One of his friends of that time wrote that at twenty Van Dyck was nearly as great as Rubens, though this is hardly substantiated by the verdict of time, and that being a man with very rich family connections, he could hardly be expected to leave home. On every hand we have signs of the artist's affected feeling about himself and other people. However, an annual pension from the King of England seems to have made travelling possible to this fine gentleman of lace ruffles, pale face, and lady-like ways. There is an entry about him on the royal account book of "Special service ... performed for His Majesty." Also "Antonio Van Dyck, gent., _His Majesty's servant_, is allowed to travaile 8 months, he havinge obtayneid his Majesty's leave in that behalf, as was signified to the E. of Arundel." Certainly by that time Van Dyck had become a truly great portrait painter; not the greatest, because every picture showed the same characteristics in its subject--elegance, fine clothes, languid manners, without force of great truth or any excellent moral quality to distinguish one from another. Nevertheless, the kind of painting that he did, he did better than anyone else had ever done, or probably ever will do. While in England he painted all the royalties and many aristocrats, and wherever he went he was always painting pictures of himself. He travelled about a good deal, always painting people of the same class--kings and queens and fine folk, and painting them pretty nearly all alike. When he went to Italy he was everywhere received as a great painter, but while artists agreed that his work was excellent he was not much liked by them, and many tales are told about that journey which are interesting, if not entirely true. Van Dyck was the sort of man about whom tales would be made up. One, however, sounds true. It is said that he fell in love--which of course he was always doing--with a beautiful country girl, and that for love of her he painted an altar piece into which he put himself, seated on the great gray horse which Rubens had given him. That picture is in St. Martin's Church at Saventhem, near Brussels, but although one is inclined to believe this story because it was quite the sort of thing which might be expected of Van Dyck, even this is not true, because the painting was done long after the artist had made his Italian journey, and it was commissioned by a gentleman living at Saventhem, whose daughter Van Dyck undoubtedly liked pretty well; but he made the picture for money, not for love. While he was in Italy he lived with a cardinal, and painted languid pictures of sacred subjects, which were far from being his best work. The best that he did was in portraiture. Distinguished though he was, he did not have a very good time in Italy, because he would not join the artists who worked there, nor associate with them in the least, and naturally this made him disliked.