Only a dozen painters are represented in Mr. Max Rooses’ volume, and the selection of this dozen is extremely arbitrary, or would be if it were not, as we understand, the intention of the publishers to follow up the present with at least one other volume. Two women figure amongst the twelve. Miss Jacoba van der Sande Backhuysen, the aged flower-painter, who died three years ago, and then was seventy-one, deserved probably to be included. She is included. Some of her work is of freedom and vigour, if some also tends to be precise and impersonal. You cannot find in every generation or in every land a Fantin-Latour or a Francis James; and the flowers of Jacoba van der Sande Backhuysen are generally welcome. But the introduction of Henriette Ronner, a popular and quite delightful lady, with the narrow speciality of painting cats, was surely scarcely merited. As for the men, the choice is hardly less arbitrary. Israels, of course, is in his place, with his grey record of the homely and the sad; and, though Alma-Tadema is a naturalised Englishman, it is not surprising that the Dutch should be reluctant to forget what at least was his origin. But if Alma-Tadema is to be included, why is Van Haanen--a Dutchman still, probably, and the truest and subtlest of all living painters of Venetian life and character--why is Van Haanen to be left out? We receive gladly what is given us of Bisschop, Weissenbruch, and Gabriel. But the omission of such gifted Dutchmen as Mauve and Mesdag and Artz and Mathieu Maris--even in a first volume--is memorable. Further, the omission of the great name of Jacob Maris--certainly one of the most potent of all contemporary masters--would be fatal to any pretensions that the volume might make to completeness, or, if the phrase may be accorded us, to even a temporary finality. But if it becomes the duty of any qualified observer to note important omissions, compelling further instalments of the history, it must be satisfactory to him to chronicle such inclusions as those we have already cited as welcome and reasonable, and it is nothing less than a pleasure to find, not only contained, but placed in the forefront of the volume, the name and work of Johannes Bosboom. To Bosboom, and his right of place there, we will devote our remaining comments, and partly because the large English public is still strangely deficient in the appreciation of his work.