his mission is obvious: the blessings of peace in contradistinction to the miseries of war are beautifully illustrated; and whether Rubens paid this compliment to the King while his negotiations were in progress, or after they were terminated, a more elegant and appropriate gift was never addressed by a minister to a monarch. The painter was splendidly remunerated, and honoured with knighthood by Charles in 1630. The object of his mission being happily accomplished, he returned to the Netherlands, where he was received with the distinction due to his splendid genius and successful services. His various and incessant labours appear to have prematurely broken his constitution; he had scarcely attained his fifty-eighth year when he was attacked by gout with more than usual severity. This painful disease was succeeded by a general debility, which obliged him to desist from the execution of large works, to relinquish all public business, and even to limit his correspondence to his particular friends, and a few distinguished artists. His letters, however, when he touches on the subject of art, rise into a strain of animated enthusiasm. He continued to work, but chiefly on small subjects, till the year 1640, when he died at the age of sixty-three. He was interred with great splendour in the church of St. James, under the altar of his private chapel, which he had ornamented with one of his finest pictures. A monument was erected to his memory by his widow and children, with an epitaph descriptive of his distinguished talents, the functions he had filled, and the honours with which he had been rewarded.