as equally attached to Duerer. The constant intercourse and kindly
advices of his friend were the few happy relaxations Duerer enjoyed.
Pirkheimer was a learned man, and cheerful withal, as his facetious book
"_Laus Podagrae_," or the "Praise of the Gout," can testify. The house in
which he resided is still pointed out in the _Egidien Platz_; it has
undergone alterations, but the old doorway remains intact, through
which Duerer must have frequently passed to consult his friend. "What is
more touching in the history of men of genius than that deep and
constant attachment they have shown to their early patrons?" asks Mrs.
Jameson.[225-*] How many men have been immortalised by friendships of
this kind; how many of the greatest been rendered greater and happier
thereby? When the Elector John Frederick of Saxony met with his
reverses in 1547, was driven from his palace, and was imprisoned for
five years, the painter Lucas Cranach, whom he had patronised in his
days of prosperity, shared his adversity and his prison with him, giving
up his liberty to console his prince by his cheerful society, and
diverting his mind by painting pictures in his company. He thus
lightened a captivity and turned a prison into a home of art and
friendship; thus the kindness and condescension of a prince were
returned in more value "than much fine gold," in the bitter hour of his
adversity, by his humble but warm-hearted artist-friend.

That brotherly unity which ought to bind professional men of all
kinds--isolated as they must be from the general world--was more of a
necessity in the past time than in the present; and the artists formed a
little band of friends within the walls of ancient Nuernberg, consulting
with and aiding each other. The peculiarity of thought and tendency of
habit which constitute the vitality of the artist-mind, are altogether
unappreciated by the general world; completely misunderstood, and most
frequently contemned by men of a trading spirit, who look upon artists
as "eccentrics," upon art as a "poor business," and judge of pictures
solely by their "market value." These things should bind professors more
strongly together. Their numbers are few; their time for socialities
limited; their world a small select circle; few can sympathise with
their cares or their more exquisite sensibilities; they must, therefore,
be content with the few whose minds respond to theirs, and they ought
not to make the narrow circle narrower, by