he married his first wife, Elizabeth Brants, and built a magnificent
house, with a saloon in form of a rotunda, which he enriched with
antique statues, busts, vases, and pictures, by the most celebrated
masters; and here, surrounded by works of art, he carried, (says his
biographer,) into execution those numberless productions of his prolific
and rich invention, which once adorned his native country, but now are
become the spoil of war, and the tokens of conquest and ambition,
shining with equal lustre among super-eminent productions of painting in
the gallery of the Louvre.

The whole of the paintings, except two, which adorn the gallery of the
Luxembourg, were executed at Antwerp, by Rubens, for Mary de Medici.

He died in the year 1640, at the age of 63; and was buried, with
extraordinary pomp, in the church of St. James, at Antwerp, under the
altar of his private chapel, which he had previously decorated with a
very fine picture.

P.T.W.

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The Public Journals.

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ADVENTURE WITH A SHARK.