Rotterdam has some excellent pictures in its Boymans Museum; but they
are, I fancy, overlooked by many visitors. It seems no city in which to
see pictures. It is a city for anything rather than art--a mercantile
centre, a hive of bees, a shipping port of intense activity. And
yet perhaps the quietest little Albert Cuyp in Holland is here, "De
Oude Oostpoort te Rotterdam," a small evening scene, without cattle,
suffused in a golden glow. But all the Cuyps, and there are six,
are good--all inhabited by their own light.

Among the other Boymans treasures which I find I have marked (not
necessarily because they are good--for I am no judge--but because
I liked them) are Ferdinand Bols fine free portrait of Dirck van
der Waeijen, a boy in a yellow coat; Erckhart's "Boaz and Ruth," a
small sombre canvas with a suggestion of Velasquez in it; Hobbema's
"Boomrijk Landschap," one of the few paintings of this artist that
Holland possesses. The English, I might remark, always appreciative
judges of Dutch art, have been particularly assiduous in the pursuit of
Hobbema, with the result that his best work is in our country. Holland
has nothing of his to compare with the "Avenue at Middelharnis,"
one of the gems of our National Gallery. And his feathery trees may
be studied at the Wallace Collection in great comfort.

Other fine landscapes in the Boymans Museum are three by Johan
van Kessel, who was a pupil of Hobbema, one by Jan van der Meer,
one by Koninck, and, by Jacob van Ruisdael, a corafield in the sun
and an Amsterdam canal with white sails upon it. The most notable
head is that by Karel Fabritius; Hendrick Pot's "Het Lokstertje"
is interesting for its large free manner and signs of the influence
of Hals; and Emmanuel de Witte's Amsterdam fishmarket is curiously
modern. But the figure picture which most attracted me was "Portret