In the glorious masterpieces of this series Dürer has found the true balance of his powers. The dignity and charm of the decorative effect of these cuts has never been surpassed; and to the racy narrative vivacity of such groups and figures as those isolated and enlarged in our illustration there is added an idyllic charm of which perhaps the best examples are the _Visitation_ and the _Flight into Egypt_. This sweetness of allure is still more pervasive in the separate cuts that bear this golden date, 1511, that is in the _St. Christopher_ (B. 103), and the _St. Jerome_ (B. 114). And the _Adoration of the Magi_ (B. 3) is much finer than the one included in the _Life of the Virgin_. This idyllic charm had already been touched _upon before_ in the _Assumption of the Magdalen_ (B. 121) (15?), and in the _St. Antony_ and _St. Paul_ and the _Baptist_ and _St. Onuphrius of_ 1504. It is not felt to lie very deep in the conception of the subject, for all are treated in an obviously conventional manner, the touches of racy realism being confined to subordinate incidents and details. Neither the subjects nor the mood of the artist lend themselves to the dramatic impressiveness of such cuts as the _Blowing of the Sixth Trumpet_ or the _St. Michael overwhelming the Dragon of the Apocalypse_ (_see_ page 262), where the inspiration appears to be Gothic, perhaps developed under the influence of Mantegna's _Combat between Sea Monsters_, of which Dürer early made an elaborate pen-and-ink copy. We find an aftermath of the same inspiration in the engraving on iron, dated 1516, representing a man riding astride of an unicorn carrying off a shrieking woman. Such stormy and strenuous lowerings of the imagination break in upon Dürer's habitual mood as St. Peter's thunders into Milton's "Lycidas," of which the general felicitous mingling of a conventional pedantry with idyllic charm and racy touches of realistic effect is very similar to the general effect of the golden group we have been describing. Among all the work that finds its climax in the beautiful creations of 1511, only in a few prints of the _Little Passion_, published in 1511, do we find any dramatic power or creativeness of essential conception. I may mention the _Christ Scourging the Money-changers in the Temple_, the _Agony in the Garden_, and Judas' _Kiss_, where, though the general effect be rather confused, the central figure is full of appropriate power. _Christ haled by the hair before_ _Annas_ (the most wonderful of all), Christ before _Pilate_, Christ _Mocked_, the _Ecce Homo_ (a most beautiful composition), the Veronica's napkin incident, _Christ_ being nailed _to the Cross_ (a masterpiece), the _Deposition_, the _Entombment_:--several others of the series have idyllic charm or touches of narrative force which link them with the general group, but these alone stand out and in some ways surpass it. After this date Dürer seems in a great measure to have relinquished wood for metal engraving;