the peasants, the warm light which animates the whole, give a locality to the scene, and remind us of Karel's Roman studies. This picture is full of what we call humour, and would do no discredit to Wilkie.

Taking the whole of his productions, Karel Dujardin must be placed in the first rank of great Dutch painters. Landscape painter, animal painter, inventor of ravishing compositions, he stands beside Berghem, Vandervelde, Paul Potter, Pierre de Laer, and even Albert Cuyp. He is inferior to some of these masters in certain particulars, but his superiority in all other raises him to the first rank. His brilliant and intelligent touch -so easy and bold-is above all praise; his colouring, though silvery and golden in tint, has preserved after two ages its freshness, its purity, and force. His chiaroscuro is admirable. Generally, to bring forward his figures, he uses, like Pynaker, a kind of broken light. Suppose he has painted an ass standing up. If he has a white spot on the nose, and his ears are black, the vigorous portion of the black ground of mountains will pass just over the white spot and below the black ears. If he wishes to bring out in bold relief the crupper of a white horse mounted by a musketeer, the painter introduces a dark brown wall. Through a door in this wall comes forth a servant with a jug of ale. A pig-trough and two dogs will complete the scene.

But what skies! Adorable, says a French critic. Nobody ever succeeded in painting them with more clearness, more lucidity, more softness, with more harmonious beauty. The southern sky is bold and dashing without crudity-it dazzles but does not pain the eye- it rejoices the heart. The skies of Adrian Vandervelde are sometimes of a hard blue; those of Ruysdael always veiled by clouds, sad and melancholy; but the skies of Karel Dujardin are sunny and cheerful, like the man who painted them. His clouds are like flocks of white wool; he rolls them, he piles them one above another, so that they look like a little chain of hills coming gently down to die at the feet of the sun, as mountains slope down to the sea. Karel Dujardin combines the light of Italian summer with the calm tranquillity of Holland. This is high praise, but it is given where it is due.

THE highest purpose of the artist is, of course, the realisation of beauty; his true creations are ideal, and the mere reproduction, mimetically, on canvas, of a natural object, such as a stone, a fish, a piece of wood, a loaf, or a candle, if executed to perfection, does not constitute a claim to be considered as possessing a genius at all akin to that which inspired the labours of Titian, Raffaelle, or Correggio. Thus much, however, may be admitted without at all depreciating the importance of that skill which Van Huysum acquired, and which is wanting to so many of his followers. A flower, like a human face, may be painted poetically or otherwise. It may be a dead, material thing, a copy of nature with no excellence but practical accuracy; or it may

that they chose them particularly for artistic imitation. The Athenian may be said to have inwoven with his daily exist. ence a poetical garlanding of those brightest productions of the soil, the fascinating flowers of the earth. At his birth, chaplets and festal crowns were hung about the house; his name was given to him at a flowery feast; his bridal was adorned with a luxury of wreaths and coronals; his grave was strewn with sweet offerings; and the favourite seasons of the year were in the same manner symbolised by flowers-gifts to the gods, tokens to friends, emblems of beauty, and sacrificial offerings to the shades of the departed. A similar feeling has in all ages and countries inspired mankind. The simplest savages, deficient in all other poetry, and otherwise rude in

be formed with beauty, and beauty, too, of the most delicate and delicious kind. The peaches of Apelles won him a widely expanded fame, not excelled by that which was gained by the portraits of his beloved Campastre; the corn of Thyro became proverbial; and many other names come to us from antiquity, famous only because they vied with nature's own hand in their mimic fruit, foliage, and flowers. Stories are told of an artist who painted grapes so tempting that the birds flew at them and pecked them, until some cunning pencil wove, with subtle colours, a veil that seemed to screen his lovely works from the touch, though it did not conceal them from the eye; of another, who gave his plums such a bloom that children cried at seeing them; of another, whose flowers, by an ingenious contrivance, appeared to give forth the natural perfumes of the gardens; and it is well known that the fondness of the ancients, especially the Greeks, for every species of flower, especially fragrant ones, was such,

taste, love to decorate themselves with garlands; and we find the custom equally prevalent among the Indian races, the African tribes, the uncouth nomades of Australia, the original natives of North and South America, and the populations of barbarians who, in antiquity, inhabited the European continent. Wherever any progress in the mimetic arts has been made, flowers, therefore, have naturally entered within the circle of the artist's studies; though, of course, the sculptor must fail in the attempt to reproduce their beauty, consisting, as it does, less in rich, graceful, and expressive form, than in colour, tone, brilliancy, and freshness. In many modern countries, however, they have been chosen even for plastic imitation, though the only material hitherto used for this purpose, with any great success, has been wax. Painting, however, is peculiarly adapted to the representation of flowers, and accordingly in all galleries and exhibitions we find it applied to this object. The artists of the Low Country school have been especially