to his mode of life, and to
its early close, the number of his works is not large, and they are now
seldom met with. No gallery is so rich in them as Munich, which
possesses nine, six of which are masterpieces. _A Party of Peasants at a
Game of Cards_, affords an example of the brightness and clearness of
those cool tones in which he evidently became the model of Teniers.
_Spanish Soldiers Throwing Dice_, is equally harmonious, in a subdued
brownish tone. _A Surgeon Removing the Plaster from the Arm of a
Peasant_ is not only most masterly and animated in expression, but is a
type of his bright, clear, and golden tone, and is singularly free and
light in touch. _Card-players Fighting_, is in every respect one of his
best pictures. The momentary action in each figure, all of them being
individualized with singular accuracy even as regards the kind of
complexion, is incomparable, the tenderness of the harmony astonishing,
and the execution of extraordinary delicacy. The only example in the
National Gallery is the _Three Boors Drinking_, bequeathed by George
Salting in 1910; and at Hertford House the _Boor Asleep_, though of
this we may without hesitation accept the description in the catalogue,
"our painting is of the highest quality, and in the audacity of its
realism rises almost to grandeur."

ADRIAN VAN OSTADE, said to have been born at Lubeck, was baptized in
1610 at Haarlem, where he studied under Frans Hals, and he formed a very
good taste in colouring. Nature guided his brush in everything he
undertook; he devoted himself almost entirely to painting peasants and
drunkards, whose gestures and most trifling actions were the subject of
his most serious meditation. The subjects of his little pictures are not
more elevated than those of Brouwer, and considerably less than those of
Teniers--they are nearly always alehouses or kitchens. He is perhaps one
of the Dutch masters who best understood chiaroscuro. His figures are
very lively, and he sometimes put them into the pictures of the best
painters among his countrymen. Nothing can excel his pictures of
stables, in which the light is spread so judiciously that all one could
wish is a lighter touch in his drawing, and a little more height in his
figures. Many of his brother Isaak's pictures are improperly attributed
to him, which, though painted in the same manner, are never of the real
excellence of Adrian's.

The _Interior with Peasants_ at Hertford House, and _The Alc