t; Ruysdael, the painter of melancholy; Hobbema, the
painter of windmills, cottages, and kitchen-gardens; and with others
who contented themselves with expressing the charm of the modest
scenes of their native land.

Side by side with landscape painting arose another branch of art,
which was peculiar to Holland--the painting of animals. Cattle are the
riches of the country, and the splendid breed of Holland is unequalled
in Europe for its beauty and fecundity. The Dutch, who owe so much to
their cattle, treat them, so to speak, as a part of the population;
they love them, wash them, comb them, dress them. They are to be seen
everywhere; they are reflected in the canals, and the country is
beautified with their innumerable black and white spots dotting the
wide meadows, giving every place an air of peace and repose, and
inspiring one with a feeling of Arcadian sweetness and patriarchal
serenity. The Dutch artists studied the differences and the habits of
these animals; they divined, one may say, their thoughts and feelings,
and enlivened the quiet beauty of the landscapes with their figures.
Rubens, Snyders, Paul de Vos, and many other Belgian artists had
painted animals with wonderful ability, but they are surpassed by the
Dutch painters, Van de Velde, Berchem, Karel du Jardin, and Paul
Potter, the prince of animal painters, whose famous "Bull" in the
gallery at the Hague deserves to be hung in the Louvre opposite
Raphael's "Transfiguration."

The Dutch have become pre-eminent in another branch of art
also--marine painting. The ocean, their enemy, their power, and their
glory, overhanging their land, ever threatening and alarming them,
enters into their life by a thousand channels and in a thousand forms.
That turbulent North Sea, full of dark color, illuminated by sunsets
of infinite gloom, and ever lashing its desolate banks, naturally
dominated the imagination of the Dutch artists. They passed long hours
on the shore contemplating the terrible beauties of the sea; they
ventured from the land to study its tempests; they bought ships and
sailed with their families, observing and painting; they followed
their fleets to war and joined in the naval battles. Thus a school of
marine artists arose, boasting such men as William Van de Velde the
father and William the son, Bakhuisen, Dubbels, and Stork.

Another school of painting naturally arose in Holland as the
expression of the character of the people and of republican