[Illustration:  PORTRAIT OF AN OLD LADY IN A VELVET HOOD, HER HANDS FOLDED

1650.  The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.]

At the age of fourteen Rembrandt entered at Leyden University, but showed little inclination for books.  He preferred Lucas van Leyden to Virgil, and his parents, accepting the situation, allowed him to study painting under Swanenburch, and later in the studio of Lastman at Amsterdam.  After a few months with Lastman he returned to Leyden, “to practise painting alone and in his own way.”  So much for his schooling.  At the age of twenty-one he produced a picture called St. Paul in Prison, and Gerard Dou became his pupil.  In 1631 he left Leyden and settled in Amsterdam.  In 1634 he married Saskia van Uylenborch, who bore him three children, and Titus was the youngest.  Some years later he had two daughters by his servant, Hendrickje Stoffels.  Perhaps he married her.  She was a kind, good soul, faithful and loyal to her master.  His friends do not seem to have disapproved of this irregular union, but the Consistory of her church summoned Hendrickje before them and forbade her to communicate.  At the age of fifty Rembrandt was declared bankrupt.  From that date until his death troubles encompassed him; but he was happy so long as he could paint undisturbed.  His son Titus died when he was sixty-two, and the following year Rembrandt died, and was buried at a cost of thirteen florins.

Our enthusiast did not find it easy to manipulate these facts, and he elected to slur over the Hendrickje episode; but he was able to interest the ladies of the Dorcas meeting by showing them some of Rembrandt’s pictures.  He collected a series of photographs of the portraits and paintings, including his favourite pictures, such as The Jewish Rabbi in the National Gallery, Titus and The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant in the Wallace collection, Rembrandt’s Mother and The Singing Boy at Vienna; and he invested sixpence in a little manual recently published, called The Masterpieces of Rembrandt, containing sixty excellent reproductions of his portraits and pictures.

He also displayed photographs of the remarkable series in the Hermitage Gallery at St. Petersburg:  The Descent from the Cross, with the brilliant light focussed on the body and winding sheet, and fading away into the darkness of the background; that radiant portrait of Saskia painted just before her marriage to Rembrandt, known as Flora with a Flower-trimmed Crook, standing at the opening of a grotto, with a wreath of flowers upon her head, and the light falling upon her face and gay attire; The Holy Family, the father working at his daily task in the background, and the Virgin, who has laid down her book, drawing aside the curtain from the cot to gaze upon the Child.  He explained that Rembrandt, in placing this scene in a humble Dutch cottage, knew that he could express the Biblical story better that way than if he had painted an imaginary scene after the manner of the Italians.