74 I GO A- FISHING. 



here a good copy of the Frankfort edition of your friend 

 Pirkheimer. What a wretch the old fellow was !" 



"There you are again. Now, what have you read of 

 his works. What reason have you for abusing a learned 

 man like that, the friend of the great Reformers, the patron 

 of art? You know no more about Pirkheimer than you 

 know of trout-fishing." 



"I'm ashamed of you, Doctor. I didn't think you 

 would be guilty of defending a notorious libertine, an in- 

 flated egotist, one who sought notoriety by attaching him- 

 self to great men, and patronized art not for the art's sake, 

 but for the sake of being a patron." 



" Why, Effendi," said Philip, " what's the matter ? Did 

 Bilibald ever insult you ? Where did you meet him to 

 get in such a rage with him ?" 



" I meet him in my own library every day, for whenever 

 I look at one of Diirer's Madonnas or pictures of the 

 Virgin in any scene of her life, I wonder if the face of his 

 wife Agnes is there, and, while looking for it, I am always 

 sure to see the brutal physiognomy of Bilibald Pirkheimer, 

 who has outraged Diirer and vilified poor Agnes by mak- 

 ing her famous for all time as a vixen, when I have no 

 manner of doubt she was a pure, gentle, and lovely 

 woman." 



" I thought every one had agreed about Agnes Diirer. 

 I'm sure one meets only one story about her in all the 

 books." 



" Yes ; and, as I said just now, history is a repetition 

 of old stories, and in this case it is a repetition of one 

 old falsehood told by the lying pen of Pirkheimer. 



" No woman has been more vilified in history than Ag- 

 nes Diirer, and none more wrongfully. She may have 

 been worse than she is represented ; but until we have a 



