But it was my good fortune to witness one original of Dannecker’s chisel—­of transcendent merit.  I mean, the colossal head of SCHILLER; who was the intimate friend, and a townsman of this able sculptor.  I never stood before so expressive a modern countenance.  The forehead is high and wide, and the projections, over the eye-brows, are boldly, but finely and gradually, marked.  The eye is rather full, but retired.  The cheeks are considerably shrunk.  The mouth is full of expression, and the chin somewhat elongated.  The hair flows behind in a broad mass, and ends in a wavy curl upon the shoulders:  not very unlike the professional wigs of the French barristers which I had seen at Paris.  Upon the whole, I prefer this latter—­for breadth and harmony—­to the eternal conceit of the wig a la grecque.  “It was so (said Dannecker) that Schiller wore his hair; and it was precisely with this physiognomical expression that he came out to me, dressed en roquelaure, from his inner apartment, when I saw him for the last time.  I thought to myself—­on so seeing him—­(added the sculptor) that it is thus that I will chisel your bust in marble.”  Dannecker then requested me to draw my hand gently over the forehead—­and to observe by what careful, and almost imperceptible gradations, this boldness of front had been accomplished; I listened to every word that he said about the extraordinary character then, as it were, before me, with an earnestness and pleasure which I can hardly describe; and walked round and round the bust with a gratification approaching to ecstacy.  They may say what they please—­at Rome or at London—­but a finer specimen of art, in its very highest department, and of its particular kind, the chisel of no living Sculptor hath achieved.  As a bust, it is perfect.  It is the MAN; with all his MIND in his countenance; without the introduction of any sickly airs and graces, which are frequently the result of a predetermination to treat it—­as Phidias or Praxiteles would have treated it!  It is worth a host of such figures as that of Marshal Saxe at Strasbourg.

“Would any sum induce you to part with it?”—­said I, in an under tone, to the unsuspecting artist ... bethinking me, at the same time, of offering somewhere about 250 louis d’or—­“None:”  replied Dannecker.  “I loved the original too dearly to part with this copy of his countenance, in which I have done my utmost to render it worthy of my incomparable friend.”  I think the artist said that the Queen had expressed a wish to possess it; but he was compelled to adhere religiously to his determination of keeping it for himself.  Dannecker shewed me a plaster cast of his intended figure of CHRIST. It struck me as being of great simplicity of breadth, and majesty of expression; but perhaps the form wanted fulness—­and the drapery might be a little too sparing.  I then saw several other busts, and subjects, which have already escaped my recollection; but I could not but be struck with