received the stadtholder John Maurice, whose portrait is still preserved in the work of the learned Barleius.
The earliest of Flinck’s authentic pieces is a likeness of a lady, dated 1636, in the gallery of Brunswick. His first subject picture is the “Blessing of Jacob,” in the Amsterdam museum (1638). Both are thoroughly Rembrandtesque in effect as well as in vigour of touch and warmth of flesh tints. The four “civic guards” of 1642, and “the twelve musketeers” with their president in an arm-chair (1648), in the town-hall at Amsterdam, are fine specimens of composed portrait groups. But the best of Flinck’s productions in this style is the peace of Münster in the museum of Amsterdam, a canvas with 19 life-size figures full of animation in the faces, “radiant with Rembrandtesque colour,” and admirably distributed. Flinck here painted his own likeness to the left in a doorway. The mannered period of Flinck is amply illustrated in the “Marcus Curius eating Turnips before the Samnite Envoys,” and “Solomon receiving Wisdom,” in the palace on the Dam at Amsterdam. Here it is that Flinck shows most defects, being faulty in arrangement, gaudy in tint, flat and shallow in execution, and partial to whitened flesh that looks as if it had been smeared with violet powder and rouge. The chronology of Flinck’s works, so far as they are seen in public galleries, comprises, in addition to the foregoing, the “Grey Beard” of 1639 at Dresden, the “Girl” of 1641 at the Louvre, a portrait group of a male and female (1646) at Rotterdam, a lady (1651) at Berlin. In November 1659 the burgomaster of Amsterdam contracted with Flinck for 12 canvases to represent four heroic figures of David and Samson and Marcus Curius and Horatius Cocles, and scenes from the wars of the Batavians and Romans. Flinck was unable to finish more than the sketches. In the same year he received a flattering acknowledgment from the town council of Cleves on the completion of a picture of Solomon which was a counterpart of the composition at Amsterdam. This and other pictures and portraits, such as the likenesses of Frederick William of Brandenburg and John Maurice of Nassau, and the allegory of “Louisa of Orange attended by Victory and Fame” and other figures at the cradle of the first-born son of the elector, have disappeared. Of several pictures which were painted for the Great Elector, none are preserved except the “Expulsion of Hagar” in the Berlin museum. Flinck died at Amsterdam on the 22nd of February 1660.
FLINDERS, MATTHEW (1774–1814), English navigator,
explorer, and man of science, was born at Donington, near
Boston, in Lincolnshire, on the 16th of March 1774. Matthew
was at first designed to follow his father’s profession of surgeon,
but his enthusiasm in favour of a life of adventure impelled him
to enter the royal navy, which he did on the 23rd of October
1789. After a voyage to the Friendly Islands and West Indies,
and after serving in the “Bellerophon” during Lord Howe’s
“glorious first of June” (1794) off Ushant, Flinders went out
in 1795 as midshipman in the “Reliance” to New South Wales.
