PLATE II.—PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN
(From the Oil-painting in the Berlin Museum)
This beautiful portrait represents, artistically, the zenith of Dürer's art. It shows Venetian influence so strongly, and is painted with so much serenity of manner, that one is almost inclined to doubt its ascription.
When the woods were full of hobgoblins, and scaly Beelzebubs were busily engaged in pitching the souls of the damned down a yawning hell-mouth, and the angels of the Lord in crimson and brocade carried the blessed heavenward. In those days scholars filled their books with a curious jumble of theology, philosophy, and old women's talk. Dr. Faustus practised black magic, and the besom-steeds carried witches from the Brocken far and wide into all lands.
Then no one ventured far from home unaccompanied, and the merchants were bold adventurers, and Kings of Scotland might envy Nuremberg burgesses—so Æneas Sylvius said.
And that a touch of humour be not lacking, I bid you remember that my lady dipped her dainty fingers into the stew, and, after, threw the bare bones to the dogs below the table; and I also bid you remember that satins and fine linen oft clothed an unwashed body.
Cruel plagues, smallpox, and all manner of disease and malformations inflicted a far greater number than nowadays, and the sad ignorance of doctors brewed horrid draughts amongst the skulls, skeletons, stuffed birds, and crocodiles of their fearsome-looking "surgeries."
In short, it was a "poetic" age; when all the world was full of mysteries and possibilities, and the sanest and most level-headed were outrageously fantastic.
There are people who will tell you that the world is very much the same to-day as it was yesterday, and that, after all, human nature is human nature in all ages all the world over. But, beyond the fact that we all are born and we all must die, there is little in common between you and me—between us of to-day and those of yesterday—and we resemble each other most nearly in things that do not matter.