the plate is whisked
away in a moment. The Americans boast of their quick lunches; but I
am convinced that they borrowed celerity in cooking and serving from
some Knickerbocker deviser of poffertjes and wafelen in the early
days of New York. I wonder that Washington Irving omitted to say so.

Chapter VIII

Leyden's Painters, a Fanatic and a Hero

Rembrandt of the Rhine--His early life at Leyden--Jan
Steen--Jan van Goyen--Brewer and painter--Pictures for
beer--Jan Steen's grave--His delicacy and charm--His native
refinement--A painter of hands--Jan Steen and Morland--Jan
Steen and Hogarth--The Red Sea--The Flood--Jan of Leyden--The
siege of Muenster--Gigantic madness--Gerard Dou--Godfrey
Schalcken--Frans van Mieris--William van Mieris--Gabriel
Metsu--Beckford's satire--Leyden's poor pictures--The siege
of Leyden--Adrian van der Werf.

Leyden was the mother of some precious human clay. Among her sons was
the greatest of Dutch painters, Rembrandt van Rijn; the most lovable
of them, Jan Steen; and the most patient of them, Gerard Dou.

Of Rembrandt's genius it is late in the day to write, nor have I the
power. We have seen certain of his pictures at The Hague; we shall
see others at Amsterdam. I can add nothing to what is said in those
places, but here, in Leyden (which has ten thousand stuffed birds,
and not a single picture by her greatest son), one may dwell upon
his early days and think of him wandering as a boy in the surrounding
country unconsciously absorbing effects of light and shade.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on July 15, 1606, probably in
a house at the corner of the Weddesteg, near the Wittepoort, on the
bank of the Rhine. It was the same year that gave England _Macbeth_
and _King Lear_. His father was a miller, his mother the daughter
of a Leyden baker: it was destined that the son of these simple folk
should be the greatest painter that the north of Europe has produced.

They did not foresee such a fate, but they seem sufficiently to have
realised that their son had unusual aptitude for him to be sent to
study law at the University. But he meant from the first to paint,
and when he should have been studying text-books he was studying
nature. The old miller, having a wise head, gave way, and Rembrandt
was allowed to enter the studio of Jacob van Swanenburgh. That was
probably in 1622, when he was sixteen; in 1624 he knew so much more
than Swanenburg