"I could n't see you drown, you know. Hello! you are not running away?" for Priscilla was beginning to edge off with her head down. "There is the umbrella yet; don't you see it sticking in the bushes across stream? Just wait a second- there is a ford a couple of yards above. I'll go over and rescue your gallant companion."

So, very kindly-for he was a great, big young man of eighteen-encouraging the little girl, who he saw was struggling to keep back her tears, he sprang through the bushes. Priscilla peered across the water: oh, that horrid owl! She was sure, as it stuck its pert head between the green leaves, it ogled her with a worse stare than ever. Take that dreadful thing back again? Pris turned at the thought and fled, and, I dare say, was half-way home before the astonished and good-natured fellow had made his way back to where he had left her.

Priscilla did not feel very comfortable when she saw her mother, but, however vain and foolish she might be, she was never untruthful, and told her story from beginning to end very faithfully.

"You naughty, naughty child!" said Mrs. Prue, pathetically aghast. "Of all things, to throw that elegant present away! You are so queer, Priscilla. If I thought there was the least use, I 'd

send you back. But you will never have such another."

"I hope not!" said Pris. "I hate owls, and it was a particelyer awful owl, as wise as Somolon, and kept saying 'Vanity of vanities,' like the text, in my head. Did I have a fairy godmother, Mamma?" she continued, reflectively.

“Did you have a fairy godmother!" cried Mrs. Prue, and then she laughed. "Well, well, perhaps you did, you funny child."

"Then," said Pris to herself, "I believe that was an enchanted umbrella."

And she, therefore, was properly afraid of it. The next morning, as, with a heart much lightened, Priscilla came down the stairs, that unimpressible expressman solemnly handed in a package at Mrs. Prue's front door. He said not a word, but immediately departed.

"Another umbrella!" cried Pris with a tremble, but it was n't. It was n't another—it was the same one. And who but the fairy godmother could have sent it back, or what mysterious change had taken place in its nature so that Miss Pris had never a vainglorious thought peeping into her mind while that sheltered her head but it suddenly shut up and quenched it, is more than Mrs. Prue, or Priscilla, or I could ever make out.

FLEMISH ARTISTS.

AFTER the Italian painters, the Flemish artists were next in importance. Perhaps they might as well have been called Belgian artists,— for Flanders was a part of Belgium, but as the chief schools of the early Belgian painters were in the Flemish provinces of Belgium, the terms “Flemish art" and "Flemish painters" were adopted, and the last was applied to Belgian artists even when they were not natives of Flanders.

The chief interest connected with the beginning of the Flemish school is in the fact that one of its earliest masters introduced the use of oil colors. On account of this great advance in the mechanical part of painting, there went out from this school an influence the benefits of which can not be overestimated. This influence affected the schools of the world, and though painting had reached a high point in Italy before the first steps in it were taken

in Flanders, yet this discovery of the benefit of oil colors laid the broadest foundation for the fame and greatness of the Venetian and other Italian painters who profited by it.

HUBERT VAN EYCK.

THIS artist was the eldest of a family of painters. He was born in the small market town of Maaseyck about 1366, after which time his family removed to Ghent. He was not made a member of the Guild of Painters in Ghent until 1412, and we can give no satisfactory account of his life previous to that event, which occurred when he was forty-six years old.

From general facts which have been brought together from one source and another, it is believed that he attended to the education of his brother Jan, his sister Margaret, and his younger brother

Philip II., of Spain, was anxious to buy this altar-piece, and when that could not be done, he had a copy made by Michael Coxcien. That painter devoted two years to the task, and was paid four thousand florins for his work. This copy is also in separate galleries, three large figures being in the Pinakothek at Munich.

It seems very strange that so few pictures can be said to have been painted by Hubert van Eyck, for he lived to old age and must have finished many works; but such troublous times came to Belgium, and so many towns were sacked, that vast numbers of art treasures were lost and destroyed, and no doubt the pictures of Hubert van Eyck perished in this way.

No work of its time was better than the Ghent altar-piece: its composition and color were of the best then known; the figures were painted in a broad, grand style; the landscapes were admirable, and the whole was finished with the careful delicacy of a master in painting.

JAN VAN EYCK.

THIS artist brought the discoveries of his brother to greater perfection, and became a very famous man. It appears that the use of oils had been known to painters for a long time, in one way and another, and a dark, resinous varnish had been in use. But the Van Eycks found a way to purify the varnish and make it clear and colorless; they also mixed their colors with oil, instead of the gums and other substances which had been employed. By these means they made their pictures much richer and clearer in color than those of other painters.

Antonello da Messina, an Italian painter, happened to see a picture by Jan van Eyck, which had been sent to Naples. He immediately determined to go to Flanders to try to learn the secret of the color used in this painting. He became the pupil of Jan van Eyck, and remained near him as long as he lived. On his master's death, Antonello went to Messina, but shortly after settled in Venice, where he became very popular as a portrait-painter. The nobility flocked to him for their portraits, and everywhere his beautiful color was praised. At first, his whole manner showed the effect of his association with Jan van Eyck; but soon his Italian nature wrought a change in his style of painting, though his color remained the

same.

