on the left of the picture. This picture is without a doubt the finest, the greatest altar picture ever painted by any German. It is not by any means a large picture, measuring only 4 ft. 3 in.×3 ft. 10¾ in., but it is so large in conception that it might well have been designed to cover a whole wall. Dürer has here surpassed himself; he has for once conceived with the exuberance of a Michelangelo, for it is more serious than a Raphael, it is less poetic than a Fra Angelico: but personally I state my conviction, that if ever all the Saints shall unite in adoration of the Trinity, this is the true and only possibility, this is instinct with verisimilitude, this might be taken for "documentary evidence." This communion of saints was beholden by man. If ever a man was a believer irrespective of Church, Creed, or sect—Dürer was he. I confess to a sense of awe in beholding this work, akin to Fra Angelico in its
