resolve the doubt of H.J.H. respecting Albert Durer's allegorical print
of _The Knight, Death, and the Devil_, of which I have only what I
presume is a copy or retouched plate, bearing the date 1564 on the
tablet in the lower left-hand corner, where I suppose the mark of Albert
Durer is placed in the original.

I should, however, much doubt its being intended as a portrait of
Sickingen, and I can trace no resemblance to the medal given by Luckius.
I believe the conjecture originated with Bartsch, in his _Peintre
Graveur_, vol. vii. p. 107. Schoeber, in his _Life of Durer_, p. 87.,
supposes that it is an allegory of the nature of a soldier's life.

It was this print that inspired La Motte Fouqué with the idea of his
_Sintram_ as he thus informs us in the postscript to that singularly
romantic tale:

"Some years since there lay among my birth-day presents a
beautiful engraving of Albert Durer. A harnessed knight, with an
oldish countenance, is riding upon his high steed, attended by
his dog, through a fearful valley, where fragments of rock and
roots of trees distort themselves into loathsome forms; and
poisonous weeds rankle along the ground. Evil vermin are
creeping along through them. Beside him Death is riding on a
wasted pony; from behind the form of a devil stretches over its
clawed arm toward him. Both horse and dog look strangely, as it
were infected by the hideous objects that surround them; but the
knight rides quietly along his way, and bears upon the tip of
his lance a lizard that he has already speared. A castle, with
its rich friendly battlements, looks over from afar, whereat the
desolateness of the valley penetrates yet deeper into the soul.