It is an interesting link that binds us of Anglo-Saxon speech to this ancient city. Another and more direct link to us of America is the fact that at Leyden tarried the little company of men and women who made a deathless record when they braved the stormy sea and settled in New England. The very mention of the name Leyden calls up before us that double siege which the city withstood in 1674. The details of that awful time throng upon the mind in spite of itself. It is well that it is so, too, for it is wholesome that we, who now enjoy in our boasted liberties the fruits of that great struggle, should stop once in a while and count what it cost.

We remember the famine that followed the long waiting for William of Orange, then the pestilence, and that long delay of William and his fleet when the great leader lay sick of a fever. We remember his encouraging messages—then that speck upon the waters which grew into the succoring fleet, the breaking of the dykes, the dispersement and drowning of the hated Spaniards, the appeasing of the first hunger of the citizens by loaves flung from the ships of the rescuers, and then the long procession of the inhabitants that, even before the first hunger was wholly appeased, wound its way to the house of God to give thanks for their deliverance. All these are details that every school boy knows and yet loves to have repeated.

No wonder that William of Orange, when he heard of the victory, shed tears of joy! Not a day of the siege was without its display of heroism, but the very crown was placed on heroism when, shortly after the siege, William offered to give the city, in lieu of its great losses, a large sum of money or a university, and the citizens chose the university! It was only the year following the siege, and their losses were fresh in their minds. In spite of this, the high-souled people selected the institution of learning. It is pleasant to relate that their university grew and grew until it ranked the first in Europe, and numbered among its professors and students some of the greatest scholars of all time.

Each city of Holland is an individual, and boasts something peculiarly its own. The glory of Haarlem is its gardens, gorgeous with the most splendid flowers of Europe, among which is numbered the tulip, the blossom that made and wasted fortunes at one time. Amsterdam boasts of its diamond cutters, whose skill, unequalled elsewhere, shows the otherwise dull jewel how to shine. To Leyden, however, belongs the glory of her university, and the luster that comes from having been the home of the Elzevirs, and the birthplace of Rembrandt.

Rembrandt van Ryn, or Rembrandt of the Rhine, was the youngest child of Harmen Garritszoon van Ryn. He was born July 15th, 1607, in the comfortable home of his father, and not in his father's mill as some writers assert. There had been several other children, four boys and a girl. The father was well-to-do. He owned several houses and a large interest in one of the mills of a baker. The mother was the daughter of a baker. She was yet in the prime of life when her artist son was born, and little resembled at that time the wrinkled old ladies known among the artist's pictures as "Rembrandt's Mother." It was indeed a thrifty family of the quality that made up the best part of Holland's population.

We know little of Rembrandt's early years, though it is but natural to suppose that he was much at the mill with his father. Perhaps it was here that he first became deeply impressed with the picturesqueness of those great arms that ceaselessly beat the air.

It is evident from his erudition later in life that he was never much of a student of books, even for the short time that he studied in the university of Leyden. The smallness of his library, too, when his belongings had to be invoiced in later life, also bears out this supposition regarding his early efforts at learning.

It is certain, however, that his art training began early. Lucas van Leyden was the best engraver of his time, and in the town hall was hung one of his greatest pictures. The young Rembrandt went often to see the great work, and in after years became a friend of the artist. The boy who sought out objects of this sort to study already showed the bent of his genius. His parents recognized this, and when he was twelve they apprenticed him to Swanenburg, an aristocrat of the city, and an artist of some reputation among his townsmen. Here he remained for three years, though it is said that Rembrandt could learn only the most elementary things from Swanenburg.

His parents now felt that he was old enough to go from home to more completely fit himself for his art. After some inquiry it was decided that he should enter Peter Lastman's studio in Amsterdam. Lastman had studied in Italy and had mastered the methods of the Italians. Rembrandt entered his studio in 1624. Traces of the master's careful finish are very apparent in Rembrandt's earliest pictures. We can imagine that the youth was lonesome in the great cosmopolitan city of Amstel, and that he often longed for the mill and the well kept home with his brothers and sister and father and mother.

Whether it was this longing for home, or whether it was disgust with Lastman's commonplace art, we do not know, but Rembrandt stayed but a short time with Lastman—probably six months. He returned to Leyden to study in his own way the art he was about to glorify. He seemed to have no thought of doing what other art students of the time almost invariably did—of going to Italy to study. Lastman evidently had no notion of what a genius had escaped from his stilted training. He kept no record of his pupil and he bought none of his works when he became famous.

Although there was joy in the miller's family over the return of the favorite child, yet we know that he did not settle down to idly enjoy the home to which he was made so welcome. He almost immediately began that long list of drawings, etchings and paintings which ended only with his death. Above everything else, he seemed impressed with the necessity of painting or drawing what he really saw—of working from nature.

In those early years he painted and sketched over and over again the members of his family. His own portrait he represented in every conceivable attitude and wearing all sorts of expressions. Of portrait work he was always very fond, and ever seemed inspired in representing the faces of the aged. Among his studies of old women, though all are excellent, there are a few that stand out as especially fine. Leading them all in excellence we must place, I think, the picture in the Hermitage, in St. Petersburg, and reproduced in this sketch.

Like all of Rembrandt's greatest pictures it seems impossible to analyze its charm. We feel that here is one resting, with crossed hands, after a life of usefulness. There is in the dear old face a sweet and strong record, but better than all, the promises there indited are sweeter and stronger than the record already written:

A less spiritual face but a most attractive one, is that known as "Elizabeth Bas"  in the Ryks Museum of Amsterdam. In this old lady, with her perfectly arranged cap and ruff, with her symmetrically buttoned gown, there is a self-satisfied air, that speaks more of this world than the next. She has been and is yet a prosperous and successful dame, and every line in her face makes us feel it. Of a similar import is the old woman of the National Gallery, London.