f execution, he
has certainly far surpassed the Venetian, not only in form and ideas,
but also in the solidity of his technique. This technique is undoubtedly
of Northern origin, as is also the harmony of colour, which Duerer here
realizes, and does not soon again abandon. It must not be forgotten,
however, that the difference between this technique and that practised
by Giovanni Bellini is one of degree and not of principle; judging at
least by the unfinished painting of Giovanni's in the Uffizi, in which
the design is sketched either with the pencil or brush, and the colours
then laid on in tempera, and afterwards repeatedly covered with oil
glazes. Duerer appears to have owed the opportunity of producing this his
first masterpiece in painting to a commission from the Elector Frederick
of Saxony. Christian II. presented it to the Emperor Rudolph II. in
1603, and in the last century it was sent from the imperial gallery, in
exchange for the _Presentation in the Temple_, by Fra Bartolomeo, to
Florence, where it now shines as a gem of German art amongst the
renowned pictures in the Tribune of the Uffizi.

[Illustration: ADORATION OF THE MAGI.
_Duerer._]

_The Life and Works of Albert Duerer_, translated from the German
and edited by Fred. A. Eaton (London, 1882).

MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE

(_HOGARTH_)

AUSTIN DOBSON

Nevertheless, if the main circumstances of the painter's career should
still remain unaltered, there must always be a side of his work which
will continue to need interpretation. In addition to painting the faults
and follies of his time, he was pre-eminently the pictorial chronicler
of its fashions and its furniture. The follies endure; but the fashions
pass away. In our day--a day which has witnessed the demolition of
Northumberland House, the disappearance of Temple Bar, and the removal
of we know not what other time-honoured and venerated landmarks--much in
Hogarth's plates must seem as obscure as the cartouches on Cleopatra's
Needle. Much more is speedily becoming so; and without some guidance the
student will scarcely venture into that dark and doubtful rookery of
tortuous streets and unnumbered houses--the London of the Eighteenth
Century.

[Illustration: MARRIAGE A-LA-MODE.
_Hogarth._]

Were it not beyond the reasonable compass of a methodical memoir, it
would be a pleasant task to loiter for a while in that vanished London
of Hogarth, of Fielding, of Garrick;--t