ALBERT, descended of an Hungarian family, and born at Nuremberg in May 1471, was one of the best engravers and painters of his age. He was a man of letters and a philosopher, and an intimate friend of Erasmus, who revised some of the pieces which he published. He was a man of business also, and for many years the leading magistrate of Nuremberg. Though not the inventor, he was one of the first improvers of the art of engraving; and he bethought himself of working also in wood, on which he engraved the life and passion of Christ in thirty-six pieces, which were very highly esteemed. In many of those prints which he executed on copper, the engraving is exceedingly elegant. His Hell scene particularly, which was engraved in the year 1513, is as highly finished a print as ever was engraved, and as happily executed. In his wooden prints too we are surprised to see so much meaning in so early a master; the heads being well marked, and every part admirably executed. This artist seems to have understood the principles of design. His composition, too, is often pleasing; and his drawing generally good. But he knew very little of the management of lights, and still less of grace; yet his ideas are purer and more elegant than we could have supposed from the awkward archetypes which his country and education afforded. In a word, he was certainly a man of very extensive genius; and, as Vasari remarks, he would have been an extraordinary artist if he had had an Italian instead of a German education. His prints are very numerous, and were much admired and eagerly bought up in his own lifetime. He was rich, and chose rather to practise his art as an amusement than as a business. This eminent person died at Nuremberg, on the 6th April 1528, and was interred in St John's Church, where an inscription was placed over his remains. Durer wrote several books in German, which were translated into Latin by other persons, and published after his death. Among these we may mention, 1. De Symmetria Portionum in rectis formis Humanorum Corporum, Nuremberg, 1532, Paris, 1557, fol.; 2. Institutiones Geometricae, Paris, 1532; 3. De Urbibus, Arcibus, Castellisque condendis et munendis, Paris, 1531; 4. De Varietate Figurarum, et flexuris Portium, et gestibus Imaginum, Nuremberg, 1534. (See Reliquiae von Albrecht Dürer, seinen Verehrern gewidelt, Taschenbuch.) DURÉSSE, Hardship, in Love, is where a person is kept in prison or restrained of his liberty contrary to order of law; or is threatened to be killed, maimed, or beaten. In which case, if a person so in prison, or in fear of such threats, make any specialty or obligation, by reason of such imprisonment or threats, such deed is void in law; and in an action brought on such specialty, the party may plead that it was brought by durese.