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Meantime of either host the shafts told -perished the people;

But when he shook it, and glared in the face of the swift-riding Grecians,

Loud-voiced shouting the while, their hearts in their bosoms

Spell-bound he took, and they forgot their turbulent courage."

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known a statue then in possession of Count | Αὐτὰρ, ἐπεὶ κατενῶπα ἰδὼν Δαναῶν ταχυπώλων Straganoff, and purchased in Italy in 1818 Σεισ', ἐπὶ δ ̓ αὐτὸς ουσε μάλα μέγα, τοισι δε θυμὸν or 1819, by the aid of which the problem Εν στήθεσσιν ἔθελξε, λάθοντο δὲ θούριδος ἀλκῆς. on which so many critics had exercised their" While in his hand the ægis at rest held Phowits in vain, was enabled to be solved in a bus Apollo, completely satisfactory manner. It is a statue of Apollo in bronze, sixty centimeters high (about 24 inches), and, with some insignificant differences, completely agrees with the Apollo Belvedere, and leaves not the slightest room for doubt as to the attribute held in the left hand, although in this part it is somewhat damaged. Several particulars make it in a high degree probable that the statuette is identical with the one mentioned by Pouqueville, and was found together with the Gorgon-head, which meantime has been lost, in 1792, at Paramythia in Epirus (thirty miles from Janina). The attribute in question must be sup-greatness and noble reluctance upon the posed to consist of a yielding substance, as it is tightly pressed together by the hand, and spreads above and below in numerous folds. Evidently it can be nothing else than the ægis.

The ægis originally belonged to Zeus. The thunder-cloud, freighted with all the destructive and terrible manifestations of the powerful ruler of heaven, begot the notion of the ægis, in which the Greek fancy created a symbol of the dread violence of nature: the sight of it excites horror, and brings death and ruin. At first it was conceived as a hairy goatskin, then as a scaly serpent's-skin; later it commonly appears as a Medusa-head, encircled with snakes, and such a one doubtless was not wanting in the lower and evidently broken-off portion of the attribute of our statuette. The Gorgon-head mentioned by Pouqueville in connection with the statue of Apollo was clearly nothing else than the lower half of the ægis.

Apollo borrows the ægis from Zeus, the nature of the former being closely allied with that of the Supreme Deity. We read in Homer (Iliad., lib. xv. 229-30), how Zeus commands Apollo to hasten to the relief of the Trojans hard pressed by the Greeks:

̓Αλλὰ σύ γ' ἐν χείρεσσι λάβ ̓ αἰγίδα θυσσανόεσσαν,
Τῇ, μάλ' ἐπισσείων, φοβέειν ήρωας Αχαιούς.
"Up, now! and bear in your hand the aegis bor-
dered with fringes;

Shake it with might, and so daunt the heroic

Achaians!"

And further on we read (vv. 318-322): Οφρα μὲν αἰγίδα χερσίν ἔχ ̓ ἀτρέμα φοίβος Απόλλων,

Τόφρα μάλ' ἀμφοτέρων βέλε ̓ ἧπτετο, πίπτε δὲ λαός.

And here we have the key to the understanding of the two statues. With long and hasty strides the god has hurried along to the opposing lines of battle; for a moment he halts and, still holding the ægis aloft, looks back with an expression of

hosts which lie subjected to the terrible influence of his weapon. In a moment he will continue his victorious course.

There can be no doubt that the artist in the creation of his work was under the influence of the Homeric narrative. This is the only passage in which we find Apollo bearing the ægis, and we have seen how well the whole treatment of the statue agrees with the situation depicted by the poet. Whether the sculptor simply meant to reproduce a moment of the epic story; whether he borrowed from it only the motif, in order without a specific allusion to represent the god as a protector in battle; or whether he meant so to exhibit him with reference to a definite event, were questions which were temporarily forced to remain unsolved. A further lucky discovery was to bring an answer even to them.

