Changers_, at Windsor Castle--of which there
are numerous copies, and this is not supposed to be the original. _The
Money Changer and His Wife_ at the Louvre is undoubtedly his.

LUCAS VAN LEYDEN, as he was called (his real name being Luc Jacobez),
was born in 1494, and died in 1533. He was a pupil of a little known
artist, Cornelis Engelbrechstein, who was a follower if not a pupil of
Memling. Lucas was an artist of multifarious powers and very early
development. He painted admirably--though his authenticated works are
very scarce--drew, and engraved. He pursued the path of realism in the
treatment of sacred subjects, but with less beauty or elevation of mind.
His heads are generally of a very ugly character. At the same time his
form of expression found sympathy in the feeling of the period, and by
the skill with which it was expressed, especially in his engravings,
attracted a number of followers. In scenes from common life he is full
of truth and delicate observation of nature, though showing now and then
a somewhat coarse sense of humour. One of his most important works is a
large composition of _The Last Judgment_, which is at Leyden.

Very early in the sixteenth century--beginning in fact, as we have seen,
with Jan Mabuse in 1508--the Netherlandish and German artists made it
the fashion to repair to Italy, attracted by the reputation of the great
masters; so that from this time onwards their work ceases to exhibit the
purely northern characteristics of their predecessors. For it appears
that precisely those qualities most opposed to their own native feeling
for art made the deepest impression on their minds; more especially such
general qualities as grandeur, beauty, simplicity of forms, drawing of
the nude, unrestrained freedom, boldness, and grace of movement--in
short, all that is comprised in art under the term "ideal."

But the attempt to appropriate all these qualities could lead to no
successful result. Being based on no inherent want on the part of their
own original feeling for art, it became only the outward imitation of
something foreign to themselves, and they never therefore succeeded in
mastering the complete understanding of form, or in adopting the true
feeling for beauty of line or grace of movement; and in aiming at them
they only degenerated into artificiality, exaggeration in drawing, and
violence in attitude. The pictures of this class, even of religious
subjects, have accordingly but littl