A curious position, half-way between the Romantic and the Classical schools, was occupied by _Ary Scheffer_, who was, a generation ago, the favourite of the greater part of the aristocracy of Europe, but is now known, to the German public at least, only because he is said to have painted "with snuff and green soap"--a phrase of Heine's, which, however, gives a very false impression of him. A German-Dutchman by birth, a Classicist by training, Scheffer in his youth came also in contact with the leading spirits of the Romantic school; and these various influences, of race, education, and intercourse, are clearly reflected in the faces of his figures. His forms are thoroughly classic and generalised; only the expression of the face is ideal, while the eye is romantic, and, Scheffer's German blood making itself felt--sentimental. It was precisely this mid-way position which his contemporaries found so much to their liking. They called his painting a great art full of style, uniting the sentiment of ideal beauty with a captivating power of expression. But history cares but little for these men of compromise, and regards this indecision as the chief defect of his genius. Scheffer's draughtsmanship is dry and hard, his colouring without tenderness or charm. These failings are ill-assorted with the attitudes and physiognomy of his figures, which have always an affectation of weakness, exhaustion, and moral suffering. He is a sentimental Classicist, and his subjects the antithesis of the Græco-Roman ideal to which he does homage in his technique. His "Suliote Women" was already, in sentiment, form, and colour, only a subdued and weakened reminiscence of the "Massacre of Chios." At a later time he entirely forsook historical subjects (such as "Gaston de Foix" and others), and attached himself with enthusiasm to the Gospels and to the works of the poets, especially of one poet. When he had recourse to the Bible as a source of inspiration, he selected tender episodes, the sadness of which he transmuted into tearfulness. So also, when he represented scenes from _Faust_ or _Wilhelm Meister_, he gave to Goethe's animated and impassioned characters something melancholy, suffering, and contemplative. Heine said of his "Gretchen": "You are no doubt Wolfgang Goethe's Gretchen, but you have read all Friedrich Schiller." Even before her fall, before she is in love, Marguerite is pensive and sad like a fallen angel. Mignon, Francesca da Rimini, and St. Monica were also favourite figures for his delicate and contemplative spirit. He alone in French art inclines a little, in his tearful sentimentality, to the Romantic school of Düsseldorf. [Illustration: _Gaz. des Beaux-Arts._ ARY SCHEFFER. MARGUERITE AT THE WELL.]