nd Rembrandt in the focus
of the most active, the most inspiring and the richest art of celebrated
masters that the world had ever known except during the preceding
century in Italy. Professors were not lacking, the choice was only too
embarrassing. Wynants was forty-six; Cuyp, forty-two; Terburg,
thirty-nine; Ostade, thirty-seven; Metzu, thirty-two; Wouwerman,
twenty-seven; and Berghem, about his own age, was twenty-three years of
age. Many of the youngest even were members of the Guild of St. Luke.
Finally, the greatest of all, the most illustrious, Rembrandt, had
already produced the _Night Watch_, and he was a master to tempt one.

What became of Paul Potter? How did he isolate himself in the heart of
this rich and swarming school, where practical ability was extreme,
talent universal, style somewhat similar, and, nevertheless--a beautiful
thing at that happy time--the methods of feeling were very individual?
Had he any fellow-pupils? We do not see them. His friends are unknown.
He was born,--it is the utmost we can do to be sure of the exact year.
He reveals himself early, signing a charming etching at fourteen; at
twenty-two he is ignorant on many points, but on others his maturity is
unexampled. He laboured and produced work upon work; doing some things
admirably. He accumulated them in a few years in haste and abundance, as
if death were at his heels, and yet with an appreciation and a patience
which render this prodigious labour miraculous. He married, young, for
any one else but very late for him, for it was on July 3, 1650; and on
August 4, 1654, four years afterwards, death seized him in the height of
his glory, but before he had learned his whole ground. What could be
simpler, shorter, and more fully accomplished? Genius and no lessons,
ardent study, an ingenuous and able product, attentive observation and
reflection; add to this great natural charm, the gentleness of a
meditative mind, the appreciation of a conscience filled with scruples,
the sadness inseparable from solitary labour, and, perhaps, the natural
melancholy belonging to sickly beings, and you very nearly have all Paul
Potter.

To this extent, if we except its charm, _The Bull_ at The Hague
represents him wonderfully well. It is a great _study_, too great from
the common-sense point of view, not too great for the research of which
it was the object, nor for the instruction that the painter drew from
it.

Reflect that Paul Potter, compared w