At a short distance from Leyden may still be seen a flour-mill with a quaint old dwelling-house attached, which bears, on a brick in a corner of the wide chimney, the date of 1550. Here, in 1606, was born Paul Rembrandt. At an early age, he manifested a stubborn, independent will, which his father tried in vain to subdue. He caused his son to work in the mill, intending that he should succeed him in its management; but the boy showed so decided a distaste for the employment, that his father resolved to make him a priest, and sent him to study at Leyden. Every one knows, however, that few lads of fifteen, endowed with great muscular vigor and abundance of animal spirits, will take naturally and without compulsion to the study of Latin grammar. Rembrandt certainly did not; and his obstinacy proving an overmatch for his teacher's patience, he was sent back to the mill, when his father beat him so severely, that next morning he ran off to Leyden, without in the least knowing how he should live there. Fortunately he sought refuge in the house of an honest artist, Van Zwaanenberg, who was acquainted with his father.
"Tell me, Paul," asked his friend, "what do you mean to do with yourself, if you will not be either a priest or a miller? They are both honorable professions: one gives food to the soul, the other prepares it for the body."
"Very likely," replied the boy; "but I don't fancy either; for in order to be a priest, one must learn Latin; and to be a miller, one must bear to be beaten. How do _you_ earn your bread?"
"Then I will be one, too, Herr Zwaanenberg; and if you will go to-morrow and tell my father so, you will do me a great service."
The good-natured artist willingly undertook the mission, and acquainted the old miller with his son's resolution.
"I want to know one thing," said Master Rembrandt, "will he be able to gain a livelihood by painting?"
Thus Paul became the pupil of Van Zwaanenberg, and made rapid progress in the elementary parts of his profession. Impatient to produce some finished work, he did not give himself time to acquire purity of style, but astonished his master by his precocious skill in grouping figures, and producing marvelous effects of light and shade. The first lessons which he took in perspective having wearied him, he thought of a shorter method, and _invented_ perspective for himself.