I'll follow up. It's a mystery to me.

But here is the edited text without the edits showing. Might lose some formatting, too.

LONG VERSION

SAUERLANDER’S HAGIOGRAPHY of RUBENS
To the Editors:
One is led to believe that Mr. Sauerlander, the author of Rubens: Saints and Martyrs, the book reviewed, is very keen on Rubens, and if so, Mr. Hope, the critic, gave him a pass by writing a one-sided review. The title of the essay, taken from the text, indicates the reviewer’s admiration for Rubens: “Rubens: Dramatic, Moving, Convincing.â€ NYR, May 8. Peter Paul Rubens, a Flemish Catholic, most famous for his religious works, is declared to be no less than “the most successful painter of the seventeenth century.â€ 
He might as well have been, as art tends to follow money, and the Catholic Church in its efforts to counter the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, was trying to sell its side of the story by pumping serious funds into the arts to visually proselytize their doctrine on church altarpieces—including miracles, martyrs, saints, dogmas, etc.—to the illiterate masses. 
Rubens was the “visual spokespersonâ€ of this effort. This “pedagogicâ€ practice was in effect since 787 AD, when the Church laid down rules for the depiction of religious art in the Second Council of Nicea, culminating in the work of Rubens almost 1,000 years later. From then on, painters no longer worked only by commission for a patron—the church and the nobility—but for the general market. 
Unfortunately, it is clear that what we are reading is a hagiography of the painter, without a word about his contemporaries.  Certainly, his work did not exist in a vacuum. Moreover, those other big names were notably from the neighboring Netherlands, where, being Protestant, there were no longer any commissioned works either by the Church or by the nobility. The market eventually dictated the demand for works of art. The Dutch Masters managed to produce their masterpieces by focusing mostly on scenes of daily life. Among some painters not mentioned were Hals, Vermeer, and de Hooch, with the most notable omission being Rembrandt. The result is a one-sided, and therefore unbalanced, review.

 
SHORTER VERSION

SAUERLANDER’S HAGIOGRAPHY of RUBENS 
To the Editors:
One is led to believe that Mr. Sauerlander, the author of Rubens: Saints and Martyrs, the book reviewed, is very keen on Rubens, and if so, Mr. Hope, the critic, gave him a pass by writing a one-sided review. The title of the essay, taken from the text, indicates the reviewer’s admiration for the artist: “Rubens: Dramatic, Moving, Convincing.â€ NYR, May 8. Peter Paul Rubens, a Flemish Catholic, most famous for his religious works, is declared to be no less than “the most successful painter of the seventeenth century.â€ 
Unfortunately, it is clear that what we are reading is a hagiography of the painter, without a word about Rubens’ contemporaries. Obviously, his work did not exist in a vacuum. Moreover, some big names are omitted, notably from the neighboring Netherlands, where, being Protestant, the Church and the nobility ceased to commission artworks. Instead, the market dictated the demand for art. And the Dutch Masters managed to produce masterpieces, focusing mostly on scenes of daily life. Among some painters not mentioned were Hals, Vermeer, and de Hooch, as well as the most notable omission: Rembrandt. The result is a one-sided, and therefore unbalanced, review.