of rhetoric, and (1644) chairman of the painters corporation at Haarlem. But as a man he had failings unhappily com mon to persons of his professon in that age. He so ill- treated his first wife that she died prematurely in 1616 ; and he barely saved the character of his second by marry ing her in 1617. Another defect was partiality to drink, which led him into low company. Still he brought up and supported a family of ten children with success till 1654, when the forced sale of his pictures and furniture, at the suit of a baker to whom he was indebted for bread and money, brought him to absolute penury. Subse quently to this he was reduced to still greater straits, and his rent and firing were paid by the municipality, which afterwards gave him (1664) an annuity of 200 florins. We may admire the spirit which enabled him under these circumstances to produce some of his most striking produc tions. We regret to find his widow seeking outdoor relief from the guardians of the poor and dying obscurely in a
hospital.Hals s pictures illustrate the various strata of society into which his misfortunes led him. His banquets or meetings of officers, of sharpshooters, and guildsmen are the most interesting of his works. But they are not more characteristic than his low-life pictures of itinerant players and singers. His portraits of gentlefolk are true and noble, but hardly so expressive as those of fishwives and tavern heroes. His first master was Van Mander the painter and historian, of whom he possessed some pictures which went to pay the debt of the baker above alluded to. But he soon left behind him the practice of the time illustrated by Schoreel and Moro, and, emancipating himself gradually from tradition, produced pictures remarkable for truth and dexterity of hand. We prize in Rembrandt the golden glow of effects based upon artificial contrasts of low light in immeasurable gloom. Hals was fond of day light of silvery sheen. Both men were painters of touch, but of touch on different keys. Rembrandt was the bass, Hals the treble. The latter is perhaps more expressive than the former. He seizes with rare intuition a moment in tha life of his sitters. What nature displays in that moment, he reproduces thoroughly in a very delicate scale of colour, and with a perfect mastery over every form of expression. He becomes so clever at last that exact tone, light and shade, and modelling are all obtained with a few marked and fluid strokes of the brush.
In every form of his art we can distinguish his earlier style from that of later years. Two Boys Playing and Singing in the gallery of Cassel, and a Banquet of Officers (1616) in the museum of Haarlem, exhibit him as a careful draughtsman capable of great finish, yet spirited withal. His flesh, less clear than it afterwards becomes, is pastose and burnished. Further on he becomes more effective, displays more freedom of hand, and a greater command of effect. At this period we note the beautiful full length of a young lady of the Berensteyn family in the house of that name at Haarlem, and a splendid full length of a Patrician leaning on a Sword in the Lichtenstein collection at Vienna. Both these pictures are equalled by the Banquets of Officers of 1627, and a Meeting of the Company of St George of 1633 in the Haarlem Museum. A picture of the same kind in the town-hall of Amsterdam, with the date of 1637, suggests some study of the masterpieces of Rembrandt, and a similar influence is apparent in a picture of 1641 at Haarlem, representing the "Regents" of the Company of St Elizabeth. But Rembrandt s example did not create a lasting impression on Hals. He gradually dropped more and more into grey and silvery harmonies of tone ; and two of his canvases, executed in 1664, the Regents and Regentesses of the Oudemannenhuis at Haarlem, are masterpieces of colour, though in substance all but monochromes.
There are portraits by Hals in many Continental galleries. Comparatively few have found their way to England. Sir 1-iichard Wallace s Cavalier, Lord Chesterfield s Toper, Lord Radnor s Like nesses of an Old Man and Woman, are the best that we can point out. Abroad a better selection may be found. At Amsterdam is the celebrated Flute Player, once in the Dupper collection at Dort, and the pair called Hals and his Wife ; at Brussels, the patrician Heythuysen ; at the Louvre, Descartes ; at Dresden, the painter Tan der Vinne. Hals s sitters were taken in every class of society, admirals, generals, and burgomasters pairing with merchants, lawyers, clerks. To register all that we find in public galleries would involve much space. There are nine portraits at Berlin, five at Frankfort, six at Cassel, five at St Petersburg, three at the Louvre, two at Brussels, four at Dresden, two at Gotha. In private collections, chiefly in Paris, Haarlem, and Vienna, we lind an equally important number. Amongst his most successful repre sentations of fishwives and termagants we should distinguish the Hille Bobbe of the Berlin Museum, and the Hille Bobbe with her Son in the Dresden Gallery. Itinerant players are best illustrated in the Neville-Goldsmith collection at the Hague, and the Six col lection at Amsterdam. Boys and girls singing, playing, or laugh ing, or men drinking, are to be found in the gallery of Schwerin, in the Arenberg collection, and in the royal palace at Brussels. The latest works of Hals in each of these branches are distinguished. by comparatively black shadow.
Of the master s numerous family none has left a name except Frans Hals the younger, born about 1622, who died in 1669. His pictures represent cottages and poultry; and the Vanitas at Berlin, a table laden with gold and silver dishes, cups, glasses, and books is one of his finest works and deserving of a passing glance.
Quite in another form, and with much of the freedom of the elder Hals, Dirk Hals, his brother (born at Haarlem, died 1656), is a painter of festivals and ball-rooms. But Dirk had too much of the freedom and too little of the skill in drawing which characterized his brother. He remains second on his own ground to Palamedes. A fail- specimen of his art is a Lady playing a Harpsichord to a Young Girl and her Lover in the Van der Hoop collection at Amsterdam. More characteristic, but not better, is a large company of gentlefolk rising from dinner, in the academy at Vienna.
HALSTEAD, a market-town of England, county of Essex, is situated on the Colne Valley Railway and on a steep acclivity rising from the river Colne, 48 miles N.E. of London. Though irregularly built it has a neat appearance, and most of the streets are wide and clean. The principal buildings are the parish church, a fine Gothic edifice in the Perpendicular style, containing a monument supposed to be that of Sir Robert Bourchier, lord chancellor to Edward III.; the cburch of the Holy Trinity, in the Early English style, erected in 1844 ; the Lady Mary Ramsay s grammar school, the mechanics institute, and the corn exchange. The principal industries are the manufacture of silk, crape, and velvet. Straw plaiting, at one time the principal occupation of the women, is now nearly extinct. The population of the town in 1871 was 5783, and of the parish 6904.
Scottish divine, was born at Dupplin, near Perth, on the 25th of December 1674. His father, one of the ejected ministers, having died in 1682, he was taken by his mother in 1685 to Rotterdam, where he for some time attended with advantage the school founded by Erasmus. On his return to his native country in 1687 he completed his elementary education at Perth and Edinburgh, and in 1692 entered the university of St Andrews. In 1700 he was ordained minister of the parish of Ceres, and in 1710 he was recommended by the synod of Fife for the chair of theology in St Leonard s College, St Andrews, to which accordingly he was appointed by Queen Anne. After a brief term of active professorial life he died in 1712. The works by which he continues to be known, especially in Scotland, were all of them published after his death.
