asked for advice when there were new buildings and alterations.  He seemed in general to be more fond of preparing things on occasion, for a certain end and use, than of undertaking and completing such as exist for themselves and require a greater perfection; he was therefore always ready and at hand when the publishers needed larger and smaller copper-plates for any work:  thus the vignettes to Winckelmann’s first writings were etched by him.  But he often made only very sketchy drawings, to which Geyser knew very well how to adapt himself.  His figures had throughout something general, not to say ideal.  His women were pleasing and agreeable, his children naive enough; only he could not succeed with the men, who, in his spirited but always cloudy, and at the same time foreshortening, manner, had for the most part the look of Lazzaroni.  Since he designed his composition less with regard to form than to light, shade, and masses, the general effect was good; as indeed all that he did and produced was attended by a peculiar grace.  As he at the same time neither could nor would control a deep-rooted propensity to the significant and the allegorical—­to that which excites a secondary thought, so his works always furnished something to reflect upon, and were complete through a conception, even where they could not be so from art and execution.  This bias, which is always dangerous, frequently led him to the very bounds of good taste, if not beyond them.  He often sought to attain his views by the oddest notions and by whimsical jests; nay, his best works always have a touch of humor.  If the public were not always satisfied with such things, he revenged himself by a new and even stranger drollery.  Thus he afterwards exhibited, in the ante-room of the great concert-hall, an ideal female figure, in his own style, who was raising a pair of snuffers to a taper; and he was extraordinarily delighted when he was able to cause a dispute on the question, whether this singular muse meant to snuff the light or to extinguish it? when he roguishly allowed all sorts of bantering by-thoughts to peep forth.

But the building of the new theatre, in my time, made the greatest noise; in which his curtain, when it was still quite new, had certainly an uncommonly charming effect.  Oeser had taken the Muses out of the clouds, upon which they usually hover on such occasions, and set them upon the earth.  The statues of Sophocles and Aristophanes, around whom all the modern dramatic writers were assembled, adorned a vestibule to the Temple of Fame.  Here, too, the goddesses of the arts were likewise present; and all was dignified and beautiful.  But now comes the oddity!  Through the open centre was seen the portal of the distant temple:  and a man in a light jerkin was passing between the two above-mentioned groups, and, without troubling himself about them, directly up to the temple; he was seen from behind, and was not particularly distinguished.  Now, this man was to represent