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Rembrandt is easily first of these, and we should have but a limited idea of his work if we did not examine some of his pictures of this kind. Impressions made directly from the original plates, over two centuries ago, are, of course, very rare and valuable, and are carefully preserved in the great libraries and museums of the world. There is a collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where this etching of the Rat Killer may be seen.

The Rat Killer is one of many subjects from the scenes of common life which surrounded the artist. In smaller towns and villages, then as well as now, there were no large shops where goods were to be bought. Instead, all sorts of peddlers and traveling mechanics went from house to house—the knife grinder, the ragman, the fiddler, and many others. This picture of the Rat Killer suggests a very odd occupation. The pest of rats is, of course, much greater in old than in new countries. In Europe, and perhaps particularly in the northern countries of Holland and Germany, the old towns and villages have long been infested with these troublesome creatures.

There are some curious legends about them. One relates how a certain Bishop Hatto, as a judgment for his sins, was attacked by an army of rats which swam across the Rhine and invaded him in his island tower, where they made short work of their victim.[4] Another tells how a town called Hamelin was overrun with rats until a magic piper appeared who so charmed them with his enchanted music that they gathered about him and followed his leading till they came to the river and were drowned.[5]

[4] See Southey's poem, Bishop Hatto.

[5] See Browning's poem, The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

The old Rat Killer in the picture looks suspiciously like a magician. It seems as if he must have bewitched the rats which crawl friskily about him, one perching on his shoulders. He reminds one of some ogre out of a fairy tale, with his strange tall cap, his kilted coat, and baggy trousers, the money pouch at his belt, the fur mantle flung over one shoulder, and the fierce-looking sword dangling at his side. But there is no magic in his way of killing rats. He has some rat poison to sell which his apprentice, a miserable little creature, carries in a large box.