The Dutch painters agreed, in fact, with the Lincolnshire farmer in Kingsley's _Alton Locke_, whom Ruskin goes on to quote: "None o' this here darned ups and downs o' hills, to shake a body's victuals out of his inwards," but "all so vlat as a barn's vloor, for vorty mile on end--there's the country to live in!" This picture is one of four "seasons." (Spring is in the Wallace collection at Hertford House, Summer and Winter are in the Royal collection at Windsor.) It was presented to the nation by Sir George Beaumont. The painter Haydon, describing a visit to Sir George at Coleorton, writes: "We dined with the Claude and Rembrandt before us, breakfasted with the Rubens landscape, and did nothing morning, noon, or night but think of painting, dream of painting, and wake to paint again." The picture is referred to also by Wordsworth in a very interesting passage. "I heard the other day," he writes to Sir George Beaumont, "of two artists, who thus expressed themselves upon the subject of a scene among our lakes: 'Plague upon those vile enclosures!' said one; 'they spoil everything.' 'Oh,' said the other, 'I never _see_ them.' Glover was the name of this last. Now, for my part, I should not wish to be either of these gentlemen, but to have in my own mind the power of turning to advantage, wherever it is possible, every object of Art and Nature as they appear before me. What a noble instance, as you have pointed out to me, has Rubens given of this in that picture in your possession, where he has brought, as it were, a whole country into one landscape, and made the most formal partitions of cultivation, hedgerows of pollard willows, conduct the eye into the depths and distances of his picture: and thus, more than by any other means, has given it that appearance of immensity which is so striking" (_Memorials of Coleorton_, ii. 135). 67. THE HOLY FAMILY AND ST. GEORGE. _Rubens_ (Flemish: 1577-1640). _See_ 38. On the left are the usual incidents of a "Riposo," or Repose in Egypt. St. Joseph is asleep, and the mule browses on the bank of the stream, while John the Baptist and attendant angels play with the Lamb. The Holy Child is on its mother's knee, and to them St. George is presenting his proselyte, the heathen princess whom he had saved from the dragon (see under 16). The dragon, now bridled with her girdle, follows her meekly, and St. George, as he introduces her to the mysteries of Christianity, plants the banner of the Faith. With the holy mother is St. Mary Magdalen--a penitent sinner herself, like the heathen princess, whom she now ushers into the Holy Presence.