As the present is perhaps mainly an attempt at personal statement or illustration, I will allow myself as further help to extract the following anecdote from a book, Annals of Old Painters , conn’d by me in youth. Rubens, the Flemish painter, in one of his wanderings through the galleries of old convents, came across a singular work. After looking at it thoughtfully for a good while, and listening to the criticisms of his suite of students, he said to the latter, in answer to their questions, (as to what school the work implied or belong’d,) “I do not believe the artist, unknown and perhaps no longer living, who has given the world this legacy, ever belong’d to any school, or ever painted anything but this one picture, which is a personal affair⁠—a piece out of a man’s life.”