Rembrandt’s son Titus tried his skill at art, but with indifferent success.  He died while yet a youth.  Then Hendrickje passed away, and Rembrandt was alone—­a battered derelict on the sea of life.  He lost his identity under an assumed name, and sketched with chalk on tavern-walls and pavement for the amusement of the crowd.

He died in Sixteen Hundred Sixty-nine, and the expense of his burial was paid by the hands of charity.

The cost of the funeral was seven dollars and fifty cents.

In Eighteen Hundred Ninety-seven, there was sold in London a small portrait by Rembrandt for a sum equal to a trifle more than thirty-one thousand dollars.  But even this does not represent the true value of one of his pictures—­for connoisseurs regard a painting by Rembrandt as priceless.

There is a law in Holland forbidding any one on serious penalty to remove a “Rembrandt” from the country.  If any one of the men who combined to work his ruin is mentioned in history, it is only to say, “He lived in the age of Rembrandt.”

RUBENS

I was admitted to the Duke of Lerma’s presence, and took part in the embassy.  The Duke exhibited great satisfaction at the excellence and number of the pictures, which surely have acquired a certain fair appearance of antiquity (by means of my retouching), in spite even of the damage they had undergone.  They are held and accepted by the King and Queen as originals, without there being any doubt on their side, or assertion on ours, to make them believe them to be such.

—­Letter From Rubens at Madrid, to Chieppo, Secretary of
the Duke of Mantua

[Illustration:  Rubens]

The father of Peter Paul Rubens was a lawyer, a man of varied attainments and marked personality.  In statecraft he showed much skill, and by his ability in business management served William the Silent, Prince of Orange, in good stead.

But Jan Rubens had a bad habit of thinking for himself.  The habit grew upon him until the whisper was passed from this one to that, that he was becoming decidedly atheistic.

Spain held a strong hand upon Antwerp, and the policy of Philip the Second was to crush opposition in the bud.  Jan Rubens had criticized Spanish rule, and given it as his opinion that the Latin race would not always push its domination upon the people of the North.

At this time Spain was so strong that she deemed herself omnipotent, and was looking with lustful eyes towards England.  Drake and Frobisher and Walter Raleigh were learning their lessons in seafaring; Elizabeth was Queen; while up at Warwickshire a barefoot boy named William Shakespeare was playing in the meadows, and romping in the lanes and alleys of Stratford.