Now that I have seen so many of Jan Steen's pictures in Holland, I seem to know the whole life of the man. I know all his relations, his wife, his children, his mother, all his cousins, his enemies, his various connections--yes, I know them all by sight. These faces greet us out of all his pictures, and a collection of them would be a biography of the painter. He has often with a single stroke revealed the deepest secrets of his soul. As I think, his wife reproached him far too often about drinking too much. For in the picture which represents the bean-feast, where Jan and his family are sitting at table, we see his wife with a large jug of wine in her hand, and eyes beaming like a Bacchante's. I am convinced, however, that the good lady never indulged in too much wine; only the rogue wanted us to believe that it was his wife, and not he, who was too fond of drinking. That is why he laughs so joyously out of the picture. He is happy; he sits in the midst of his family; his little son is bean-king, and, with his tinsel crown, stands upon a stool; his old mother, with the happiest smirk of satisfaction in the wrinkles of her countenance, carries the youngest grandchild upon her arm; the musicians play their maddest dance melodies; and the frugal, sulky housewife is painted in, an object of suspicion to all posterity, as though she were inebriated. How often, during my stay at Leyden, did I think myself back for whole hours into the household scenes in which the excellent Jan must have lived and suffered. Many a time I thought I saw him bodily, sitting at his easel, now and then grasping the great jug, "reflecting and therewith drinking, and then again drinking without reflecting." It was no gloomy Catholic spectre that I saw, but a modern bright spirit of joy, who after death still visited his old work-room to paint merry pictures and to drink. Only such ghosts will our children sometimes see, in the light of day, while the sun shines through the windows, and from the spire no black, hollow bells, but red, exulting trumpet tones, announce the pleasant hour of noon. THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL. [_The Romantic School_, one of Heine's chief works, of which the most interesting portions are here given, was published in 1833. It was first written in French, as a counterblast to Madame de Staël's _De l'Allemagne_, forming a series of articles in the _Europe Littéraire_. Notwithstanding many errors of detail, and some occasional injustice, it remains by far the best account of the most important aspect of German literature. Indirectly Heine wished to lay down the programme of the future, for he regarded himself as the last of the Romantic poets, and the inaugurator of a new school. The following translation is Mr. Fleishman's; it has been carefully revised.]