He was handsome, small, and refined, and rather pale and spare--of that delicacy which in highly bred families is found in the last heirs with whom the race dies out--and he had dark locks which clustered wildly round his head. The moulding of his features was feminine, and his complexion southern; his eyes, shadowed by long lashes, were brown, sometimes fiery, sometimes sad and earnest, and his glance was swift. He loved to sing Italian songs to the guitar in his fine, deep voice, and Boecklin and Reinhold Begas would join in. The impressions he received in Italy were formative of his life. For he learnt to understand the divine simplicity and noble dignity of antique art better than Couture was capable of understanding them; and he achieved a simple amplitude to which the French Classicism had never risen. From his first works, to which the Düsseldorf egg-shell is still sticking, down to the "Symposium of Plato"--what a route it is, and through what phases he passes. "Hafiz at the Well," surrounded by voluptuous, half-naked girls, painted at Paris in 1852, was his first eminent achievement. In subject it is a late fruit from Daumer's study of Hafiz: as a work of art it is one of the most genuine products of the school of Couture. No other German artist has surrendered himself so entirely to the French. With a large brush, never losing sight of the complete effect, Feuerbach has painted his canvas, almost for the sake of showing that he has assimilated everything that was to be learnt in Paris. The same influence preponderates in the "Death of Pietro Aretino," done in 1854. But, side by side with the Parisian master, the later Venetians have an unmistakable share in this work. The capacity to grasp things in a monumental largeness is already announced. Evidently Feuerbach has studied Paul Veronese, and realised how high he stands above the French painters. At the same time he has examined the other Venetians for their technique, and discovered something which has appealed to him in Bordone's colouring. But "Dante walking with high-born Ladies of Ravenna," finished at Rome in 1857, was the ripest fruit of his Venetian impressions. In sunny warmth of colour, fine golden tone, and quiet simplicity of pictorial treatment, no modern has come so near to Palma and Bordone. And in "Dante's Death," of 1858, there predominates a still greater depth and golden glow, a grave and devout beauty. [Illustration: _Seemann, Leipzig._ FEUERBACH. IPHIGENIA.]