POUSSIN, NICHOLAS, an eminent French painter, born in 1594, at Andel, a little city in Normandy, where his father was of noble extraction, but born to a small estate. He was instructed for a few months by one Ferdinand Elle, a portrait-painter, and afterwards spent a month with L'Allemand; but finding these artists not likely to improve him suitably to his desires, he first studied the paintings of the best masters, and then hastened to finish a few pieces he was engaged in, and travelled to Italy. Here he devoted almost his whole attention to the study of antique statues and bas-reliefs; which was probably the cause of his want of knowledge in, and taste for, the art of colouring. Being invited back to Paris by Louis XIII. who assigned him a pension with lodgings in the Thuilleries, he painted for Prince Justiniani an historical picture representing Herod's cruelty; an admirable composition, in which he gave such expression to every character, as could not fail to strike the beholder with terror and pity: he then laboured for several years on the celebrated pictures of the seven sacraments of the Romish church. But none of Poussin's designs have been more generally admired than that of the death of Germanicus; which would have gained him immortal honour if he had never painted another picture. He began the labours of Hercules in the gallery of the Louvre; but the faction of Vouet's school railing at him and his performances, put him so out of humour with his own country, that he returned to Rome, where he died in 1665. He never went beyond easel-pieces, for which he had a perpetual demand; and his method was to fix the price he expected on the back of the canvas, which was readily paid.