ike Stoffels, who formed so great a part of his life. If to these
we add, with Dr Muther, his Biblical subjects, we find that there is
not so very much left, and when we turn to the life's work of Rubens,
Titian, Velasquez, or in fact any of the great painters, the difference
is at once apparent. So that in the pictures of Rembrandt we may expect
to find less of what we look for in those of others in the way of
display, but infinitely more of the qualities which, to whatever extent
they exist in other artists, are bound to be sacrificed to display. When
we are asked to a feast, we find the room brilliantly lit, and our host
the centre of an assemblage for whom he has felt it his duty to make a
display consistent with his means and his station. If we were to peep
into his house one night we might find him in a room illumined only with
his reading-lamp, absorbed in his favourite study; but instead of only
exchanging a few conventional phrases with him, and passing on to mingle
with his guests and to enjoy his hospitality, we might sit and talk with
him into the small hours. That is the difference between the success of
Hals with his _Feast of S. George_, and the failure of Rembrandt with
_The Night Watch_. Hals was at the feast, and of it. Rembrandt was
wrapped up in himself, and didn't enter into the spirit of the
company--he was carried away by his own. That is why his pictures are so
dark--not of deliberate technical purpose, like those of the
_Tenebrosi_, but because to him a subject was felt within him rather
than seen as a picture on so many square feet of canvas. When we call up
in our own minds the recollection of some event of more than usually
deep significance in our past, we only see the deathbed, the two
combatants, the face of the beloved, or whatever it may be; the
accessories are nothing, unless our imagination is stronger than the
sentiment evoked, and sets to work to supply them. It is this
characteristic which so sharply distinguishes the work of Rembrandt
from that of his closest imitators. There is a large picture in the
National Gallery, _Christ Blessing the Children_, catalogued as "School
of Rembrandt," in which we see as near an approach to his manner as to
justify the attribution, but that is all. I do not know why it has never
been suggested that this is the work of NICOLAS MAES, who was actually
his pupil, and who was one of the few Dutch artists to paint life-sized
groups, as he is known to have