y historical analysis, and remains what he was, a puzzling,
intangible, Hamlet nature--Rembrandt." The author's theory of the
psychological document is hardly a solution of the admitted puzzle,
though it is interesting to follow him in tracing it out in Rembrandt's
religious pictures, from the _Samson_ already mentioned to his last
dated work, in 1668, the Darmstadt _Crucifixion_. What distinguishes
Rembrandt from all painters up to, and considerably later than his time,
and in particular from those of his own school, is the mental, as
compared with the physical activity that his pictures represent. Perhaps
this is only another way of stating Dr Muther's theory of the
psychological documents, but it enables us to test that theory by
comparing his work with that of others. In technical skill Beruete
claims a far higher place for Velasquez, going so far as to say that
the _Lesson in Anatomy_ is not a lesson in painting. But the difference
between the two is not as great as that in technique, though infinitely
wider in the mental process which led to the production of a picture. A
reproduction of the _Portrait of an Old Pole_, at S. Petersburg, is in
front of me, as it happens, as I am writing; and I see in this no
inferiority in firmness and precision, in truth and vigour, to any
portrait by Velasquez.

In their technical ability to present the life-like portrait of a real
man, we can place Rembrandt, Velasquez, Hals, and Van Dyck on pretty
much of a level; if we had _Van der Geest_, _Montanes_, the _Old Pole_
and the _Laughing Cavalier_ all in a row, we should find there was not
much to choose between them for downright realization. But while in the
work of Velasquez we see the working of a fine and sensitive
appreciation of his friend's personality, and the most exquisite
realization of what was before him, in that of Rembrandt we seem to see
less of the Pole and more of Rembrandt himself. It is as though he were
singing softly to himself while he was painting, thinking his own
thoughts: while Velasquez was simply concerned with the appearance and
the thoughts of his model.

That Rembrandt's pictures are self-revelations, or psychological
documents, is certainly true; and a proof of it is in the extraordinary
number of portraits of himself. The famous Dresden picture of himself
with Saskia on his knee can only be regarded in that light, and that
brings into the category all the numerous pictures of Saskia and of
Hendr