o time in
making an offer for the set, to add to her private collection. The
artist, with suitable diffidence, hesitated, yet looked on the proposal
as an interposition of Providence, and then begged for the money at
once, to help him on his further journey into Germany. Though success
had delivered him from poverty, and commissions came in faster than he
could paint, yet at no time did he roll in wealth; spite of scrupulous
economy, he never much more than paid his way; and a few years later,
when, for Emilie Linder, engaged on _The Death of St. Joseph_,[5] he
gladly accepted beforehand the price by instalments. The correspondence
shows a tender conscience, with a humility not devoid of independence.
The art products were in fact of so high a quality that the painter
conferred a greater favour than any he could receive in return.

Overbeck left the hospitable roof of Cornelius in Munich at the end of
August, 1831, and reached Heidelberg, there to meet with an enthusiastic
reception from friends and admirers; there also, after a separation of
five-and-twenty years, he saw once more, and for the last time, his
elder brother from Lubeck. Close to Heidelberg, overhanging the banks of
the Necker, is Stift Neuburg, formerly a monastic establishment, but
then the picturesque residence of a family in warmest bonds of
friendship with the art brethren. At this lovely spot, I am told by the
present owner, "Overbeck stayed several days, and a seat in the garden
is still called after him 'Overbeck's Platzchen.'" On this rustic bench
the painter was wont to sit meditatively amid scenery of surpassing
beauty; the quietude of nature and the converse of kindred minds were to
his heart's content. Within the old mansion, on the walls and in
portfolios, are the choicest examples of the artist's early and middle
periods; thus Stift Neuburg in its house and grounds remains sacred to
the painter's memory.[6]

From Heidelberg Overbeck travelled to Frankfort--a city soon to become a
focus of the wide-spreading revival. Here the apostle of sacred art made
the acquaintance of the poet Clemens Brentano, and fell among other
friends and adorers. Philip Veit, his fellow-worker in the Casa
Bartholdi and the Villa Massimo, had just been appointed Director of the
Stadel Institute, where he executed one of the noblest of frescoes--_The
Introduction of the Arts into Germany through Christianity_. Likewise
among warm adherents was Johann Passavant, a pa