born to them, and it has been proved that the reputation which has been given her, of being little better than a common scold, who imbittered his life by her termagancy, is the creation of the ill temper of one of the testy friends of Dürer, Willibald Pirkheimer, who, in the spirit of spitefulness, besmirched her character in a letter which unfortunately survives to this day, and in which he accuses her of having led her husband a mad and weary dance by her temper. The reason for this ebullition on the part of Pirkheimer appears to have been that, after Dürer's death, she refused to give him a pair of antlers which had belonged to her husband, and which Pirkheimer had set his heart upon having. [Illustration: Albert Dürer's Wedding.] The first eleven years of the married life of Dürer were spent in Nuremberg, where he devoted himself with unremitting assiduity to the prosecution of his art. During these years his powers unfolded rapidly, and there are extant two notable pictures, which were undoubtedly produced at this time, the triptych in the Dresden Gallery, and an altar-piece which is in the palace of the Archbishop of Vienna, at Ober St. Veit. These compositions, while remarkable in many respects, still reveal the influence of his master, Wohlgemuth, and give evidence of having been in part executed with the assistance of apprentices. In fact, the peak-gabled house at the foot of the castle-mound in Nuremberg was a picture factory like that of Wohlgemuth, in which, however, work of a higher order than any hitherto produced in Germany was being turned out. We know the names of four or five of those who served as apprentices under Dürer at this time and they are stars of lesser magnitude in the constellation of German art. But Dürer was not contented simply to employ his talents in the production of painted altar-pieces, and we find him turning out a number of engravings, the most noticeable among which are his sixteen great wood-cuts illustrating the Apocalypse, which were published in 1498. The theme was one which had peculiar fascinations for all classes at the time. The breaking up of all pre-existing systems, the wonderful stirrings of a new life which were beginning to be felt everywhere with the close of the Middle Age and the dawning of the Renaissance, had filled the minds of men with wonder, and caused them to turn to the writings of the Apocalyptic Seer with keenest interest. A recent critic, commenting upon his work as represented in these engravings, says: "The energy and undismayed simplicity of his imagination enable him, in this order of creations, to touch the highest point of human achievement. The four angels keeping back the winds that they blow not, the four riders, the loosing of the angels of the Euphrates to slay the third part of men--these and others are conceptions of such force, such grave or tempestuous grandeur, in the midst of grotesqueness, as the art of no other age or hand has produced."