For the next few years he devoted himself to the task of accurately
laying down the outline and bearings of the Australian coast,
and he did his work so thoroughly that he left comparatively
little for his successors to do. With his friend George Bass, the
surgeon of the “Reliance,” in the year of his arrival he explored
George’s river; and, after a voyage to Norfolk Island, again in
March 1796 the two friends in the same boat, the “Tom Thumb,”
only 8 ft. long, and with only a boy to help them, explored a
stretch of coast to the south of Port Jackson. After a voyage
to the Cape of Good Hope, when he was promoted to a lieutenancy,
Flinders was engaged during February 1798 in a survey of the
Furneaux Islands, lying to the north of Tasmania. His delight
was great when, in September of the same year, he was commissioned
along with Bass, who had already explored the sea
between Tasmania and the south coast to some extent and
inferred that it was a strait, to proceed in the sloop “Norfolk”
(25 tons) to prove conclusively that Van Diemen’s Land was an
island by circumnavigating it. In the same sloop, in the summer
of next year, Flinders made an exploration to the north of Port
Jackson, the object being mainly to survey Glasshouse Bay
(Moreton Bay) and Hervey’s Bay. Returning to England he
was appointed to the command of an expedition for the thorough
exploration of the coasts of Terra Australis, as the southern
continent was still called, though Flinders is said to have been
the first to suggest for it the name Australia. On the 18th of
July 1801 the sloop “Investigator” (334 tons), in which the
expedition sailed, left Spithead, Flinders being furnished with
instructions and with a passport from the French government
to all their officials in the Eastern seas. Among the scientific
staff was Robert Brown, one of the most eminent English
botanists; and among the midshipmen was Flinders’s relative,
John Franklin, of Arctic fame. Cape Leeuwin, on the south-west
coast of Australia, was reached on November 6, and King
George’s sound on the 9th of December. Flinders sailed round
the Great Bight, examining the islands and indentations on the
east side, noting the nature of the country, the people, products,
&c., and paying special attention to the subject of the variation
of the compass. Spenser and St Vincent Gulfs were discovered
and explored. On the 8th of April 1802, shortly after leaving
Kangaroo Islands, at the mouth of St Vincent Gulf, Flinders
fell in with the French exploring ship, “Le Géographe,” under
Captain Nicolas Baudin, in the bay now known as Encounter
Bay. In the narrative of the French expedition published in
1807 (when Flinders was a prisoner in the Mauritius) by M.
Peron, the naturalist to the expedition, much of the land west
of the point of meeting was claimed as having been discovered
by Baudin, and French names were extensively substituted for
the English ones given by Flinders. It was only in 1814, when
Flinders published his own narrative, that the real state of the
case was fully exposed. Flinders continued his examination
of the coast along Bass’s Strait, carefully surveying Port Phillip.
Port Jackson was reached on the 9th of May 1802.
After staying at Port Jackson for about a couple of months, Flinders set out again on the 22nd of July to complete his circumnavigation of Australia. The Great Barrier Reef was examined with the greatest care in several places. The north-east entrance of the Gulf of Carpentaria was reached early in November; and the next three months were spent in an examination of the shores of the gulf, and of the islands that skirt them. An inspection of the “Investigator” showed that she was in so leaky a condition that only with the greatest precaution could the voyage be completed in her. Flinders completed the survey of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and after touching at the island of Timor, the “Investigator” sailed round the west and south of Australia, and Port Jackson was reached on the 9th of June 1803. Much suffering was endured by nearly all the members of the expedition: a considerable proportion of the men succumbed to disease, and their leader was so reduced by scurvy that his health was greatly impaired.
Flinders determined to proceed home in H.M.S. “Porpoise” as a passenger, submit the results of his work to the Admiralty, and obtain, if possible, another vessel to complete his exploration of the Australian coast. The “Porpoise” left Port Jackson on the 10th of August, accompanied by the H.E.I.C.’s ship “Bridgewater” (750 tons) and the “Cato” (450 tons) of London. On the night of the 17th the “Porpoise” and “Cato” suddenly struck on a coral reef and were rapidly reduced to wrecks. The officers and men encamped on a small sandbank near, 3 or 4 ft. above high-water, a considerable quantity of provisions, with many of the papers and charts, having been saved from the wrecks. The reef was in about 22° 11′ S. and 155° E., and about 800 m. from Port Jackson. Flinders returned to Port Jackson in a six-oared cutter in order to obtain a vessel to rescue the party. The reef was again reached on the 8th of October, and all the officers and men having been satisfactorily disposed of, Flinders on the 11th left for Jones Strait in an unsound schooner of 29 tons, the “Cumberland,” with ten companions, and a valuable collection of papers, charts, geological specimens, &c. On the 15th of December he put in at Mauritius, when he discovered that France and England were at war. The passport he possessed from the French government was for the “Investigator”; still, though he was now on board another ship, his mission was
