In the old German school we have that homely matter-of-fact feeling, and dramatic expression, and defiance of all chronological propriety, which belonged to the time and school.  The composition by Albert Durer, in his series of the Life of the Virgin, has great beauty and simplicity of expression, and in the arrangement a degree of grandeur and repose which has caused it to be often copied and reproduced as a picture, though the original form is merely that of a wood-cut.[1] In the centre is a bedstead with a canopy, on which Mary lies fronting the spectator, her eyes half closed.  On the left of the bed stands St. Peter, habited as a bishop:  he places a taper in her dying hand; another apostle holds the asperge with which to sprinkle her with holy water:  another reads the service.  In the foreground is a priest bearing a cross, and another with incense; and on the right, the other apostles in attitudes of devotion and grief.

[Footnote 1:  There is one such copy in the Sutherland Gallery; and another in the Munich Gallery, Cabinet viii. 161.]

Another picture by Albert Durer, once in the Fries Gallery, at Vienna, unites, in a most remarkable manner, all the legendary and supernatural incidents with the most intense and homely reality.  It appears to have been painted for the Emperor Maximilian, as a tribute to the memory of his first wife, the interesting Maria of Burgundy.  The disposition of the bed is the same as in the wood-cut, the foot towards the spectator.  The face of the dying Virgin is that of the young duchess.  On the right, her son, afterwards Philip of Spain, and father of Charles V., stands as the young St. John, and presents the taper; the other apostles are seen around, most of them praying; St. Peter, habited as bishop, reads from an open book (this is the portrait of George a Zlatkonia, bishop of Vienna, the friend and counsellor of Maximilian); behind him, as one of the apostles, Maximilian himself, with head bowed down, as in sorrow.  Three ecclesiastics are seen entering by an open door, bearing the cross, the censer, and the holy water.  Over the bed is seen the figure of Christ; in his arms, the soul of the Virgin, in likeness of an infant with clasped hands; and above all, in an open glory and like a vision, her reception and coronation in heaven.  Upon a scroll over her head, are the words, “Surge propera, amica mea; veni de Libano, veni coronaberis.” (Cant. iv. 8.) Three among the hovering angels bear scrolls, on one of which is inscribed the text from the Canticles, “Quae est ista quae progreditur quasi aurora consurgens, pulchra ut luna, electa ut sol, terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata?” (Cant. vi. 10;) on another, “Quae est ista quae ascendit de deserto deliciis affluens super dilectum suum?” (Cant. viii. 5;) and on the third, “Quae est ista quae ascendit super dilectum suum ut virgula fumi?” (Cant. iii. 6.) This picture bears the date 1518.  If it be true, as is, indeed,