Bartsch 375 authentic etchings. 
Wilson 366 " "
Claussin 365 " "
Blanc 353 " "
Middleton-Wake 329 " "
de Seidlitz 260 " "
Legros 71-113 " "

M. de Seidlitz’s list of 260 was arrived at through consultation with several authorities, and that number is now accepted as approximately correct.

Our enthusiast knew nothing of the work of the labourers in Rembrandt’s etching vineyard.  He was quite ignorant of the expert contributions of Sir Francis Haden, P.G.  Hamerton, and Mr. Frederick Wedmore, although his father, had he been a communicative man, could have discoursed learnedly on their efforts.  Fate so willed it that he came to Rembrandt’s etchings by chance, and, being sensitively alive to beauty and idealism, they merged into his life, and became as it were a personal possession.

On a certain day, in the window of one of those delightful London shops where first editions, prints, pieces of pottery, and odds and ends tempting to the virtuoso, are exposed for sale, he saw a small opulent picture by Monticelli.  Entering to inquire the price, he discovered, as he had feared, that it was far beyond his bank balance.  At the invitation of the proprietor, who seemed delighted that his goods should be admired, he stayed to “look round.”  Strewn upon a rosewood, inlaid table were a hundred and more etchings.  Many were quite small, heads of men and women minutely and beautifully wrought; others, larger in size, were Biblical subjects; some were weird and fantastical; one, for example, showed a foreshortened figure lying before an erection, upon which a skinny bird stood with outstretched wings, flanked by ugly angel boys blowing trumpets.

[Illustration:  TITUS IN A RED CAP AND A GOLD CHAIN

1657.  The Wallace Collection, London.]

“The best are sold,” said the gentle proprietor.

The enthusiast was about to ask the name of the artist, when he suddenly caught sight of the Christ at Emmaus.  His blood stirred in him.  That little shop became an altar of art, and he an initiate.  It was not the same version as the Louvre picture, but only one mind—­the mind of Rembrandt, only one heart—­the heart of Rembrandt, could have so felt and stated the pathos and emotion of that scene.  Controlling his excitement, he turned over the prints and paused, startled, before Abraham’s Sacrifice.  What was it that moved him?  He could hardly say.  But he was moved to an extraordinary degree by that angel standing, with outstretched wings, by Abraham’s side, hiding the kneeling boy’s eyes with his hand, staying the knife at the supreme moment.  He turned the prints, and paused again before The Prodigal Son.  Some might call the face of the kneeling prodigal hideous, might assert that the landscape was slight and unfinished, that