By the success of Richter certain disciples were inspired to tread the same ground, although none of them equalled him in his charming human qualities. And least of all _Oskar Pletsch_, whose self-sufficient smile is soon recognised in all its emptiness. Everything which in Richter was genuine and original is in him flat, laboured, and prearranged. His landscapes, which in part are very pretty, are derived from R. Schuster; what seems good in the children is Richter's property, and what Pletsch contributed is the conventionality. _Albert Hendschel_ also stood on Richter's shoulders, but his popularity is more justifiable. Even in these days one takes pleasure in his sketch-books, in which he immortalised the joy and sorrow of youth in such a delicious way. [Illustration: _Braun, Munich._ OBERLÄNDER. VARIATIONS ON THE KISSING THEME. RETHEL.] _Eugen Neureuther_ worked in Munich, and as an etcher revelled in the charming play of arabesques and ornamental borders, and told of pleasant little scenes from the life of the Bavarian people in his pretty peasant quatrains. [Illustration: _Braun, Munich._ OBERLÄNDER. VARIATIONS ON THE KISSING THEME. GABRIEL MAX.] The rise of caricature in Germany dates from the year 1848. Though there are extant from the first third of the century no more than a few topical papers of no artistic importance, periodical publications, which soon brought a large number of vigorous caricaturists into notice, began to appear from that time, owing to the political agitations of the period. _Kladderadatsch_ was brought out in Berlin, and _Fliegende Blätter_ was founded in Munich, and side by side with it _Münchener Bilderbogen_. But later generations will be referred _par excellence_ to _Fliegende Blätter_ for a picture of German life in the nineteenth century. What the painters of those years forgot to transmit is here stored up: a history of German manners which could not imaginably be more exact or more exhaustive. From the very first day it united on its staff of collaborators almost all the most important names in their own peculiar branch. Schwind, Spitzweg, that genial humorist, and many others whom the German people will not forget, won their spurs here, and were inexhaustible in pretty theatre scenes, satires on German and Italian singing, memorial sketches of Fanny Elsler, of the inventor of the dress coat, etc., which enlivened the whole civilized world at that time. This elder generation of draughtsmen on _Fliegende Blätter_ were, indeed, not free from the guilt of producing stereotyped figures. The travelling Englishman, the Polish Jew, the counter-jumper, the young painter, the rich boor, the stepmother, the housemaid, and the nervous countess are everywhere the same in the first volumes. In caricature, just as in "great art," they still worked a little in accordance with rules and conventions. To observe life with an objective unprejudiced