LOW COUNTRIES, ENGRAVERS OF THE. 



ing his taftc for the arts, placed;him under Giles Valkenbourg, 

 from w!iom he learned the rudiments of art, and whom he 

 afterward accompanied to Italy. 



Italy was at that period at once the grave and conferva- 

 tory of ancient art ; and fculptural wonders were every day 

 dug from the ruins of the claflical ages. The knowledge 

 and opportunities of vander Borcht during his refidence in 

 that country, enabled him to form a collection, which the 

 Enghfh earl of Arundel had afterward the honour of pur- 

 chaiing. 



From Italy our artift returned to Frankenthal, where he 

 refided fome time, and afterwards migrated to England, but 

 finally returned to the Netherlands. His portrait was en- 

 graven by Hollar, from a piAure by his fon, who, being of 

 the fame name as his father, is often confounded with him ; 

 but the engravings which are moft generally afcribed to the 

 former, are " The Holy Virgin and Child,'' after Parme- 

 giano, engraved at London in 1637, in fmall folio. "A 

 Dead Chrill, before the Entrance of the Sepulchre," 1114^0. 

 after a copy b)' Parmegiano trom Rafphael's original, in the 

 Arundelian coUeftion. And a fet of twenty-two in fmall 

 folio, of which the fubjects difplay the entrance of the 

 eleftor palatine Frederic, with Ehzabeth, the princefs royal 

 of England, into Frankenthal. It was accompanied with 

 defcriptions by Miroul, and was pubUlhed in the year 

 1613. 



Henry vander Borcht, the younger, was born at Franken- 

 thal in the year 1620, and was the fon of the preceding 

 artift. At an early period of life he appears to have dif- 

 covered talents both as an artift and an antiquary. The 

 earl of Arundel, when on his travels, found Henry at 

 Frankfort, and fent him into Italy to Mr. Petty, who was 

 then coUefting art and antiquities for his lordfhip, and hence 

 he was retained in the fervice of that nobleman as long as 

 he lived. 



After the death of his patron, Van der Borcht was em- 

 ployed by the prince of Wales, (afterwards Charles II.) 

 and lived in efteem at London, but afterwards returned to 

 Antwerp, where he died at an advanced age. The portrait 

 of Vander Borcht, the younger, was engraved by Hollar, 

 after J. Meyfens, and his monogram will be found among 

 thofe of our engravers of the Low Countries. 



The following engravings, which are chiefly from the 

 ArundeUan colledion, are attributed to him. " Abraham 

 entertaining the three Angels," after Louis Caracci ; " The 

 Infant Chrift embracing St. John," copied from a print by 

 Guide ; " A female Figure offering a Cup to another who is 

 kneeling,'' after Correggio ; and " Apollo and Cupid," in 

 an oval ; all of 410. fize. This artift ufed a monogram, for 

 which fee our Plate III. of thofe ufed by the engravers of 

 the Low Countries. 



Count Henry Goudt, of whom we fhall next treat, is 

 among the rare inftances that art may boaft, and that For- 

 tune in her caprice has allowed us to exhibit, the tenour of 

 whofe life and purfuits is in diredt hoftihty to an un- 

 generous and immoral maxim, which, promulgated by the 

 proad and unfeeling among lax philofophers, has obtained 

 but too much credit and currency throughout Europe. 



The maxim to which we here allude, is, that the goad- 

 ings of fhe iron (which fophiftry has mifnamed the golden) 

 fpur of neceflity is indifpenfable to the due progrefs of 

 genius. Count Goudt was born in affluent circumftances, 

 and of a noble family, and yet became a great artift, as 

 well as an exemplary man. 



Among that clafs of fociety, toward which meritorious 

 profeffors of the fine arts are allowed to look for patronage 

 and encouragement, are fome— always more confiderable 



from their rank and infectious example, than from then- 

 numbers— that would juftify the perverfion of riches and 

 of rcafoning, by perverting Nature alfo, and who, miftak- 

 ing what might pofiibly be applicable to the exertions of 

 •mere manual iiiduftry, for the fprings of mental cxpanfion, 

 imagine, and inculcate with all the luxurious languor of in- 

 finite complacency, that the plants of genius thrive beft in 

 a rugged foil ; that the chilling damps of poverty fupply 

 the ardours of talent ; that ftarvation is the very pabulum 

 of ability ; and that mind foars the higher for being chained 

 to the earth. Before thefe intellectual arithmeticians of 

 exquifite feeling and refined liberality, proceed to calculate 

 by what inverle ratio of difcouragement the apotheofis of 

 genius may be confummated in the cxtinftion of its final 

 fpark, it might be well for them to attend to the leading 

 traits which mark the life of this diftinguilhed enoraver. 



Henry de Goudt, knight of the palatinate, and ufually 

 called (but whether by courtcfy or by right we are igno- 

 rant) count Goudt, was born of a noble family at Utrecht, 

 in the year 1 5 85. 



Among the few profeflions which, from the ftate of Euro- 

 pean manners and philofophy, are allotted to gentlemen of a 

 certain rank, young Goudt obferved, that in the army officers 

 were, by the very nature of the tenure by which they held 

 their commiffions, obliged to refign the nobleft charafteriftic 

 of their nature as men, — namely, the privilege of judging 

 for themfelves ; and refign it too, in cafes touching the lives 

 and liberties of others, which of all poffible cafes are the 

 moft interefting and important to minds of feeling. Young, 

 and aftive-mindod, but tender-minded, as he was, he could 

 not but perceive, that foldiers became at once, from the effen- 

 tial natiue of military fervice, that degraded rank of beings, 

 which philofophic patriotifm itfelf reluctantly glances at, and 

 almoft fears to caD the flavifh inftruments of the deftruftion 

 of their fellow men. A ftate of fociety, and a principle 

 of mental and corporeal occupation, which converts the hor. 

 ror of philanthropy into the bafis sf merit ; which requires 

 that men, for the fake of being termed mihtary officers, 

 and the falfe glory that accrues from it, fhould abdicate 

 their own natural rights and powers of reafoning on the 

 juftice of the caufes of national quarrel in favour of heredi- 

 tary rulers, however feeble-mmded, or ignorant, or ill advifed, 

 was not, could not be, the voluntary choice of a mind at- 

 tuned to the harmonies of art and nature. 

 - In the church, our uncontaminated youth faw, that though 

 religion was not denied to be an affair between individual 

 man and his Creator, yet that no public teacher might think 

 and acl for himfelf, unlefs he voluntarily embraced the tram- 

 mels of epifcopacy, without incurring the reproach and the 

 penalties of heterodoxy. 



The law was repulfive, ifiafmuch as principle was rather 

 overwhelmed and endangered, than recognized and refreftied, 

 and fuftained, in acts of memory and the fophifms of rhe- 

 toric. 



Of the ftudy and pradlice of medicine, Goudt might with 

 juftice think much more favourably : yet, to produce good, 

 was better than to remedy evil. But in preferring and fol- 

 lowing the proper objefts of imitative art, to which it may 

 have been, that the natural bent of his genius ftill more inclined 

 him than this procefs of ratiocination, he anticipated the lofty, 

 and independent, and virtuous, fatisfaftion of contributing 

 the utmoft of his pleafuiable exertions, free from the re- 

 ftraints of human tyranny, to the pleafure and improvement 

 of his countrymen : and as he could do this with dignity 

 and d-light, he hefitated not long in refolving to become an 

 artift ; and with this view, and ample means of accomplifh- 

 ing his object, he fet forth on his travels to Italy, at that 

 1 i time 



