iticism
says nothing about it. The place of honour at the Ryks Museum at Amsterdam
is given to _The Night Watch_, but it is _The Syndics of the Cloth Hall_--a
simple presentation of five grave men seated at a table--that we remember
with wonder and admiration.

Our enthusiast, having dwelt upon these three masterpieces, marking epochs
in Rembrandt's life, referred again to the magnificent array of portraits
scattered in such regal profusion through the thirty years that passed
between the painting of _The Anatomy Lesson_ and _The Syndics_. Then
noticing, while enlarging upon the etchings, that his mother was casting
anxious glances at the clock, he hurriedly referred to the last portrait
that Rembrandt painted of himself, two years before his death. He could not
describe this portrait, which is in a private collection in Berlin, as he
had never seen it, so he quoted M. Michel's description: "This
extraordinary work, perhaps the last Rembrandt painted, is modelled with
prodigious vigour and freedom. With superb audacity, the master shows us
once more the familiar features, on which age and sorrow have worked their
will. They are distorted, disfigured, almost unrecognisable. But the free
spirit is still unbroken. The eyes that meet ours are still keen and
piercing; they have even the old twinkle of good-humoured irony, and the
toothless mouth relaxes in frank laughter. What was the secret of this
gaiety? In spite of his poverty, he had still a corner in which to paint.
Beside him stand an easel and an antique bust, perhaps a relic of his
former wealth. He holds his maul-stick in his hand, and pauses for a moment
in his work. He is happy because he can give himself up to his art."

[Illustration: THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS

1634. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.]

It was the last of half a hundred portraits of himself, painted and etched
without vanity; painted because a man's self is such an accommodating
model, always ready and willing; painted because Rembrandt loved to
experiment with himself before a mirror, grimacing, angry, stern, "as an
officer," "with a casque," "with a gorget," or, as we see him in the
National Gallery, on one wall with the bloom of youth and health upon his
face, on the other, dulled, stained, and marked by the finger of time. This
we can say: that he was always true to himself.

CHAPTER V

THE GREAT TRIUMVIRATE

It is generally acknowledged that the greatest masters of painting tha