Your correspondent, "R.G." (No. 13. p. 203.), is correct in
supposing the _wood-cut_ portrait of Luther to be that which is
prefixed to the treatise "De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiæ," where
he is habited as a monk; but it was evidently only a copy from the
very interesting copper-plate engraving of his friend Lucas Cranach,
bearing the date 1520, of which a very accurate copy was prefixed to
the translation of "Luther's Way to Prayer," published by Mr.
Pickering in 1846. Juncker's book is a very good repertory of the
various representations of the great reformer, but the prints are
generally but faithless copies. In 1750 Kirchmayer printed an
especial disquisition upon the portrait by Lucas Cranach of 1523,
under the following title:--"Disquisitio Historia de Martini Lutheri
Oris et Vultus Habitu Hervieo ad vivum expresso in Imagine divine
pencilli Lucæ Cranachj patris in ære hic incisa," &c., Wittebergæ
Sax. 1750, 4to. The works in which the Germans have sought to do
honour to their great protestant saint, are numerous enough to fill
a small library but two of them are so remarkable as to deserve
notice, 1. "Luther's Merkwürdige Lebensumstande bey seiner
Medicinalischen Leibesconstitution, Krankheiten, geistlichen und
leiblichen Anfectungen und andern Zufallen, &c., von F.G. Keil,"
Leipsig, 1764. 2. "Luther's Merkwürdige Reisegeschichte zu Erganzung
seiner Lebensumstande, von Jo. Th. Lingke," Leipsig, 1769, 4to. The
earliest wood-cut representation of Erasmus with which I am
acquainted is a medallion accompanying another of Ulric of Hutten,
on the title-page of the following work of the unfortunate but
heroic champion of the Reformation:--"Ulrichi ab Hutten cum Erasmo
Rotirodamo, Presbytero, Theologo, Expostulatio." There is reason to
believe that this Expostulation was printed only a short month
before Hutten died; and, though it bears neither date nor name of
printer, that it was printed by Johannes Schott, at Strasburg, in
the month of July, 1523. It has another portrait of Hutten at the
end, the whole strikingly spirited and characteristic; by some they
have been attributed to Holbein, and if not by him, which is
doubtful, they are at least worthy of him.
One would gladly forget this strife between the great promoter of
learning and the soldier-scholar. Erasmus's conduct was unworthy of
a great man, and can never be vindicated.