is thrown out or kept down: in a picture it is not only retained, but in most cases, it is necessarily obtrusive. Goëthe, in a blue coat and metal buttons, and a white neckcloth, would not recall the author of the "Iphigenia ;" still less does that wrinkled, decrepit-looking face, in the gallery at Hardwicke, pourtray Boyle, the philosopher. ALDA. Dannecker told me that he first modelled the head of Schiller the exact size of life, and conscientiously rendered each, even the slightest, individual trait; yet this head appeared to every one smaller than nature, and to himself almost mesquin.* He was in despair. He repeated the bust in a colossal size; and the development of the intellectual organization on a larger scale, immediately gave what was wanting:-it appeared to the eye or to the mind's eye as only the size of life. He showed me a beautiful basso-relievo of the Muse of Tragedy, listening with an inspired look to the revelations of the Muse of History. This admirable little group struck me the more, because long ago I had clothed nearly the same idea in imperfect words. * His own expression. I took leave of Dannecker with emotion: I shall never see him again! But he is one of those who cannot die; to use his own expression"Quand on a fait comme cela, on reste sur la terre." When Canova, then a melancholy invalid, paid him a visit, he was so struck by the childlike simplicity, the pure unworldly nature, the genuine goodness, and lively happy temperament of the German sculptor, that he gave him the surname of il Beato; and if the epithet blessed, can with propriety be bestowed on any mortal, it is on him whose long life has been one of labour and of love; who has left behind him lasting memorials of his genius; who has never profaned the talents which God has given him to any unworthy purpose:-but in the midst of all the beautiful and exciting influences of poetry and art, has kept from youth to age a soul serene, a conscience and a life pure in the sight of God and man. Such was our own Flaxman-such is Dannecker! MEDON. Who are now the principal sculptors in Germany? ALDA. Rauch is the court sculptor of Berlin. He has, like Dannecker,* his professorship, his order of merit,† and, I believe, one or two places under the government, besides constant employment in his art. He works by the piece, as the labourers say. But though he too has yoked his genius to the car of power and patronage, he has done great things. The statue of the late queen of Prussia is reckoned his chef-d'œuvre, and is not, perhaps, exceeded in modern sculpture. It was conceived and worked out in all the inspiration of love and grief; as Dannecker would say, "Mit Lieb und Schmerzen." He had been attached to the queen's personal service, and shared, in an intense degree, the enthusiastic, devoted affection with which all her subjects regarded that beautiful and amiable woman. This statue he executed at Carrara; and a living eagle, which had been taken captive among the Appenines, was the original of that magnificent eagle he has placed at her feet:-nothing, you see, like going at once * Dannecker has been ennobled; his proper titles run thus-Johan Hienrich von Dannecker, Hofrath, (court counsellor,) knight of the orders of the Wurtemberg Crown, and of Wladimer, and professor of sculpture at Stuttgard. † Rauch is knight of the Red Eagle, and member of the senate. to nature! In the course of twenty-five years Rauch has executed sixty-nine busts, of which twenty are colossal. Among his numerous other works, designed or executed within the same time, there is the colossal statue of Blucher, now at Breslau; this is in bronze, upon a granite pedestal. There is another statue of Blucher at Berlin, of which the pedestal, rich with bas-reliefs, is also in bronze. Rauch has been employed for the last twenty years in modelling field-marshals and generals, and has devoted his best powers to vanquish the difficulties presented by monotonous faces, drilled figures, military uniforms, and regimental boots and buttons; and all that man can do, I am told he has done. I have seen some of his busts, which are quite admirable. At Peterstein, near Munich, I saw his statue of a little girl, about ten years old, which in its simplicity, truth, and elegance, reminded me of Chantrey's Lady Louisa Russell, though in conception and manner as distinct as possible. The full length of Goëthe, in his dressing-gown, of which there is such an infinitude of casts and copies throughout Germany, is also by Rauch. Christian Tieck is the old and intimate friend of Rauch. They live, or did live, under the same roof, and it is not known that a moment of jealousy or rivalship ever disturbed the union between these two celebrated and gifted men, who, starting nearly at the same time,* have run their brilliant career together in the self-same path, and whatever judgment the world or posterity may form of their comparative merits, seem determined to enter the temple of immortality hand-in-hand. Tieck's works are dispersed from one end of Germany to the other. His statue of Neckar; his busts of Madame de Staël, of her second husband Rocca, of the Duke and Duchess de Broglie, and of A. W. Schlegel, I have seen; and all, particularly the busts of Rocca and Schlegel, are exceedingly fine. At Munich, at Dresden, and at Weimar, I saw many of his works; and at Manheim the bust of Madame de Heygendorf,† full of beauty, and * Christian Rauch was born in 1777, and Christian Frederic Tieck in 1776. Formerly Madame Jageman, the principal actress of the theatre at Weimar. Her talents were developed under the auspices of Goëthe and Schiller. She was the original Thekla of the Wallenstein, and the original Princess Leonora of the Tasso. In these two characters she has never yet been equalled. The quietness, amounting to passiveness, in the external delineation of the Princess in Tasso, affords so little material for the stage, that Madame Wolff, then the first actress, preferred the character of Leonora Sanvitale, and Madame Jageman was supposed to derogate in accepting that of the Princess. Such is the consummate, but evanescent delicacy of the conception, that Goëthe never expected to see it developed on the |