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Harmen lived in the mill, and as years went by were blessed with a nice little family of six children. The fifth child is the only one that especially interests us. They named him Rembrandt. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Ryn, he called himself when he entered at the grammar-school at Leyden, aged fourteen.
But Harmen, his means allowing the luxury, decided to make of his fifth son a man of letters and learning, and Rembrandt was sent to the University of Leyden. That letters, however, had small charm for him, was clear from the first.
But the miller, to be in the growing fashion, had called himself Van Ryn of the Rhine and thus, later on, Rembrandt also signed himself. Harmen was well-to-do; he owned houses in Leyden, and beyond the walls, gardens, and fields, and the mill where Rembrandt, because he once drew a mill, was supposed to have been born.
Not until early in the seventeenth century did permanent surnames become common among Dutchmen; hitherto children had been given their father's, in addition to their own Christian name; Rembrandt for many years was known as Rembrandt Harmenzoon, or the son of Harmen.
Harmen Gerritsz's customers called him Harmen, and when they wished to be exact they spoke of him as Harmen van Ryn that is to say, Harmen of the Rhine, for his mill was near the river. "Out West," even now, if you call a man Mister, he will probably inquire what it is you have against him. Mr. and Mrs.
But when the Normans came they brought a new form of poetry, and gradually rhymes began to take the place of alliteration. Layamon wrote his Brut more than a hundred years after the coming of the Normans, and although his poem is in the main alliterative, sometimes he has rhyming lines such as "mochel dal heo iwesten: mid harmen pen mesten," that is:
Mynheer Harmen sat down and looked at the picture in his deliberate Dutch way, and after about fifteen minutes said, "Well, it does look like you!" Then he explained to the schoolmaster that the lad was sent to school because he would not do much around the mill but draw pictures in the dust, and it was hoped that the schoolmaster could teach him something.
Slimmens' for a reviving cup of tea. "I have everything arranged for the funeral, Mollie," Mr. Ingelow said at parting. "I will be here by nine o'clock to-morrow. Don't give yourself the least anxiety about the matter, Mollie." The young man departed. Mollie had her toast, and returned to the death-room. She remained there until past midnight with Mrs. Harmen; then, at Mrs.
In Leyden, a town already made famous by another master, Lucas van Leyden, Rembrandt was born in 1606; though this date has been disputed, some authorities suggesting 1607, others, 1608. His family were respectable, if not distinguished, burghers, his father, Harmen Gerritszoon, being a miller by trade, his mother, Neeltjen Willems of Zuitbroeck, the daughter of a baker.
The schoolmaster decided that it was a hopeless case, and the miller went home to report to the boy's mother. Now, whenever a Dutchman is confronted by a problem too big to solve, or a task too unpleasant for him to undertake, he shows his good sense by turning it over to his wife. "You are his mother, anyway," said Harmen van Ryn, reproachfully.