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Shakespeare. Were they envious of their sisters Melpomene and Thalia, who won their most immortal^[1] wreaths by means of the great Briton. With the exception of Romeo and Juliet and Othello, no play by Shakespeare has inspired any composer of any note to any great creation. The value of those sweetly sounding flowers which sprung from the exulting nightingale heart of Zingarelli I need not praise, any more than those sweetest sounds with which the swan of Pesaro sung the bleeding tenderness of Desdemona, and the black flames of her lover! Painting, and especially the arts of design, have still more scantily sustained the fame of our poet. The so-called Shakespeare gallery in Pall Mall shows a good will, but at the same time the chilly weakness of British painters. There we see sober portrayals, quite in the spirit of the old French school, but without the taste which the latter never quite lost. There is something in which the English are as ridiculous bunglers as in music. That is, painting.^[2] Only in portraits have they shown the world anything remarkable, and when they execute them with the graver—not with

1. Unsterblichsten/
2. As Heine generally wrote intelligently and well on art, I can only attribute the absolute absurdity of this sweeping remark to great ignorance. He might with quite as much truth have extended the remark to British engraving.—Translator.