It is said that Antonello told his secret to no one except Domenico Veneziano, his favorite pupil, who went to Florence to live, and thus made the

Thus you see that I had good reason for saying that the Van Eycks laid a broad foundation for the great fame of those Italians who excelled in color. These early Flemish masters first used the oil colors. Antonello learned their use from Jan van Eyck; then going to Venice, Antonello influenced the Bellini, and from them the next step brought out the perfect coloring of Giorgione and Titian, for the latter was a young man at the time of Antonello's death. It is curiously interesting thus to trace the effect of the study of Hubert van Eyck upon an art of which he knew almost nothing, and which differed so much from his

own.

Let us now return to Jan van Eyck. He had a more prosperous life than his brother Hubert, for he became the favorite of royal patrons, and was rapidly advanced in fame and riches. He was not only a court artist, but an embassador; on several occasions he executed secret missions to the satisfaction of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in whose service he was thus employed. In 1428, his patron sent him to Portugal to paint the portrait of the Princess Isabella, whom the Duke proposed to marry for his third wife. After the portrait was completed, the painter made a pleasure trip through Portugal and a part of Spain; he visited the Alhambra, and received flattering attentions wherever he paused in his journey.

Meantime, the portrait had been sent to Bruges for the inspection of the Duke; the messengers returned with an assent to the marriage, which took place by proxy, in July, and was followed by gayeties and feastings until September, when the bride, with her brothers, embarked for Belgium. A fearful storm tossed the fourteen vessels of the fleet here and there, and finally the Princess was landed in England, and did not reach Bruges until Christmas Day. Then the marriage was celebrated with great pomp, and Jan van Eyck was paid a handsome sum for his services in bringing about this happy result.

Duke Philip was fond of Jan van Eyck, and was in the habit of visiting his studio and treating him as an equal; he was also very liberal in his gifts to the painter.

The works of Jan van Eyck are to be seen in the museums of Europe. His portraits are admirable,

and his fondness for this kind of painting caused him, almost unconsciously, to give the figures in his subject-pictures the appearance of portraits. He painted well draperies and all sorts of stuffs; he loved to introduce landscapes as the background of historical pictures, and he is known to have painted one landscape with no other subject introduced. One picture by Jan van Eyck, which is in the National Gallery, London, is said to have been bought by the Princess Mary, sister of Charles V., and Governess of the Netherlands. She gave to the barber who had owned it, as the price of this work, a position worth one hundred gulden* a year. However, I must tell you that, important as these early Flemish pictures are in the history of Art, I do not think that they would please your taste as well as the works of the Italian masters of whom I have already written in this series of papers. The Flemish artists were far more realistic than the early Italian painters; they tried to paint objects just as they saw them, without throwing the grace of beautiful imaginations about their subjects; they lacked ideality, which is a necessity to an artist, as it is to a poet, and for this reason there was a stiffness and hardness in their pictures which we do not find in the works of Raphael or Titian.

QUINTIN MASSYS, OR MATSYS.

IN time the Flemish painters grew more individual, and there was a greater variety in their works. Some of them traveled in foreign countries, and thus learned to modify their manner in a measure, though their nationality was always shown in their pictures. At length a powerful artist appeared in Quintin Massys, or Matsys, who may be called the founder of the Antwerp school of painters; he was the greatest Belgian master of his time.

How

Quintin was born at Antwerp about 1460, and was descended from a family of painters. ever, in youth he chose the trade of a blacksmith, and works in wrought-iron are shown, in Antwerp and Louvain, which are said to have been made by him. When about twenty years old, he fell in love with the young daughter of an artist. He asked her father's permission to marry her, but was refused on account of his trade, the father declaring that the daughter should marry no one but a painter.

removed his remains, and reburied them in front of the Cathedral. One part of the inscription which commemorates his life and work declares that "Love converted the Smith into an Apelles."

Massy's greatest work was an altar-piece in three parts, which is now in the Museum of Antwerp. His manner of representing sacred subjects shows a tender earnestness which recalls the deep religious feeling of earlier painters. In his representations of the common occurrences of life he was very happy: lovers, frightful old women, misers, and money-changers grew under his brush with great truthfulness. His own portrait and that of his second wife are in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence. One of his most celebrated pictures is "The Miser," at Windsor Castle. The works of Massys are seen in all the principal galleries of Europe, and those that are well worthy of notice number about seventy.

This painter may be said to have been the last artist of the period which preceded him and the first of that which followed; for from his time the⚫ Antwerp school rapidly grew in importance. Massys was followed by the Breughels, who painted scenes from every-day life with startling reality; by the Pourbuses, whose portraits, after the lapse of three centuries, are still famous; by Paul Bril and his charming landscapes; by many other important painters, whose pictures are among the art treasures of the world, and, at last, by

PETER PAUL RUBENS.

THIS man, who was a learned scholar and an accomplished diplomat, as well as a great painter, was born at Siegen in 1577. His father was one of the two principal magistrates of the city of Antwerp, and his mother, whose name was Mary Pypeling, belonged to a distinguished family. When the artist was born, his family had been forced to leave Antwerp on account of a civil war which was then raging; his birthday, the 29th of June, was the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, and from this circumstance he was christened with the names of the two great Apostles.

Rubens was a scholar from his early days, and his talent for drawing soon decided him to be a painter. He studied his art first in the school of Adam van Noort, where he was thoroughly trained in the first rudiments of painting; later he was four years in the studio of Otho Vænius, whose cultivated mind and taste were of great advantage to the young man.