Other great masters besides Van Dyck and Velasquez have been called to the portraiture of royalty,—Titian,[5] Holbein,[6] Rubens,—but for various reasons they painted but few pictures of royal children, and these are by no means notable when compared with their other works.
Van Dyck and Velasquez, therefore, stand out the more prominently for this unique class of court portraits, and so long as their works endure, they will take first rank as a revelation of the peculiar grace and charm of the life of children born to the purple.
III.
THE CHILDREN OF FIELD AND VILLAGE.
O for boyhood’s painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor’s rules,
Knowledge never learned of schools,
Of the wild bee’s morning chase,
Of the wild-flower’s time and place,
Flight of fowl, and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;—
For, eschewing books and tasks,
Nature answers all he asks;
Hand in hand with her he walks,
Face to face with her he talks,
Part and parcel of her joy,—
Blessings on the barefoot boy!
Whittier.