seat of musical learning. Wagner makes this fact pathetic, comical,
and altogether charming in his "Mastersingers of Nuremberg."

Till Durer's time, however, there had been little painting that could
be regarded as art, and when he came to study it there was but little
opportunity in his own land, but Durer was destined to bring art to
Nuremberg. If he went elsewhere to study, it was only for a little
time, because he was above all things patriotic and dearly loved his
home.

With seventeen brothers and sisters, young Durer's problem was a
serious one. His father not only meant him to become a goldsmith like
himself--a craft in which there was much money to be made at a time
when people dressed with great ornamentation and used gold to decorate
with--it was highly necessary with so large a family that he should
learn to do that which could make him helpful to his father. Hence the
young boy entered his father's shop. If he had not been handicapped
with so many to help to maintain, he would have laid up a considerable
fortune, because from the very beginning he was master of all that he
undertook; doing the least thing better than any other did it, putting
conscience and painstaking into all.

"My father took special delight in me," the son said, "seeing that I
was industrious in working and learning, he put me to school; and when
I had learned to read and write, he took me home from my school and
taught me the goldsmith's trade."

The family were good and kind; excellent neighbours, deeply religious,
and little Albrecht certainly was comely. He was beautiful as a little
child, and as a man was very handsome, with long light hair sweeping