In the year 278 B. C., a horde of Gauls under the lead of Brennus had fallen upon Macedonia, had outflanked the allied army of the Greeks posted at Thermopyla, and had pressed onward to Delphi. But here the Gauls were compelled to turn about. Lightning, rain, and huge boulders came' down from Parnassus, and the Gallic host was visibly annihilated by the Delphic god and by spirits." According to another acbeautiful youth of superhuman stature, and count, Apollo had manifested himself as a made known his presence by earthquake, the falling of rocks, storm and hail, which had swept away the enemy. The whole legend is patterned after an older one, which in like manner describes the overthrow of the Persians before Delphi.

Now, in the year 1860, the same in which the bronze statuette became known, an inscription was published at Athens whose importance for the understanding of the

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Apollo Belvedere was forthwith recognized | significance for the judgment of the Vatiand pointed out by Preller. According to can statue was set forth by Dr. Kekulé in a the inscription, a festival was appointed in paper read at Rome before the Archæologihonor of Zeus, the Preserver, and the Py- cal Institute. In the summer of 1866, to thian Apollo, to commemorate the victory wit, the well-known sculptor Steinhäuser, won over the Gauls at Delphi; and Athens a native of Bremen, discovered and purwas also invited to share in the festival. chased at a marble-cutter's a marble head, Therefore the conjecture has great proba- lying amid a heap of rubbish, which bore a bility that on this occasion a statue of Apollo surprising resemblance to that of the Apollo was set up in his temple as an offering. If, Belvedere. Its origin cannot be exactly however, there was a desire to represent ascertained, but several circumstances indihim as one who had protected the Greeks cate that it was found at Rome. The nose and his sanctuary from the barbarians by and a portion of the hair were wanting, and producing extraordinary natural phenomena, the upper lip was somewhat damaged; for he could not well have been carved other- the rest, in every particular, such an agreewise than as bearing the ægis, which is pre- ment was displayed with the head of the cisely the emblem of overpowering natural Apollo Belvedere, that it seemed necessary forces. And thus for both statues, or their to believe not that both works were executcommon original, the Homeric description ed after a common original, but that one is became the model, as formerly an Homeric a direct copy of the other. However much verse suggested to Phidias the creation of the Vatican Apollo has been condemned, his ideal Zeus. no one has dared to criticise the head; to it the worshippers of the statue were wont to point when the criticisms and fault-findings became unpleasant. It could not, therefore, but be of the highest interest to be able to compare a second copy, executed in the same material and with like caretwo conditions that were not answered by the Straganoff statue. And then it was found that in the newly revealed head all the forms were carved more grandly and simply, more powerfully and freely; the treatment of the shape of the head for the profile view, the outlines of the face, and the figure of the chin, were tokens of genuine Greek art; the Vatican Apollo seemed in comparison a closely executed copy, but with an unmistakable striving after softness and elegance. It has been opportunely conjectured that among the numerous monuments reckoned at more than five hundred-which Nero took from the Delphic sanctuary, the original of the Vatican statue was brought to Rome. Perhaps we have in the Steinhäuser Apollo a fragment of this original, at least a very faithful reproduction of it, while the Apollo Belvedere is a copy executed in the taste of the early empire for one of the villas of Antium. The composition, which is calculated to be seen from a single point of view, is opposed to the nature of the more ancient art, and therefore it may not be supposed that perhaps the overthrow of the Persians before Delphi, attributed to the interposition of Apollo, soon afterwards occasioned the production of the original; much rather shall we be forced to assign its origin to the time which succeeded the victory over the Gauls.

No doubt, then, can longer exist as to the treatment in which the artist meant to convey the Apollo alluded to; but again, in relation to historic art, with the help of the bronze work several notable results are derivable. Count Straganoff's statue is distinguished from the Vatican, which in every particular was wrought for effect, and was very probably produced in Nero's time -by simplicity and naturalness, and is evidently the older work. Thereby the question whether the Apollo Belvedere is an original was answered in the negative. That it was copied after the bronze found in a city of Epirus is scarcely credible, and we shall have to admit that both statues were executed after a common original, or, more likely, after different copies of it. Now it has been asserted in many quarters that the original of the Belvedere must have been a bronze work, and in support of this theory, the elegant treatment of the hair and especially of the mantle, that falls down in rich folds over the left arm, has been adduced a motif which, it was said, is very difficult to execute in marble, and only to be explained on the supposition of a bronze original. But we now know an antique duplicate in bronze which lacks exactly that mantle motif; one of the few points in which a considerable difference in the two works manifests itself. Thus the comparison of the bronze heightens the credibility of the opinion already based on it, that the presumed original was of marble.

