He had grown up in Dantzic, and played as a child in the tortuous lanes of the old free imperial city, amid trumpery shops, general dealers, and artisans. Later, when he settled down in Berlin, he painted the things which had delighted him in his youth. The travels which he made for study were not extensive: they hardly led him farther beyond the boundaries of the Mark than Hesse, the Harz district, Thüringen, Altenburg, and Westphalia. Here he drew with indefatigable diligence the pleasant village houses and the churches shadowed by trees; the cots, yards, and alleys; the weather-beaten town ramparts, with their crumbling walls; the unobtrusive landscapes of North Germany, lovely valleys, bushy hills, and bleaching fields, traversed by quiet streams fringed with willows, and enlivened by the figures of peasants, who still clung to so much of their old costume. His pictures certainly do not give an idea of the life of the German people at the time. For the peasantry have sat to Meyerheim only in their most pious mood, in Sunday toilette, and with their souls washed clean. Clearness, neatness, and prettiness are to be found everywhere in his pictures. But little as they correspond to the truth, they are just as little untrue through affectation, for their idealism sprang from the harmless and cheerful temperament of the painter, and from no convention of the schools. [Illustration: MEYERHEIM. CHILDREN AT PLAY.] A homely, idyllic poetry is to be found in his figures and his interiors. His women and girls are chaste and gracious. It is evident that Meyerheim had a warm sympathy for the sorrows and joys of humble people; that he had an understanding for this happy family life, and liked himself to take part in these merry popular festivals; that he did not idealise the world according to rules of beauty, but because in his own eyes it really was so beautiful. His "King of the Shooting Match" of 1836 (Berlin National Gallery) has as a background a wide and pleasant landscape, with blue heights in the distance and the cheerful summer sunshine resting upon them. In the foreground are a crowd of figures, neatly composed after studies. The crowned king of the match, adorned for a festival, stands proudly on the road by which the procession of marksmen is advancing, accompanied by village music. An old peasant is congratulating him, and the pretty village girls and peasant women, in their gay rustic costumes, titter as they look on, while the neighbours are merrily drinking his health. Then there is the "Morning Lesson," representing a carpenter's house, where an old man is hearing his grandson repeat a school task; "Children at Play," a picture of a game of hide-and-seek amongst the trees; "The Knitting Lesson," and the picture of a young wife by the bed of a naked boy who has thrown off the bedclothes and is holding up one of his rosy feet; and "The Road to Church," where the market-place is shadowed with lime trees and the