This distinguished French painter was born at Andely, in Normandy, in 1594. He was descended from a noble family, originally of Soissons, whose fortunes had been ruined in the disastrous civil wars in the time of Charles IX. and Henry III. His father, Jean Poussin, after serving in the army of Henry IV., settled on a small paternal inheritance at Andely, where he cultivated a taste for literature and the sciences, and instructed his son in the same. Young Poussin had already distinguished himself for the solidity of his judgment, and his progress in letters, when a natural fondness for drawing, developed by an acquaintance he had formed with Quintin Varin, an artist of some eminence, induced him to solict the permission of his father to adopt painting as a profession.