of himself, "amuses himself with being ambassador." "So said one with whom, but for his own words, we might have thought that effort had been absorbed in power, and the labour of his art in its felicity." How hard he laboured is known by the enormous number of his works which still survive, by the large fortune he amassed, and by the great request in which his talents were held. "Whatever work of his I may require," wrote a celebrated Antwerp printer, "I have to ask him six months before, so as that he may think of it at leisure, and do the work on Sundays or holidays; no week-days of his could I pretend to get under 100 florins." But of the several thousands of works ascribed to the master, many were painted from his sketches by pupils and assistants. "To put it plainly, Rubens established a picture factory at Antwerp. He was thus enabled to paint portraits, landscapes, hunting scenes, and pictures of _genre_, as well as to undertake several series of gigantic decorations as important as those of Raphael or Michael Angelo. The master made small, lively sketches of the work to be done, the pupils laid them in, each doing what suited his talent, while Rubens reserved to himself the duty of bringing the picture together; in some cases by using the work beneath as a ground for almost complete repainting, in most cases by mainly correcting here and there, or enhancing the effect with a few brilliant and dexterous touches" (R. A. M. Stevenson's "_Portfolio_ monograph" on Rubens). Brueghel, Snyders, Teniers, and Van Dyck were among his assistants. Some of Rubens's letters contain curious information on his methods. Thus he offers to Sir Dudley Carleton certain pictures in exchange for a collection of antique marbles. Among them was to be "'A Last Judgment,' begun by one of my pupils after an original which I made of much larger size for the Prince of Neubourg, who paid me for it 3500 florins in ready money. As the present piece is not quite finished, I will retouch it altogether by myself, so that it can pass for an original: 1200 florins."