ied
as distemper dead, and crumbled away under his hand. He might have so
painted, if oil and water had been combined, and the vehicle rendered
saponaceous, which it probably was. Many artists have been led, he
observes, to change the manner from good to bad. We have a remarkable
instance in our Gainsborough, whose latter scratchy, slovenly manner
is most displeasing; nor had he at any time an imagination to justify
it, or rather to qualify it by the power of his compositions.

It is strange that he attributes slovenliness of manner to Rembrandt,
"from Avarice." Documents have recently been produced showing that
Rembrandt's goods were seized for payment of no very large debt. But
is not M. de Burtin altogether mistaken in this manner of Rembrandt?
Any of his pictures that show this slovenliness, are, we should
suspect, in those parts merely sketched in--a method agreeable to his
practice, which was to work upon and upon, glazing, and heaping
colour--a method which required, in the first instance, a loose and
undefined sketchy manner. Some few years ago there was a picture by
him exhibited at the Institution, Pall-Mall--dead game, wonderfully
painted, and evidently unfinished; a boy in the background was, as we
might term it, daubed in in a very slovenly manner, and with a
greenish colour, evidently for the sake of that colour as an
underground. Under the head "Historical" in this chapter, it is
strange to find but seven names, Rubens, Vandyke, Rembrandt, Lairesse,
Poelemburg, Albert Durer, and Hans Holbein. Even with some of these
names it is too much honour to place Lairesse and Poelemburg.

In reference to the lower classes of subjects, we think justice is
hardly done to Jan Steen, of whom, considering him even as a
colourist, more should have been said, than that he "is distinguished
by the drollery of his subjects, and by the most true and ingeniously
simple expression of the feelings of common life." All this might be
said of many others; the characteristic of Jan Steen is still wanting.
So we think as to Philip Wouverman; no notice is taken of his too
great softness, the evident fault of his manner. Nor are we satisfied
with the description of Backhuysen. It should have been noticed in
what he is distinguished from Vandervelde. His defect in composition
is so striking, as frequently to show a want of perspective in design,
and often he has no principal object in his picture. His vessels are
either too large or t