misery, and wrong, which Goethe has portrayed in this strange character.

A very different picture, painted at this period, is peculiarly
interesting to us as our first acquaintance among Scheffer's works. An
excellent copy or duplicate of it belongs to the Boston Athenæum. The
original is in the Luxembourg at Paris. The subject is taken from
Schiller's ballad of "Count Eberhard." After the victory in which his
son has fallen, though the old Count has said to those who would have
paused to mourn his death, "My son is like another man; on, comrades, to
the foe!"--yet now he sits alone in his tent and looks upon the dead
body of his child. The silent grief of the stern old man is very
touching. This sorrow, so contrary to Nature, when old age stands by the
grave of youth, always moves the deepest feeling; and Scheffer, in the
noble old man and the brave and beautiful boy before him, has given it
its simplest and most appropriate expression. This picture was painted
in 1834. At that period Scheffer was engaged in some experiments in
color, and this sad subject led him to employ the dark tints of
Rembrandt. In 1850 he painted a duplicate of it, lighter and more
agreeable in tone. He painted "The Giaour" and "Medora," from Byron,
which pictures we have never seen. The wayward and morbid Muse of the
English Lord does not seem to us a fit inspiration for the pure pencil
of Scheffer.

The well-known composition of "Francesca da Rimini" may well conclude
our brief notice of the pictures of this second epoch. M. Vitet regards
it as the most harmonious and complete of all his works; but we think it
has taken less hold on the popular heart than the "Mignons" and
"Margaret." Yet it is a work of great skill and beauty. The difficult
theme is managed with that moderation and good taste which recognize the
true limits of the art. The crowd of spirits which Dante so powerfully