the good news, writes, December 16, 1811, "I was so
overpowered with joy that I could not bring out a syllable. The affair
moves me all the more because I had not dreamt of it. What can be the
cause of my good fortune? Happy day! I shall think of it as long as I
live: to the Lord be the praise." Four days later he writes to
Lubeck:--"What joy! I can now relieve my parents from further burden.
This is the moment so long wished for. Henceforth and for ever I am a
man and an independent artist in the workshop, free as a king over the
boundless domain of fantasy to create a beautiful world."

The maxim that correct drawing lies at the foundation of all true art
was maintained by the Brotherhood through both precept and example.
Overbeck first mastered form, he trained his hand to outline; next he
learnt the principles of composition, that is the power of combining
separate parts into a connected whole; lastly, he added colour, but
rather as an accessory than an essential. Hence his water-colours and
even his oil-pictures are often little more than tinted drawings. In the
first Roman period, that is up to about the year 1820, when the age of
thirty had been reached, we find the artist in full possession of the
faculty of expressing his ideas at the point of his pencil. Of this
happy facility many examples have come before me: one especially, at
Stift Neuburg, _The Raising of Jairus's Daughter_ (1814); another,
almost a replica of the last, delicately washed with colour, in the
private collection of Herr Malss, of the Stadel Institute, Frankfort. I
note with admiration the precision and subtlety of the form, especially
in the hands and feet. The work, though small in scale (1 ft. 3 in. by
1 ft.), is large in manner, the treatment being that of the Great
Masters as distinguished from the Small Masters. Overbeck, who was on
intimate terms with the family of Director Malss, said that he wished
they should have a work as perfect as he could make it: verily he
realised his endeavour. Belonging to the same period, I find in another
private collection in Frankfort a portrait in delicate pencilling of a
young girl of about eighteen; the hair is in close curls all round the
head, the necklace is marked with utmost detail. Perhaps I have not laid
sufficient stress on the truth and rectitude of Overbeck's work, as
seen, for instance, in the _Head of an Old Monk_ among the drawings of
the National Gallery, Berlin. This is so close to nat