as became the father-in-law of Jan Steen, called out to his other
pupils--"Berg hem" (Hide him!) and the phrase stuck, and became his
best-known name. Nicolas married a termagant, but never allowed her
to impair his cheerful disposition.

Haarlem was the birthplace also of Jacob van Ruisdael, greatest of
Dutch landscape painters. He was born about 1620. His idea was to
be a doctor, but Nicolas Berchem induced him to try painting, and we
cannot be too thankful for the change. His landscapes have a deep and
grave beauty: the clouds really seem to be floating across the sky;
the water can almost be heard tumbling over the stones. Ruisdael
did not find his typical scenery in his native land: he travelled in
Germany and Italy, and possibly in Norway; but whenever he painted
a strictly Dutch scene he excelled. He died at Haarlem in 1682; and
one of his most exquisite pictures hangs in the Museum. I do not give
any reproductions of Ruisdael because his work loses so much in the
process. At the National Gallery and at the Wallace Collection he is
well represented.

Walking up and down beneath the laughing confidence of these many
bold faces in the great Hals' room at Haarlem I found myself repeating
Longfellow's lines:--


He has singed the beard of the King of Spain,
And carried away the Dean of Jaen
And sold him in Algiers.


Surely the hero, Simon Danz, was something such a man as Hals