statue of the master, designed by Rauch,
on the square before the house.

In 1509-10 Duerer derived pleasure and furnished much amusement to his
friends from verse-making, in which he suffered a worse failure even
than Raphael had done. It seems that Pirkheimer ridiculed a long-drawn
couplet which he had made, upon which the master composed a neat bit
of proverbial philosophy, of which the following is a translation:--

"Strive earnestly with all thy might,
That God should give thee Wisdom's light;
He doth his wisdom truly prove,
Whom neither death nor riches move;
And he shall also be called wise,
Who joy and sorrow both defies;
He who bears both honor and shame,
He well deserves the wise man's name;
Who knows himself, and evil shuns,
In Wisdom's path he surely runs;
Who 'gainst his foe doth vengeance cherish,
In hell-flame cloth his wisdom perish;
Who strives against the Devil's might,
The Lord will help him in the fight;
Who keeps his heart forever pure,
He of Wisdom's crown is sure;
And who loves God with all his heart,
Chooses the wise and better part."

But Pirkheimer was not more pleased with this; and the witty Secretary
Spengler sent Duerer a satirical poem, applying the moral of the fable
of the shoemaker who criticised a picture by Apelles. He answered this
in a song of sixty lines, closing with,--

"Therefore I will still make rhymes,
Though my friend may laugh at times:
So the Painter with hairy beard
Says to the Writer who mocked and jeered."

"1510, this have I made on Good and Bad Friends." Thus the master
prefaces a platitudinous poem of thirty lines; which was soon followed
by "The Teacher," of sixty lines. Later in the year he wrote the long
Passion-Song, which was appended to the print of _Christus am Kreuz_.
It is composed of eight sections, of ten lines each, and is full
of quaint mediaeval tenderness and reverence, and the intense
prayerfulness of the old German faith. The sections are named Matins,
the First, Third, Sixth, and Ninth Hours, Vespers, Compline, and Let
Us Pray, the latter of which is redolent with earnest devotion:--

"O Almighty Lord and God,
Who the martyr's press hast trod;
Jesus, the only God, the Son,
Who all this to Thyself hast done,
Keep it before us to-day and to-morrow,
Give us continual rue and sorrow;
Wash me cl