lot of Veit. On the right another door opens to a corresponding room
of like dimensions, set apart to Overbeck and Tasso's _Jerusalem
Delivered_.[10] This small interior is not more than fifteen feet
square, and the wall-spaces are much broken up by doors and windows, so
that only one of the four sides remained disencumbered. The compositions
are eleven in number, and are unequal alike in size and merit. The
largest and most noteworthy is fifteen feet long by ten feet high,
representing the _Meeting of Godfrey de Bouillon and Peter the Hermit_.
The narrative is lucidly told, the picture well put together, and the
successive planes of distance are duly marked. Altogether the
fundamental principles of wall-decoration are clearly understood in this
the most complex composition yet attempted by the painter. Another
thoroughly studied design is _Sophronio and Olindo on the Funeral Pyre
delivered by Clorinda_.[11] The action has more than usual force and
movement, and the undraped figures are drawn with severe exactitude.
Presiding over the whole series, in the middle of the ceiling, is an
allegorical figure of _Jerusalem Delivered_.[12] An angel on either side
unlooses the fetters of an innocent placid maiden crowned with thorns.
These frescoes, notwithstanding their situation in a cold, damp
garden-house, remained, when I saw them last, in January, 1878, in sound
condition: thus once more we find Overbeck, equally with Cornelius, to
have been solidly grounded in the method of wall-painting.

I must confess that I have always been disappointed with this Tasso
Room.[13] One reason is that the carrying out of the original designs
was delegated to an inferior brush. Overbeck was not in strong health;
he worked slowly, and when other commissions came in, some more to his
liking, such as that for the church picture at Assisi, he felt
overburdened, and wished to be released from a task that had grown
wearisome. The work, began about 1817, had dragged on for ten years,
till at last Overbeck made a deliberate call on good and friendly Joseph
Fuhrich, and requested that he would complete the unfinished frescoes.
The proposal, naturally felt as an honour, was gratefully acceded to.
After this distance of time it becomes difficult to determine how far
this worthy substitute must be held responsible for much that is to be
regretted on these walls. For some of the compositions the master had
made nothing more than sketches or indications,