nters permit themselves even greater license. Steen, Potter,
Brouwer, and the great Rembrandt himself often pandered to a low and
depraved taste, and Torrentius sent forth such shameless pictures
that the provinces of Holland collect and burn them. But, overlooking
these excesses, there is scarcely anything to be found in a Dutch
gallery which elevates the soul, which awakens in the mind high and
noble sentiments. One enjoys, one admires, one laughs, and sometimes
one is silent before some landscapes, but on leaving one feels that
one has not felt a real pleasure--that something was lacking. There
comes a longing to look upon a beautiful face or to read inspired
poetry, and sometimes, unconsciously, one catches one's self
murmuring, "O Raphael!"

In conclusion, we must note two great merits in this school--its
variety and its value as an expression, as a mirror, of the country.
If Rembrandt and his followers are excepted, almost all the other
painters are quite different from each other. Perhaps no other school
presents such a number of original masters. The realism of the Dutch
painters arose from their common love for nature, but each of them has
shown in his work a different manifestation of a love all his own;
each has given the individual impression that he has received from
nature. They all set out from the same point--the worship of material
truth, but they each arrived at a different goal. Their realism
impelled them to copy everything, and the consequence is that the
Dutch school has succeeded in representing Holland much more
faithfully than any other school has illustrated any other country.
It has been said that if every other visible testimony to the
existence of Holland in the seventeenth century--its great
century--excepting the work of its artists were to disappear,
everything would be found again in the pictures--the towns, the
country, the ports, the fleets, the markets, the shops, the dress, the
utensils, the arms, the linen, the merchandise, the pottery, the food,
the amusements, the habits, the religion, and the superstitions. The
good and the bad qualities of the nation are all alike represented,
and this, which is a merit in the literature of a country, is no less
a merit in its art.

But there is one great void in Dutch painting, for which the peaceful
and modest character of the people is not a sufficient reason. This
school of painting, which is so essentially national, has, with the
excepti