gaze thoughtfully at
the professor, or at the spectator. Dr. Tulp indicates with his forceps one
of the tendons of the subject's left arm, and appears to be addressing the
students, or practitioners, for these seven bearded men have long passed
the age of studentship. This picture made Rembrandt's reputation. He was
but twenty-six; the world seemed to be at his feet; in the two following
years he painted forty portraits.

It was not easy for our enthusiast to explain to the ladies of the Dorcas
meeting that the dissection of a body was a suitable subject for the brush
of a painter. The Dutchmen of Rembrandt's day were not so squeamish as we
have become since. They had a passion for the literal painting of literal
things, and this picture was destined not for a Tate Gallery, but for the
wall of an operating theatre. Dr. Tulp desired a picture of himself
performing an operation, and Rembrandt gave it to him, painted in a way
that pleased his contemporaries, and that has astonished the world ever
since.

Ten years later Rembrandt painted another Doelen or Regent picture which,
under the erroneous title of _The Night Watch_, is to-day the chief
attraction of the Ryks Museum at Amsterdam. This time it was not a group of
surgeons, but a company of Amsterdam musketeers marching out under the
leadership of their captain, Frans Banning Cocq. In all these civic or
military Regent pictures, each member subscribed a sum towards the artist's
fee, and consequently each individual wished to have his money's worth in
the shape of an accurate presentation of his face and form. It is an old
quarrel between artist and public. Mr. Abbey had to face it in his
Coronation picture; Mr. Bacon had to face it in his _Return of the
C.I.V.'s_; perhaps the only folk who solved the problem were the
complaisant gentlemen who designed panoramas of cricket matches in the last
century, where each member of the company blandly faces the spectator. Much
water had flowed under Burgomaster Six's bridge since Rembrandt painted
_The Anatomy Lesson_. Then he was the obedient student. Now he was an
acknowledged master. He painted _The Sortie of the Company of Frans Banning
Cocq_ as an artist who was profoundly interested in problems of light and
shade, with strong views as to the composition of a picture, not as a
methodical and mediocre painter desirous of carrying out the commission in
a way to please his patrons. They wanted a presentment of the face and
fi