The questions we have touched upon were destined to obtain a substantial furtherance through a third important discovery, whose

From The Sunday Magazine.
MADAME DE KRUDENER.

DESCENDED from an ancient German family, Madame de Krudener first saw the light in one of the Russian provinces on the Baltic, but her education was neither German nor Russian, but of that European stamp, assuming a French garb, adopted by many of the nobility of the East, who seek to make up for the want of civilisation at home by travels in the West, and no longer clinging to their native land, or retaining any of its national customs, they succumb to the charms of a brilliant, seductive, and superficial French life.

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ful figure of the women of Poland and Courland."

To this woman and to Jung Stilling, and to the prophecies with which they appeared before Alexander, Arndt ascribes his forbearance towards the French, and injustice to the Germans. At the time when she began to play her part in the world's history, and especially in that of Germany, Madame de Krudener was fifty years of age. We must not, however, ignore the history of her previous life, nor how she came to adop it as her vocation to endeavour to convert people of all ranks, from the highest to the lowest.

Barbara Julie von Wiekinghoff was born But the life of Madame de Krudener, in November, 1764, at Riga, in Courland. though it gives us a glimpse of such frivoli- Her father, who belonged to an ancient famties, does not always detain us amidst them. ily, had revived the sinking fortunes of his We see how, in communion with simple house by the riches acquired in industrial Christians, she learns to appear in the char- pursuits, and was Russian privy councillor acter of a prophetess before the great ones and senator.. Her mother, the daughter of of the earth, in all the simplicity of the Marshal Munich, united to the industry of gospel. The conversion of this lady, which a housewife the tastes of a woman of the happened during the time of the French world. Barbara Julie was the second daughdominion, attracts us to observe her life ter; the eldest was deaf and dumb; and more closely from our own point of view; they had three brothers, one of whom died and its importance is still more evident when early. She grew up amidst the abundance we find that she obtained great influence of her father's house, without any special over the Emperor Alexander. The Grand care being bestowed on her education. Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz — although Perhaps the best influences of her childhood from ignorance of the facts he denied that were derived from those impressions of nashe had any influence upon his sister, Queen ture which she received from living in the Louisa said of her: "As for the Em- country, and near the sea. At the age of peror Alexander, she had attained such thirteen that wandering life began for her, power over him, that the Holy Alliance, which is so critical in its influence upon which he projected and carried out, must be character. In the summer of 1777, she regarded as the work of this woman." And visited Spa, then the rendezvous of EuroE. M. Arndt, when eighty years of age, pean aristocracy, with her parents. There complained of her power, which, opposed the chief interest she excited was as an heirto the more vigorous influence of Stein, ap- ess. A residence in Paris during the folpeared to him to be prejudicial to Germany, lowing winter afforded her all the charms and only of advantage to France. He of social life, in which vice concealed itself wrote: "I went for a few weeks to my under attractive disguises; but the only infriend Schenkendorf, who was living at struction she received was in dancing. In Carlsruhe and Baden, as a sort of retainer 1778 the family went to England, to pay of Stein's. I saw at Carlsruhe, but chiefly visits at the country seats of their acquaintat Baden and Heidelberg, the Fieldmar- ances. The French governess spoke her shaless of the Alexandrian ladies. Who language well, had good manners, and was was this Fieldmarshaless who gave the word expert in various useless feminine accomof command to all the rest? She was for- plishments, but could confer no greater merly the most beautiful and celebrated benefits upon her pupil. But this did not nightingale of the diplomatic salons, Ma- prevent the latter from exciting_universal dame de Krudener, who in her youth passed admiration when she returned to Riga. At through all the sweets and dangers of salon sixteen her parents betrothed her to a man life, and now as a penitent as which she whom she did not like. In the anguish of proclaims herself to everybody-she con- her heart, for the first time she prayed to siders herself called upon to convert herself God. She fell ill, but her recovery was and all the world. Although her beauty hastened by the news that the gentleman was on the wane, her eye was still power- had renounced the engagement. At eighful, and she has the fine, elegant, and grace- teen she became the bride of Baron Bur

"in my place he would have gone to bed and to sleep."

