flash, in evanescent twilight, and rendered darkness visible. Though made to bend a stedfast eye on the bolder phenomena of nature, yet he knew how to follow her into her calmest abodes, gave interest to insipidity or boldness, and plucked a flower in every desart. Few, like Rem-` brandt, knew how to improve an accident into a beauty, or give importance to style. If ever he had a master, he had no follower: Holland was not made to comprehend his power; the succeeding school consisted of colourists, content to tip the cottage, the hamlet, the boor, the alepot, the shamble, and the haze of winter, with orient hues, or the glow of setting summer suns.

The works of Rembrandt were always held in the highest estimation, and sold at very high prices; this has recently been proved in a very extraordinary degree. A picture, by this master, was a few months ago exposed to sale by public auction, and after having been bought in by the owner, was purchased by private contract by a wealthy connoisseur, at the price of 5000l. This picture was painted for a burgomaster in Holland, and remained in his family until the subjugation of that country by the French, when it was, with all possible secrecy and dispatch, conveyed along the shores of the Baltic to a port, from whence it was shipped to England. It is unquestionably a capital picture, most of the figures are unusually fine, and the light diffused over the whole, is inimitable, and perhaps as consonant to truth and nature, as the act of painting can possibly represent. It is not only in Rembrandt's best manners, but perhaps the finest picture ever seen from his pencil: but it must be confessed, that the price said to have been paid for it, was immense.