nces towards excelling in his profession that raised him to
the head of his school. The prejudice in favour of his son, David
Teniers the younger, is so great that the father is generally esteemed
but a middling painter; and his pictures not worth the inquiry of a
collector. His hand is so little distinguished, however, that the
paintings of the father are often taken for those of the son. The father
was certainly the inventor of the manner, which the son, who was his
pupil, only improved with what little was wanting to perfection.

Rubens was astonished at his early success, and though he followed the
manner of Adrian Brouwer, looked on him as his most deserving pupil by
the brightness of genius that he showed. He soon saved enough money to
undertake the journey to Italy, and when at Rome he established himself
with Adam Elsheimer, who was then in great vogue. In Elsheimer's manner
he soon became a perfect master, without neglecting at the same time the
study of other and greater masters, endeavouring to penetrate into the
deepest mysteries of their practice. An abode of ten years in Italy, and
the influence of Elsheimer combined with that of Rubens, formed him into
what he became.

When he returned to his own country he employed himself entirely in
painting small pictures filled with figures of people drinking and
merry-making, and numbers of peasants and country women. He displayed so
much taste in these that the demand for them was universal. Even Rubens
thought them an ornament to his collection.

Teniers drew his own character in his pictures, and in the subjects he
usually expressed everything tends to joy and pleasure. Always employed
in copying after nature whatsoever presented itself, he taught his two
sons, David and Abraham, to follow his example, and accustomed them to
paint nothing but from that infallible model, by which means they both
became excellent painters. These were his only disciples, and he died at
Antwerp in 1649.

The only distinction between his works and those of his son, David
Teniers the younger, is that in the latter you discover a finer touch, a
fresher brush, a greater choice of attitudes, and a better disposition
of the figures. The father, too, retained something of the tone of
Italy in his colouring, which was stronger than his son's; but his
pictures have less harmony and union--though to tell the truth, when the
father took pains to finish his picture, he very nearly resembled h