[1] To obtain room for the goods, the roofs slope steeply, and their other dormer windows are richly carved—but all are of wood; and, for the most part, I think, some hundred years later than Durer’s time. A large number of the oriel and bow windows on the façades are wooden also, and of recent date.
[2] His piece in the cathedral of Magdeburg is strangely inferior, wanting both the grace of composition and bold handling of the St. Sebald’s. The bronze fountains at Nuremberg (three, of fame, in as many squares) are highly wrought, and have considerable merit; the ordinary ironwork of the houses, with less pretension, is, perhaps, more truly artistic. In Plate 52, the right-hand figure is a characteristic example of the bell-handle at the door of a private house, composed of a wreath of flowers and leafage twisted in a spiral round an upright rod, the spiral terminating below in a delicate tendril; the whole of wrought iron. It is longer than represented, some of the leaf-links of the chain being omitted in the dotted spaces, as well as the handle, which, though often itself of leafage, is always convenient for the hand.
[3] By Mr. Le Keux, very admirably.
[4] This was first pointed out to me by a friend—Mr. Robin Allen. It is a beautiful thought; yet, possibly, an after-thought, I have some suspicion that there is an alteration in the plate at that place, and that the rope to which the bell hangs was originally the line of the chest of the nearer horse, as the grass-blades about the lifted hind leg conceal the lines which could not, in Durer’s way of work, be effaced, indicating its first intended position. What a proof of his general decision of handling is involved in this “repentir”!
[5] “Yet withal, you see that the Monarch is a great, valiant, cautious, melancholy, commanding man”—Friends in Council, last volume, p. 269; Milverton giving an account of Titian’s picture of Charles the Fifth. (Compare Ellesmere’s description of Milverton himself, p. 140.) Read carefully also what is said further on respecting Titian’s freedom, and fearless with holding of flattery; comparing it with the note on Giorgione and Titian.
CHAPTER V.
CLAUDE AND POUSSIN.