painted for Cologne Cathedral in 1635. It seems as if in his last
years his heart turned affectionately to the city of his boyhood home
and he would thus commemorate it. Another picture belongs to these
last years. It was a family picture which he called "_St. George_."
It represented four generations of the painter's family and included
both his first and his second wife. He himself figured as the Saint,
clad in shining armor and triumphant over his late enemy, the deadly
dragon. Rubens was too great to be conceited, but he stood at the end
of a most successful life. If ever a man had conquered the dragon of
disappointment, that lies crouching at the door of every life, Rubens
had. He did well to represent himself as St. George. In both of these
last pictures the painter shows at his very strongest.

He died May 30th, 1640, and was buried in the church beside his mother
and his first wife. All the city attended his funeral, for in three
capacities they mourned their illustrious citizen--as an artist, as a
diplomat and scholar, and as a man of noble character. Two years after
his death the picture "_St. George_" was hung above his tomb where it
is found to-day.

He left great wealth which was largely represented by his collection
of pictures and jewels. There were three hundred and nineteen
paintings, all masterpieces. The collection sold for what would be in
our money about half a million dollars. This is a large sum at any
time but in Rubens' day it was well nigh fabulous.

[Illustration: SATYRS _Rubens_]

Rubens has left us more than fifteen hundred pictures bearing his
name. That any man could leave so many can be accounted for only by
reckoning many of them as largely executed by his pupils. He used to
make small sketches in color and hand them over to his pupils for
enlargement. He was always at hand to make corrections and, at the
end, to give the finishing touches. He used to charge for his pictures
according to the time he used in painting them, and he valued his time
at fifty dollars a day.

He shows none of the mystical visionary feeling of the Spaniards even
in his religious pictures. He was too much in love with life for that,
and so, sometimes, we are offended by stout Flemish Saints and
Madonnas too healthy to accord with our notions of their abstemious
lives. In his pictures there is spirited action, almost excess of
life, and rich unfading color in which the reds largely prevail. His
lights