It was great heresy and not to be tolerated.

To the ordinary Dutchman art begins with Rembrandt and ends with Israels.

This perhaps is why Matthew Maris has taken refuge in St.John's Wood.
And now we come to Haarlem's chief glory--which is not Coster the printer, and not the church of Bavo the Saint, and not the tulip gardens, and not the florid and beautiful Meat Market; but the painter Frans Hals, whose masterpieces hang in the Town Hall.
I have called Hals the glory of Haarlem, yet he was only an adopted son, having been born in Antwerp about 1580.

But his parents were true Haarlemers, and Frans was a resident there before he reached man's estate.
The painter's first marriage was not happy; he was even publicly reprimanded for cruelty to his wife.

In spite of the birth of his eldest child just thirty-four weeks earlier than the proprieties require, his second marriage seems to have been fortunate enough.