There lives within them an unpretentiousness and sincerity of sentiment, and, in spite of all deficiencies and lack of independence, somewhat of that lofty inspiration which raises the pictures of really earnest artists, even if they are faulty, far above any fabricated productions. An association of young men, which, unconcerned about success and material profit, contended only for ideal products, found here for the first time an opportunity to display what it wanted. In the interpretation of Pharaoh's dream and in the recognition by the brethren, Cornelius, in formal language, full of character, and without any phrases and posture, displayed all that he had derived from the great Italians in nobility of grouping and fine arrangement of lines. Overbeck reaches the same height in his allegory of the seven lean kine. But it is not only as youthful works of artists, who, if they belonged to a period of decadence, yet were, withal, the greatest representatives of a period of German art, that these pictures are worthy of high esteem; they are essentially the best that these masters have created. Cornelius, notably, shows a study, a care for execution, indeed even a harmony of colouring, that stands in surprising opposition to his later negligence. From the conception that the artistic performance is determined in the invention, and the design, but that the pictorial execution is an indifferent, mechanical accessory which could be supplied even by other people, he was at that time still free. [Illustration: STEINLE. BOOK ILLUSTRATION.] When the pictures had been unveiled in 1819 a festival of German artists was held in Rome. Rückert, Bunsen, the Humboldts, the Herzes were there; Cornelius, Veit, and Overbeck had arranged the transparencies. "The centre of all," writes the Danish romantic Atterbom, was the Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, "the idol of every German artist, whose ruling passion is for the fine arts and fair ladies. Everything was in old German masques, the ladies in wide ruffs. The Crown Prince was in the utmost good humour, and treated the artists as his equals. A toast was drunk to German unity. The scene struck me like a beautiful dream out of the Middle Ages." German unity at a Roman fancy ball! The German nation a beautiful dream out of the Middle Ages! The Crown Prince Ludwig, when he took Cornelius and Schnorr out of the Roman circle, at least created a fatherland for German art, and later on the others also found at home a suitable sphere of activity.