Cornelius, a painter of landscapes, cattle, and conversations, was born at Haerlem in 1620, and became the disciple of Adrian Ostade. Falling into a dissipated way of life, he was disinherited by his father, for which reason he changed his paternal name, which was Begeyn, and took that of Bega; hence his early pictures are marked with the former, and his subsequent works with the latter. Bega caught the plague from a woman of whom he was deeply enamoured; but he showed so much sincerity of affection, that notwithstanding the expostulations of his friends and physicians, he attended her till the last moment of her life, and died a few days after, aged forty-four years.

1 Russell's Tour in Germany, &c. in 1820–21–22. 2 vols. 8vo. Edinb. 1824. 3 Vide vol. i. pp. 277, 278, 290.