To so weak and perverse a thing as the human heart, the idea of "not being understood" was an excuse for future unfaithfulness. A passion that a young man attached

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chard Alexis Constantine von Krudener. He was twenty years older than the bride. He had had the good fortune, among other studies at Leipzig, to hear Gellert's lectures on Morality. Gellert interested himself in him, and he was so industrious that among his fellow students he obtained the nick-to the embassy, Alexander von Stakieff, had name of the "scholar." After leaving the conceived for her did not prove a snare to university he was attaché to the Russian her because he voluntarily banished himself embassy at Madrid. At Paris he made the from her presence. After a residence of a acquaintance of J. J. Rousseau, and, after year and a half at Venice, Krudener was a few months' residence at Warsaw, he was appointed ambassador at Copenhagen, where entrusted by the Empress Catherine II. after a tour in Italy, he arrived in 1786. In with the office of Minister of Courland, the north, as well as in the south, the theatre which was an important one, as she was en- was the favourite diversion at the embassy. deavouring to incorporate this duchy with Von Stakieff again met with Madame de Russia. Krudener had already been twice Krudener here, and fled from her again, as married, and twice divorced. He had a he felt that his old passion for her revived son of nine years of age, who stood in need with fresh force. He wrote to Krudener: of a mother, but the girl of eighteen whom I honour her for her affection for you. he now married was not disposed for any- From the moment that you became less dear thing but worldly amusements. She ex- to her, she would be only an ordinary wopected from her husband, as she herself ex- man to me, and I should love her no more." pressed it, all that could entertain her mind Krudener handed the letter to his wife, who and gratify her vanity, even if he could not was before in total ignorance of the attachsatisfy her heart. He seriously thought of ment of the fugitive; and her unconscious trying to supply the deficiencies of her edu- success induced her to enter upon the slipcation, but it gratified her vanity more to pery paths of endeavouring to please. Then dance, and to be seen at the theatre and in she was "not understood." society. In 1784 the young wife bore a son Mental agitation occasioned an illness, to whom the Grand Duke Paul, afterwards and, a confinement occurring soon after, she Emperor, stood godfather. In the follow-nearly lost her life. She was ordered to ing year Krudener was appointed ambassa- the south of France, and left Copenhagen dor at Venice. His wife delighted in the in May, 1789, and went first to Paris. luxurious idle life in the wonderful city of Here she found the need of more mental the sea. One great occupation was fur-culture; she read the best works that French nished by the theatre which the ambassador literature afforded, and sought the society established in his own house, and in which of men of taste and science. She lived in other distinguished persons took part. Ma- the same house with Bernardin de St. Pierre, dame de Krudener received many attentions, the author of Paul and Virginia," and enbut at first she did not heed them. She joyed the charms of nature in his company; was truly attached to her husband, showed and, while she boasted of her taste for simhim all manner of little attentions, and when ple pleasures, she contracted a debt, to a he read to her in the evenings she forgot celebrated modiste, of 20,000 francs. the book in the reader.

In the spring they went to a charming estate in the country. One sultry day the Baron was out, and the lady was impatient of her solitude. A violent thunderstorm came on, and she became intensely anxious about her husband. Night came on, and, as he did not return, she could not rest. At midnight she sent her attendants to bed, became more and more alarmed, fancied she heard cries for help, and rushed out into the darkness to seek her husband. He soon arrived, and endeavoured to calm her, but reproached her with her terror, saying, You should have gone to bed; you will kill yourself with this excitability." The words were kindly meant, but they sent a dagger into her heart. Ah!" she thought,

