the "Banquet" to which I have just referred, but I always associate
him with his portrait of Gerard Bicker, Landrichter of Muiden, that
splendid tun of a man, No. 1140 in the Gallery of Honour at the Ryks
Museum (see opposite page 86). One of his most beautiful paintings
is a portrait of a woman in our National Gallery, on a screen in the
large Netherlands room: a picture which shows the influence of Elias
not a little, as any one can see who recalls Nos. 897 and 899 in the
Ryks Museum--two very beautiful portraits of a man and his wife.

Haarlem and Oudenarde both claim the birth of Adrian Brouwer, a painter
of Dutch topers. As to his life little is known. Tradition says that
he drank and dissipated his earnings, while his work is evidence that
he knew inn life with some particularity; but his epitaph calls him
"a man of great mind who rejected every splendour of the world and
who despised gain and riches". Brouwer, who was born about 1606,
was put by his mother, a dressmaker at Haarlem, into the studio of
Frans Hals. Hals bullied him, as he bullied his first wife. Escaping
to Amsterdam, Brouwer became a famous painter, his pictures being
acquired, among others, by Rembrandt in his wealthy days, and by
Rubens. He died at Antwerp when only thirty-three. We have nothing
of his in the National Gallery, but he is represented at the Wallace
Collection.

At Haarlem was born also, in 1620, Nicolas Berchem, painter of charming
scenes of broken arches and columns (which he certainly never saw in
his own country), made human and domestic by the presence of people
and cows, and suffused with gentle light. We have five of his pictures
in the National Gallery. Berchem's real name was Van Haarlem. One
day, however, when he was a pupil in Van Goyen's studio, his father
pursued him for some fault. Van Goyen, who was a kindly creature,