rested with his companions, despoiled of his collections and his papers, and was on the point of being put to death. Conveyed to Messina he was thrown into prison, as a traitor to the order of which he had been a member. It was in vain that the French government, the Institute, the Royal Society of London, many learned men of Europe, and the king of Spain, even, exclaimed against this detention, so contrary to the rights of men; he only prócured his liberty by the victory of Marengo, and the treaty of peace which was concluded with the king of Naples. Dolomieu during his detention had been appointed professor of mineralogy to the museum of natural history. He had scarcely arrived when he commenced a course of philosophical mineralogy, and departed a little time afterwards to visit, for the last time, the Upper Alps, which he called his cheres montagnes. He fell ill upon his return, and died at the end of 1801, at a moment when he projected new journies and new discoveries, with a view of establishing in an incontestible manner, the principles of philosophical mineralogy. This he wrote in his dungeon, with a bone and the black from the smoke of his lamp, upon the margin of some books which had been left with him. Dolomieu has published a great number of works relative to the science he cultivated, of which he had extended the limits.

GERARD DOUW

Painted by Himseir

Engraved by denyi woke

London Published by Vernor. Hood & Sharpe Poultry bonadz

IN contemplating the pictures of Gerard Douw, whom the most delicate touch, and exquisite finish, have ranked with the first painters in his kind, we can scarcely believe that he formed his style in the school of Rembrandt; whose pencil is simply flowing, and his manner rough, at times even to affectation. The master and scholar, equally eminent in truth of colouring, vigour and harmony of chiaro-scur differ essentially only in one particular: Rembrandt calculated the effect of his pictures on the necessary distance between the painting and the eye of the spectator; Gerard Douw was desirous that his productions should likewise acquire admiration, by being closely beheld; and he attained the twofold object he had in view. Notwithstanding the extreme nicety of his labours, the parts are always subordinate to the whole, and we no less admire the agreement and truth of the subject, than the purity of its details.

Gerard Douw, the son of a glass-blower, of Leyden, was born in the year 1618. After having received the principles of drawing, from Bartholomew Dolendo, an engraver, and lessons of painting, from Pierre Rouwenhorn, a painter on glass, he worked some time for the churches, and entered very young into the school of Rembrandt. He quitted him to follow the bent of his own genius, and to apply himself to the scrupulous imitation of nature.

Gerard Douw devoted himself, at first, to portrait painting; but as he bestowed upon his subjects extraordinary care, and the length of his sitting became irksome to his employers; he confined himself to painting, on a small scale, domestic scenes, the interior of shops and houses. His drawing, neither dignified nor correct, conformed with the style of his compositions; nevertheless, his characters have nothing that is trivial, while his expressions are in the highest degree natural. He took infinite pains to preserve his pallet and paintings from dust, and would permit no one to see him at work. He mixed his own colours, and neglected nothing that might contribute to the perfection of his works. He acknowledged that he had employed several days in painting a hand, or a simple accessary, such as the handle of a broom. Notwithstanding the time which his pictures cost him, he produced a great number: he was uncommonly industrious, and laboured to an advanced period of life. We are ignorant of the precise year of his death; but it is stated in 1674, at the age of 64.

Gerard Douw left behind him a considerable fortune, having always been paid very extravagant prices for his works. One of his finest productions, purchased some years since, in France, for the Empress of Russia, was lost in the vessel conveying it thither. It cost 14,000 florins. That of a woman in a dropsy, now in the Napoleon Meseum, cost 30,000. Metzu, Schalcken, and Mieris, the disciples of Gerard Douw, have produced several works worthy of being compared, in point of finishing, with the most valuable of that master.