(Sir Peter Paul), a famous painter, born at Cologne in 1577. He was the most accomplished of all the Flemish masters, and would have come up to the most celebrated Italians, if, instead of being educated under Adam Van Noort and Octavio Venius, he had been bred in the Roman or Lombard schools. Notwithstanding, perhaps, none of his predecessors can boast a more beautiful colouring, a nobler invention, or a more luxuriant fancy in their compositions. Besides his talent in painting, and his admirable skill in architecture, he was universally learned, spoke seven languages perfectly, was well read in history, and withal so excellent a flate-man, that he was employed in several public negotiations of great importance. His usual abode was at Antwerp, where he built a spacious apartment in imitation of the Rotunda at Rome, for a noble collection of pictures which he had purchased in Italy; some of which, together with his statues, medals, and other antiquities, he sold to the duke of Buckingham for 10,000l. His principal performances in painting are in the banqueting-house at Whitehall, the Escorial in Spain, and the Luxembourg galleries at Paris. He died in 1640, leaving vast riches to his children, the eldest of whom succeeded him in the office of secretary of state in Flanders.