in the Louvre. A boisterous, merry party
of about seventy persons are assembled in front of a country ale-house;
several are wildly dancing in a circle, others are drinking and
shouting; others, again, are making love.

_The Garden of Love_, equally famous, was one of Rubens's latest
pictures. Of this there are several versions in existence, of which
those at Dresden and Madrid may be considered as originals. Several
loving couples in familiar conversation are lingering before the
entrance of a grotto, the front of which is ornamented with a rustic
portico. Amongst them we recognise the portraits of Rubens and his
second wife, his pupil Van Dyck, and Simon de Vos.

As Rubens united to such great and various knowledge the disposition to
communicate it to others in the most friendly and candid manner, it was
natural that young painters of talent who were admitted into his atelier
should soon attain a high degree of skill and cultivation.

At "the House in the Wood," not far from the Hague, there is a salon
decorated entirely by the pupils of Rubens. The principal picture, which
is one of the largest oil paintings in the world, is by Jacob Jordaens,
and represents the triumph of Prince Frederick Henry--the object of the
whole scheme being the glorification of the House of Orange, in 1649.
Most of the other pictures are of Theodore van Thulden, who in these
works has emulated his illustrious master in the force and brilliance of
his colouring.

But it is not in any particular salon or palace that we must look for
the effects of Rubens' influence; it was far wider than to be able to be
contained within four walls. In portraiture he gave us Van Dyck; in
historical subjects, Jacob Jordaens; in animal painting and still life,
Frans Snyders, Jan Fyt, and the brothers Weenix. In pictures of everyday
life he gave us Adrian Brouwer and David Teniers; in landscape,
Everdingen, Ruisdael and Waterloo. "Thus was the art of painting in the
Netherlands remodelled in every department," says Waagen in the
concluding sentence of his memoir, "by the energies of a single great
and gifted mind. Thus was Rubens the originator of its second great
epoch, to which we are indebted for such numerous and masterly
performances in every branch of the art."

III

THE PUPILS OF RUBENS

DAVID TENIERS the elder, who was born at Antwerp in 1582, received the
first rudiments of his art from Rubens, who soon perceived in him the
happy adva