But all this was not so easy, as he had thought. Once he began, at the creation of the world; intending to proceed in daring flight, to the beginning of Dame Hadwig's reign in Suabia; but he had already written some hundred hexametres and had only got as far as King David; and the work would probably have taken him, three years to complete. Another time he tried to number up, all the women, who either by their strength or their beauty, had influenced the fate of nations; such as Queen Semiramis and the virgin Amazons; the heroic Judith and the tuneful Sappho;--but to his great regret he found out, that by the time his pen had worked its way to the Duchess; it would have been quite impossible, to find anything new to say in her praise. So he went about much downcast and distressed. "Have you swallowed a spider, pearl of all professors?" enquired Praxedis one day, on meeting him in the aforesaid mental condition. "You may well be jesting," said Ekkehard sadly;--and under the seal of secrecy, he confided his griefs to her. "By the thirty-six thousand volumes; in the library at Constantinopolis!" exclaimed she, "why, you are going to cut down a whole forest of trees, when a few flowers are all that's wanted. Why don't you make it simple and graceful,--such as your beloved Virgil would have made it?" After this she ran away, and Ekkehard crept back to his chamber. "Like Virgil?" he mused. But in the whole of the Æneid, there was no example of a similar case. He read some cantos, and dreamily sat thinking over them, when a good idea suddenly struck him. "I've got it!" cried he. "The beloved poet himself, is to do homage to her!" He then wrote a poem, as if Virgil had appeared to him, in his solitude; expressing his delight, that his poetry was living again in German lands; and thanking the high-born lady, for thus befriending him. In a few minutes it was ready. This poem Ekkehard now wished to write down on parchment; adorned by some handsome illustrations. So he composed the following picture. The Duchess, with crown and sceptre, sitting on her throne, accosted by Virgil in white garments; who inclining his bay-crowned head, advances towards her. He is leading Ekkehard,--who modestly walking by his side, as the pupil with the master, is likewise humbly bowing before her. In the strict manner of the excellent Folkard, he first drew the sketch. He remembered a picture in a psalm-book, representing the young David, before King Abimelech. Thus, he arranged the figures. The Duchess, he drew two fingers breadth higher than Virgil; and the Ekkehard of the sketch, was considerably shorter than the heathen poet. Budding Art, lacking other means, expressed rank and greatness, outwardly.