able of may be found;
yielding the palm to none, whether of Germany or Italy, and justly
wearing the laurel-wreath among the works of former times."

Alas! this laurel, too, has been filched from Holbein's fame. In 1771
the altar-piece was consigned to the collection where it now is; and it
was then decided to gild the gold and paint the lily. The work was
subjected to one of those crude "restorations" which respect nothing
save the frame. And no monarch will ever again compete for its possession.
Red is over red and blue over blue, doubtless; but in place of Holbein's
rich harmony a jangle of gaudy conflicting colours now sets one's teeth
on edge. So that only in a photograph can one even enjoy the
composition--all that is left of the Master.

But here it can be seen with what art the painter has so combined
eight separate and distinct pictures, each a gem, into one, by such a
distribution and balance that the whole is as integral as a pearl. The
scene on the Mount of Olives, which a great critic once pronounced
worthy to compare with Correggio's work, is only to be surpassed by the
Entombment. And in every scene--what freedom, action, verve! From the
first to the last all passes with the swift step of Calamity, yet all
with noble dignity.

The Basel Museum possesses also a set of ten washed drawings in Indian
ink,--scenes of the Passion designed for glass-painting,--which must be
conned and conned again before one can "know" Holbein at all in his
deepest moods. They are a great Testament, though they seem unbearably
harsh at a superficial glance. But put aside your own ideas and humbly
study the ideas of Holbein,--sure that they must be well worth the
reverence of yours or mine,--and little by little you will be made free
of that Underworld where Holbein's true self has its home; you will
pierce its gloom and find its clue and understand its tongue. It is a
small matter whether you and I find ourselves in sympathy with that
world, or can never be acclimatised. The great matter, the only matter,
is to understand it; to see in its skeletons something more than lively
bones, in its graves something besides Horror.

Without mastering the logical sequence of these ten drawings,--where
scene by scene the Divine recedes before our eyes, and the Son of Man
assumes more and more the whole burden of Sin and Death,--it is
inevitable that the life-size painting of Christ in the Grave, also in
the Basel Museum (Plate 10), shou