Page:Essays and criticisms by Wainewright (1880).djvu/99

Rh a chill wind through the marrow of our bones, as they really and truly did through that of her guilty Hulbrand! And yet we envy him his last moments, as they are thus described:—"Trembling with love, and the mingled fear of approaching death, he bent towards her. She kissed him with a heavenly kiss,—but she loosed him no more from her embrace: she wept as she would weep away her soul. He dropt from her arms a lifeless corse."

These observations on the common style of German invention in the art of design, have been suggested by a sight of some large prints, lately imported, after pictures by Cornelius, painted, we believe, for the King of Bavaria. The subjects are taken from Goëthe's Faustus. These works are of mingled metal—silver and lead; but unfortunately the lead bears the undue proportion to the other of a hundred to one. At present, however, we have nothing to do with these. Our immediate business is with twenty-six etchings, taken from the same text-book, of which it is saying but little in comparison with their merits, when we assert that no artist in this country (save one who is seated too high in the lofty region of his fancies for any praise of ours to reach him) can do the like. One fault they have, if it be one; they