in Italy was pointed out, and we took his first writings in hand with devotion; for Oeser had a passionate reverence for him, which he was able easily to instil into us.  The problematical part of those little treatises, which are, besides, confused even from their irony, and from their referring to opinions and events altogether peculiar, we were, indeed, unable to decipher; but as Oeser had great influence over us, and incessantly gave them out to us as the gospel of the beautiful, and still more of the tasteful and the pleasing, we found out the general sense, and fancied, that, with such interpretations, we should go on the more securely, as we regarded it no small happiness to draw from the same fountain from which Winckelmann had allayed his earliest thirst.

No greater good fortune can befall a city, than when several educated men, like-minded in what is good and right, live together in it.  Leipzig had this advantage, and enjoyed it the more peacefully, as so many differences of judgment had not yet manifested themselves.  Huber, a print collector and well-experienced connoisseur, had furthermore the gratefully acknowledged merit of having determined to make the worth of German literature known to the French; Kreuchauf, an amateur with a practised eye, who, as the friend of the whole society of art, might regard all collections as his own; Winkler, who much loved to share with others the intelligent delight he cherished for his treasures; many more who were added to the list,—­all lived and labored with one feeling; and, often as I was permitted to be present when they examined works of art, I do not remember that a dispute ever arose.  The school from which the artist had proceeded, the time in which he lived, the peculiar talent which nature had bestowed on him, and the degree of excellence to which he had brought it in his performances, were always fairly considered.  There was no predilection for spiritual or temporal subjects, for landscape or for city views, for animate or inanimate:  the question was always about the accordance with art.

Now, although from their situation, mode of thought, abilities, and opportunities, these amateurs and collectors inclined more to the Dutch school, yet, while the eye was practised on the endless merits of the north-western artist, a look of reverential longing was always turned towards the south-east.

And so the university, where I neglected the ends of both my family and myself, was to ground me in that in which I afterwards found the greatest satisfaction of my life:  the impression of those localities, too, in which I received such important incitements, has always remained to me most dear and precious.  The old Pleissenburg; the rooms of the Academy; but, above all, the abode of Oeser; and no less the collections of Winkler and Richter,—­I have always vividly present before me.

But a young man, who, while older persons are conversing with each other on subjects already familiar to them, is instructed only incidentally, and for whom the most difficult part of the business—­that of rightly arranging all—­yet remains, must find himself in a very painful situation.  I therefore, as well as others, looked about with longing for some new light, which was indeed to come to us from a man to whom we owed so much already.