It has been said, though without sufficient authority, that Durer, weary of a home where he was made miserable by his bad-tempered, avaricious wife, left Nuremberg, and visited the Low Countries alone for the purpose of avoiding her constant annoyance. There is, however, no evidence of Durer’s visiting the Low Countries previous to 1520, when he was accompanied by his wife; nor is there any authentic record of his ever again visiting Flanders subsequent to the latter end of August 1521, when he left Brussels to return to Nuremberg. In 1522, Durer published the first edition of the Triumphal Car of the Emperor Maximilian, the designs for which had probably been made five or six years before. One of the best portraits drawn by Durer on wood also bears the date 1522. It is that of his friend Ulrich Varnbuler,[V-53]-- mentioned at page 253,--and is of large size, being about seventeen inches high by twelve and three-fourths wide. The head is full of character, and the engraving is admirably executed. From 1522 to 1528, the year of Durer’s death, he seems to have almost entirely given up the practice of drawing on wood, as there are only three cuts with his mark which contain a date between those years; they are his own arms dated 1523; his own portrait dated 1527; and the siege of a fortified city previously noticed at page 253, also dated 1527. The following is a reduced copy of the cut of Durer’s arms. The pair of _doors_ on the shield--in German _Durer_ or _Thurer_--is a rebus of the artist’s name; after the manner of the Lucys of our own country, who bore three _luces_,[V-54] or pikes--fish, not weapons--argent, in their coat of arms. [Footnote V-53: Ulrich Varnbuler was subsequently the chancellor of the Emperor Ferdinand I. Durer mentions him in a letter addressed to “Hernn Frey in Zurich,” and dated from Nuremberg on the Sunday _after St. Andrew’s day_, 1523. With this letter Durer sent to his correspondent a humorous sketch, in pen and ink, of apes dancing, which in 1776 was still preserved in the Public Library of Basle. The date of this letter proves the incorrectness of Mr. Ottley’s statement, in page 723 of his Inquiry, where he says that Durer did not return to Nuremberg from the Low Countries “until _the middle of the year_ 1524.” Mr. Ottley is not more correct when he says, at page 735, that the portrait of Varnbuler is the “size of nature.”] [Footnote V-54: It is supposed that Shakspeare, in alluding to the “dozen white luces” in Master Shallow’s coat of arms,--Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I,--intended to ridicule Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecotte, Wiltshire, before whom he is said to have been brought in his youth on a charge of deer-stealing.] [Illustration]