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In December she left Paris, with her children, a governess, and an old professor of medicine; and, after visiting Avignon, they settled down at Montpellier. next became the leader of fashion at Barèges. She sometimes sat at the gaming-table, and once electrified the guests by her reading of "Paul and Virginia" in the open air. On returning home they expressed regret at being no longer able to enjoy the summer night, and she planned a night-excursion which reminds one of the exuberant spirits of a party of students. On returning to Montpellier, she formed a fatal acquaintance with the Count de Fregeville-a young, handsome, and fascinating officer. Arrangements had been made for returning to Copenhagen, but a thousand hindrances

occurred, and she remained the winter. | Berlin, where he was ambassador,— with The Count declared his love. She showed the best intentions of living quietly, but him the door; he threatened to kill himself; again drawn into the vortex of society, and and, just as in a bad French novel, a sinful striving to outshine others. But her want relation ensued. And when the governess, of peace within is indicated by such sayings Mademoiselle Piozet, who had kept Madame as this; "People who would be inconsolade Krudener within bounds, was married to ble if they had brought any real misfortune a M. Armand, she was entirely without upon us, think it allowable to inflict all sorts protection. She resolved to go home, but of little annoyances which at last make a informed the Count of her intention, and mountain more difficult to climb than any he persuaded her that she could not travel real sorrow." without an escort. She had not the will Vanity under a garb of religion is plainly to resist, and he accompanied her on the shown by her ascribing all the honours journey. She had given a false representa- which are accorded to her husband to her tion of the relation between them to her hus-return to him, and she considered herself band; but the nearer she got to him, the his guardian angel. She says: "I think more loudly conscience began to accuse her. that God has blessed my husband on acAt length they met, and the wife con- count of our re-union. There is no favour fessed that the sanctity of the marriage tie or success which has not been granted had been violated. The husband received him. Why should I not believe that such the announcement with dignified grief. favour is accorded to a pious heart which Madame de Krudener prayed for a separa- prays heaven in simplicity and confidence tion; but her husband would not agree to to assist him in striving to attain a higher it, and allowed her to go to Riga to her happiness?" mother. The Count accompanied her to Berlin, and then rushed into the tumult of war. The sin had made three mortals miserable, and brought about nothing but sep-so. aration.

With her mother the daughter found as much peace as can be found by a soul not yet sensible of its guilt. She nursed her father on his death-bed, and wrote frequently to Madame Armand, and a desire for the peace of God may plainly be traced in her letters. She wrote: "God has supported me, religion has tempered my bitter grief, and I am more disposed for solitude and seclusion from the world.”

At Riga she saw Alexander von Stakieff again. He learnt what had occurred, and, as he had before said, all his interest in her vanished. On receiving this, she began to feel the pangs of remorse. But more than ten years went by before she came as a poor sinner to the feet of the Saviour.

We will not enter into many details of this painful time. She met her husband at St. Petersburg. He received her with forgiving kindness, and she was not wanting in humility. At Berlin, whither she had gone on account of her health in 1792, she met Madame Armand, her best friend; but, not being able to withstand being drawn into society, she retired to Leipzig. In 1794, we find her again at Riga, and in 1796, travelling in Germany and in Switzerland. At Lausanne she shone in the society of the French emigrants.

We pass rapidly over the next few years, passed in Switzerland and Germany, until, in 1800, we find her with her husband in

It would have been very different if this had been the result of sincere Christian zeal, but very much was wanting to make it In the summer of 1801, Madame de Krudener went to Töplitz. Her stay there did her so much good mentally and physically, that she thought with terror of returning to Berlin, and informed her husband that she wished to travel in Switzerland, but set off without waiting for his answer. At Geneva she received his letter, and found that he highly disapproved of the journey. "I confess," he wrote, "that I had not feared another separation. You cannot conceal from yourself how prejudicial it is to the happiness and interests of our children, and I tell you with the plainness that our friendship demands, that duty has assigned you a place in the bosom of your family. You appear to think your absence a source of economy, as if keeping up two establishments instead of one could possibly be economical."

At Coppet she met with Madame de Staël, and at Paris formed an intimate acquaintance with Chateaubriand, who sent her a copy of his " Génie du Christianisme" two days before it was published, an honour of which she was in the highest degree sensible. These literary acquaintances stimulated her to carry out some literary projects she had herself formed. But in the midst of these occupations, she received the news of the sudden death of her husband of apoplexy, in June, 1802. Here was a fearful chastisement for her neglect of her duties, in order that she might roam about the world at her pleasure. She had been

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