an impression of the skill in composition by which the group is
made not only a collection of portraits but a picture too. If such
groups there must be, this is the way to paint them. The Dutch in
the seventeenth century had a perfect mania for these commemorative
canvases, and there is not a stadhuis but has one or more. Rembrandt's
"Night Watch" and Hals' Haarlem groups are the greatest; but one
is always surprised by the general level of excellence maintained,
and now and then a lesser man such as Van der Helst climbs very nigh
the rose, as in his "De Schuttersmaaltyd" in the "Night Watch" room
in the Ryks Museum. The Corporation pieces of Jan van Ravesteyn in
the Municipal Museum at The Hague are also exceedingly vivid; while
Jan de Bray's canvases at Haarlem, in direct competition with Hals',
would be very good indeed in the absence of their rivals.

Among other painters who can be studied here is our Utrecht friend Jan
van Scorel, who has a large "Adam and Eve" in the passage and a famous
"Baptism of Christ"; Jan Verspronk of Haarlem, Hals' pupil, who has a
very quiet and effective portrait (No. 210) and a fine rich group of
the lady managers of an orphanage; and Cornelius Cornellessen, also of
Haarlem, painter of an excellent Corporation Banquet. In the collection
are also a very charming little Terburg (No. 194) and a fascinating
unsigned portrait of William III. as a pale and wistful boy.

Haarlem was the mother or instructor of many painters. There is Dirck
Hals, the brother of Frans, who was born there at the end of the
sixteenth century, and painted richly coloured scenes of fashionable
convivial life. He died at Haarlem ten years before Frans. A greater
was Bartholomew van der Helst, who was Hals' most assimilative
pupil. He was born at Haarlem about 1612, and is supposed to have
studied also under Nicolas Elias. His finest large work is undoubtedly