turn, and was far from growing wealthy. One day it happened that the king was uttering complaints to the duke of Norfolk of the low state of his finances: Vandyke was then employed in making his majesty's portrait; and the king turning round to him, said, “Well, chevalier, do you know what it is to be in want of five or six thousand guineas?" "Yes," he replied, "may it please your majesty ; an artist who has always open table for his friends, and open purse for his mistresses, cannot help sometimes feeling the emptiness of his treasury." In this short answer he gave a true representation of his usual mode of living; his wants, indeed, were such, that finding the gains from his profession, enormous as they were, still very inadequate to his purposes, he was weak enough to turn alchymist, in the hope of enriching himself by finding out the true elixir of wealth.

THE SOLDIER TURNED PAINTER.

GIACOMO CORTESE (called "il Borgognone," from Burgundy, his birth-place,) was a soldier of fortune, who became enamoured of painting during his Italian campaigns. The battle of Constantine in the Vatican is related to have first fixed his vocation. He exchanged his sword for the pencil, and studied in most of the principal cities of Italy; but an unfortunate love affair finally drove him into the sanctuary of the church, and he took the habit

of the Jesuits at Rome, where he continued till the year 1676 to pray and paint, and "to fight all his battles o'er again" with such life and energy that (says one of his biographers of his pictures) "sembra di vedere il Coraggio che combatte per l'onore e par la vita; e di udirne il suono delle trombette, l'amtrire de' cavalli, e le strida di che cade"-one seems to see courage fighting for honour and for life, and to hear the sound of the trumpets, the neighing of the horses, and the screams of the wounded.

GERARD DOUW'S METHOD OF PAINTING.

GERARD DOUW was the son of a glass painter, which profession he also followed for some time. During the three years he was under Rembrandt he made extraordinary progress; but seemed more taken with his master's earlier and more finished manner, than with his latter rapid mode of execution. He evidently had a mind naturally turned to precision and exactness; and would have equally shewn this quality in any other profession which he might have happened to have fallen into. It is a fact well known, that, in a portrait which he made of a certain Madame Spierings, he consumed no less than five days' labour on one of the hands alone. Methodical and regular in all his movements, he ground his colours, and made his brushes, all with his own hand, and kept them always locked up in

his box, made for that purpose, that they might be free from soil. Scarcely ever was a breath of air allowed to ventilate his painting room, for fear of its raising the dust; he entered it as softly as he could tread, and, after taking his seat, waited some moments till the air was settled, before he opened his box, and set to his work, Into this sanctum, as may be imagined, few persons ever were admitted; Sandrart and Peter de Laer were, however, of this number, and seem to have been astonished at the extreme attention he paid to detail, which, though conversant with his works, was more, even than they were prepared to expect. He had then been three days employed in painting a single broom. Gerard Douw was in the habit of using a very ingenious artifice to assist his eye in representing the minutiæ of objects: this consisted of a concave mirror, in which his model was reflected; and on its front was placed a screen, divided by threads into several square compartments; then, by tracing corresponding marks on his canvass, he transferred the objects to it, according to the usual rules adopted for reduction.

His assiduity and skill were paid by the extreme high prices at which his pictures sold, and he well deserved it; for with all his minuteness, he makes no sacrifice of other excellencies in order to attain it. One of his chief patrons, M. Spierings, (the