d in his veins the blood of William the Silent,
and became the father of our William III. Poor human nature is too
easily envious, and some deny the reality, in fact, of the distinction,
the grace, of Van Dyck's portrayed men and women. Nevertheless, Van
Dyck's vision, guiding his brush, was as rare an endowment as envy
is a common one, and has higher authority to show us what to look for,
to see, and to enjoy.

Van Dyck was the first painter who taught people how they ought to
look, to befit an admirer's view of their aristocratic rank. His
portraits thus express the social position of the sitter as well as
the individual character. Although this has been an aim of
portrait-painters in modern times, when they have been painting people
of rank, it was less usual in the seventeenth century.

There was hardly scope enough in Antwerp for two great painters such
as Rubens and Van Dyck, so in 1632 Van Dyck left Flanders and settled
permanently in England, as Court painter to Charles I. All his life
Charles had been an enthusiastic collector of works of art. Born with
a fine natural taste, he had improved it by study, until Rubens could
say of him: 'The Prince of Wales is the best amateur of painting of
all the princes in the world. He has demanded my portrait with such
insistence that he has overcome my modesty, although it does not seem
to me fitting to send it to a Prince of his importance.'

Two of our pictures, the Richard II. diptych and the Edward VI. of
Holbein, were in his collection, besides many we have mentioned, such
as Holbein's 'Erasmus,' Raphael's cartoons, and Mantegna's 'Triumph
of Caesar.' Before Charles came to the throne he had gone to Spain
to woo the daughter of Philip III. The magnificent Titians in the palace
at Madrid extorted such admiration from the Prince that Philip felt
it incumbent upon him as a host and a Spaniard to offer some of them
to Charles. Charles sent his own painter to copy the rest. He kept
agents all over Europe to buy for him, and spent thousands of pounds
in salaries and presents to the artists at his Court. As in the time
of Henry VIII., there were still no first-rate English painters. James
I. had employed a Fleming, and an inferior Dutchman, whom Charles
retained in his service for a time. Then he experimented with a
second-rate Italian artist, who painted some ceilings which still
exist at Hampton Court. Rubens was too much in demand at other Courts
for Charles to have his