much employed by amateurs of art among the English nobility
and gentry. There is no question that Willem van de Velde the younger is
the greatest marine painter of the whole Dutch School. His perfect
knowledge of lineal and aerial perspective, and the incomparable
technique which he inherited from his school, enabled him to represent
the sea and the sky with the utmost truth of form, atmosphere and
colour, and to enliven the scene with the purest feeling for the
picturesque, with the most natural incidents of sea-faring life.

Two of his pictures at Amsterdam are particularly remarkable;
representing the English flagship _The Prince Royal_ striking her
colours in the fight with the Dutch fleet of 1666; and its companion,
four English men-of-war brought in as prizes at the same fight. Here the
painter has represented himself in a small boat, from which he actually
witnessed the battle. This accounts for the extraordinary truth with
which every particular of the scene is rendered in such small pictures,
which, combined with their delicate greyish tone, and the mastery of the
execution, render them two of his finest works. A view of the city of
Amsterdam, dated 1686, taken from the river, is an especially good
specimen of his large pictures. It is about 5 ft. high by 10 ft. wide.
The vessels in the river are arranged with great feeling for the
picturesque, and the treatment of details is admirable. His greatest
successes, however, are in the representation of calm seas, as may be
seen in a small picture at Munich. In the centre of the middle distance
is a frigate, and in the foreground smaller vessels. The fine silvery
tone in which the whole is kept finds a sufficient counter-balance of
colour in the yellowish sun-lit clouds, and in the brownish vessels and
their sails. Nothing can be more exquisite than the tender reflections
of these in the water. Of almost similar beauty is a picture of about
the same size, with four vessels, in the Cassel Gallery, which is signed
and dated 1653. As a contrast to this class of works, may be mentioned
_The Gathering Tempest_, in the Munich Gallery. This is brilliantly
lighted, and of great delicacy of tone in the distance, though the
foreground has somewhat darkened.

MEINDERT HOBBEMA (1638-1709) was a friend as well as a pupil of Jacob
Ruisdael. The fact that such distinguished painters as Adrian van de
Velde, Wouvermans, Berchem, and Lingelbach, executed the figures and
animals in hi