Ah, so! A sweet repentant Magdalen.—Page 6.
The picture here suggested by the poet is manifestly the famous
Magdalen of the Dresden Gallery, familiar in Longhi's engraving,
and of which fine replicas exist in the Palazzo Borghese in Rome,
and also in Lord Ward's collection. As a specimen of the extravagance
to which the cant of criticism will lead even great men, it
may be noted, that Tieck found great fault with the poet for making
Silvestro hang up this picture in his chapel in the forest, in
the Fifth Act, as a piece of barbarism shocking to the nerves of a
dilettante. In the same spirit, he first maintains that the picture
spoken of is the Dresden picture, and then proves elaborately that
it could not be so. Of all men in the world, Tieck, whose fancy
is erratic to a vice, should have been the last to blame the excusable
license in Oehlenschläger, of indicating, as he has done in this
scene, a picture which is familiar to every lover of art, and was
therefore best of all fitted for dramatic reference.
