at one time, nearly induced him to become a huntsman, or forester--(one of the jägers made familiar to us on the stage, in green hunting dress and buckskin, with belt and bugle)--in the Royal service; a little consideration, a few speaking facts, however, taught him that this project would not have secured him the freedom he coveted so much; and, most fortunately, when he entered his twentieth year, he determined on the course which has given both to himself and to the world, such delicious pleasure. He abandoned himself to Art, and has ever since exercised it with a devotion and enthusiasm, a sacred freedom, that, despite his excitable temperament, has rendered him happy. Such was our friend's information concerning the author of those wonderful "OUTLINES" which have been the admiration of the world for nearly half a century, and are scarcely better known in Germany than they are in England. "Nothing," he added, "could surpass the ardor with which the young artist labored. His soul was animated by the grand conceptions of Goethe and Schiller; his ears drank in the beauty and sublimity of their poetry; and he lived in the mingled communion of great men, and the lovely and softened beauty of Saxon fatherland." In 1828, he was nominated Professor of Painting in the Dresden Royal Academy; but fame, much as he sought and loved it, did not fill his soul. The older he grew, the more his great heart yearned for that continuous sympathy with some object to comprehend and appreciate his noble pursuit, and to value him, as he believed he deserved. He coveted affection as much as fame. One of the dwellers near his father's vineyard was rich in the possession of a little daughter of extraordinary grace and beauty. She inspired the artist with some of his brightest conceptions of that peculiar infantine loveliness which his pencil has rendered with such eloquent fidelity. The child crept into his heart--the young girl took possession of it. The poet-painter made no effort to dispossess her; on the contrary, he increased her power by giving her an excellent education; and when she had arrived at the age of womanhood, he made her his wife. Their married years have numbered many. One may be considered old, the other is no longer young; but their happiness has been, as far as it can be, without a shadow. Although they have no children, they do not seem to have desired them. Some gallant husbands pen a sonnet to a wife on her birth-day, or the anniversary of her marriage, but Moritz Retzsch _sketches_ his birthday ode, in which the beauty and worth of his cherished wife, his own tenderness and happiness, their mingled hopes and prayers, are penciled in forms the most poetic and expressive. From year to year these designs have enriched the album of Madame Retzsch; and never was a more noble tribute laid at the feet of any lady-love, even in the times of old romance!