[Footnote 5: The legend of this charming saint, one of the most popular in Germany, is but little known among us. She was the wife of a margrave of Thuringia, who was a fierce, avaricious man, while she herself was all made up of tenderness and melting pity. She lived with her husband in his castle on the Wartsburg, and was accustomed to go out every morning to distribute alms among the poor of the valley: her husband, jealous and covetous, forbade her thus to exercise her bounty; but as she regarded her duty to God and the poor, even as paramount to conjugal obedience, she secretly continued her charitable offices. Her husband encountered her one morning at sunrise, as she was leaving the castle with a covered basket containing meat, bread, and wine, for a starving family. He demanded, angrily, what she had in her basket! Elizabeth, trembling, not for herself, but for her wretched protegés, replied, with a faltering voice, that she had been gathering roses in the garden. The fierce chieftain, not believing her, snatched off the napkin, and Elizabeth fell on her knees.--But, behold, a miracle had been operated in her favour!--The basket was full of roses, fresh gathered, and wet with dew.] [Footnote 6: See Taylor's "Historic Survey of German Poetry." Herman was afterwards murdered by a band of conspirators, and Thusnelda, on learning the fate of her husband, died brokenhearted.] [Footnote 7: The notices which follow are abridged from the essay "on Ancient German and Northern Poetry," before mentioned--from the preface to the edition of the Nibelungen Lied, by M. Von der Hagen--and the analysis of the poem in the Illustrations of Northern Antiquities. My own first acquaintance with the Nibelungen Lied, I owed to an accomplished friend, who gave me a detailed and lively analysis of the story and characters; and certainly no child ever hung upon a tale of ogres and fairies with more intense interest than I did upon her recital of the adventures of the Nibelungen.] [Footnote 8: Dietrich of Bern (i. e. Theodoric of Verona,) is the great hero of South Germany--the King Arthur of Teutonic romance, who figures in all the warlike lays and legends of the middle ages.] [Footnote 9: See the Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 213.] [Footnote 10: In the altercation between the two queens, Chrimhilde boasts of possessing these trophies, and displays them in triumph to her mortified rival; for which indiscretion, as she afterwards complains, "her husband was in high anger, and _beat her black and blue_." This treatment, however, which seems to have been quite a matter of course, does not diminish the fond idolatry of the wife,--rather increases it.] [Footnote 11: This list will be subjoined at the end of these Sketches.] [Footnote 12: Sofonisba Augusciola, one of the most charming of portrait painters. She died in 1626, at the age of ninety-three.]