h had ever dreamed of that he passed on to Amsterdam,
to see what could be learned from Peter Lastman. But Lastman was of
little use, and Rembrandt soon returned to Leyden.

There he set up his own studio, painting, however, at his father's
house--possibly even in the mill itself--as much as he could; and for
seven years he taught younger men at Leyden his secrets. He remained
at Leyden until 1631, moving then again to Amsterdam and beginning
the greatest period of his life. At Leyden he had painted much and
etched much; perhaps the portrait of himself in a steel gorget,
at The Hague, is his finest Leyden picture. It was not until 1632,
the year in which he married his Saskia, that the first of his most
famous works, "The School of Anatomy," was painted. Yet Leyden may
consider that it was she that showed the way; she may well be proud.

Rembrandt's later life belongs to Amsterdam; but Leyden had other
illustrious sons who were faithful to her to the end. Chief of these
was Jan Steen.

Harmens the miller, as we have seen, became the father of a boy named
Rembrandt in 1606; it was twenty years later that Steen the brewer
rejoiced over the birth of a son called Jan.

Of Jan's childhood we know nothing, but as a young man he was sent
by his father to Utrecht to study under Nicholas Knupfer. Then he
passed on to Adrian van Ostade and probably to Adrian Brouwer, with
both of whom and Frans Hals we saw him carousing, after his wont, in a
picture by Brouwer in Baron Steengracht's house at The Hague. Finally
he became the pupil of Jan van Goyen, painter of the beautiful
"Valkhof at Nymwegen," No. 991 in the Ryks Museum, a picture which
always makes me think of Andrew Marvell's poem on the Bermudas. Like
many another art pupil, Jan Steen married his master's daughter.

Jan van Goyen, I might add, was another of Leyden's sons. He was born
in 1596 and he died at The Hague in 1666, while London was suffering
under the Plague.

Jan Steen seems to have intended to make brewing his staff and
painting merely his cane; but good nature and a terrible thirst were
too much for him. From brewing he descended to keeping a tavern,
"in which occupation," to quote Ireland, "he was himself his best
customer". After a while, having exhausted his cellar, he took
seriously to painting in order to renew it, paying for his liquor
with his brush. Thus "for a long time his works were to be found
only in the hands of dealers in wine". Who, after