of art and learned to
know the artists in Dresden, appearing in this branch as a beginner, he
was fully developed as a writer. He had a comprehensive view of ancient
history and, in many ways, of the development of the various sciences.
Even in his previous humble condition he felt and knew antiquity, as
well as what was worthy in the life and in the character of the present.
He had already formed a style. In the new school which he entered, he
listened to his masters, not only as a docile pupil but as a learned
disciple. He easily acquired their special attainments, and began
immediately to use and to adapt to his purposes everything that he
learned.

In a higher sphere of action than was his at Dresden, in the nobler
world revealed to him at Rome, he remained the same. What he learned
from Mengs, what he was taught by his surroundings, he did not keep long
to himself; he did not let the new wine ferment and clarify; but rather
as we say that one learns from teaching, so he learned while planning
and writing. How many a title has he left us, how many subjects has he
not mentioned upon which a work was to follow! Like this beginning was
his entire antiquarian career. We find him always active--occupied with
the moment, which he seizes and holds fast as if it only could be
complete and satisfactory, and even so he let himself be instructed by
the following moment. This attitude of mind should be remembered in
forming an estimate of his works.

That they ultimately received their present form, printed directly from
Winckelmann's manuscript notes, is due to many often unimportant
circumstances. A single month later and we should have had works, more
correct in content, more precise in form, perhaps something quite
different. Just for this reason we so deeply regret his premature death,
because he would have constantly rewritten his works and enriched them
with the attainments of the (ever) later phases of his life.

Everything that he has left us, therefore, was written as something
living for the living, not for those who are dead in the letter. His
works, combined with his correspondence, are the story of a life; they
are a life itself. Like the life of most people, they resemble rather a
preparation for a work than the latter in its accomplishment. They give
cause for hopes, for wishes, for premonitions. If one tries to correct
them he sees that he must first correct himself; if he wishes to
criticize them, he sees t