Illustration: PLATE 15
THE PLOUGHMAN
_"Images of Death" Woodcut series_

THE PRIEST
_"Images of Death" Woodcut series_

The second selection, the Priest, is its own proof, if any were needed,
of how sharply Holbein distinguished cloth from cloth. In it, nearly a
decade after he had pointed Erasmus's satire on the unworthy prelate or
the unclean friar, may plainly be read that reverence for the true
priest which Holbein shared with all his best friends. In the quaint,
quiet street this solemn procession is too familiar a sight to draw any
spectator from the hearth where the fire of the Living is blazing
so cheerily. The good Father, very lovingly drawn, casts his kind
glance around as he passes on his Office with the veiled Pyx carried
reverently. Before him goes Death, his Server, hastening the last mercy
with eager steps. Under his arm is the tiny glass that has measured the
whole of a mortality; the sands have lost their moving charm, and all
their dazzle makes but a little shadow now. In his hand is the bell that
sounds Take heed, Take heed, to the careless; and Pardon, Peace, to
dying ears that strain to hear it. But largest of all his symbols is the
lamp in his right hand; his own lamp, the lamp that dissipates Earth's
last shadows--the Light of Death.

Holbein must have had his own solemn memories of the Last Office as he
drew this picture of the good parish priest. For it was just about this
time that the Viaticum must have been administered to his father. In
1526 the then Burgomaster of Basel wrote to the monastery at Issenheim,
where Hans Holbein the Elder had left his painting implements behind him
years before, in which he recalls to the Fathers how vainly and how
often "our citizen," Hans the Younger, had applied to get these costly
materials restored to their owner during his life; or to himself as his
father's heir afterwards. This application was no more successful than
Holbein's own, apparently; and the painter was told to seek his father's
gold and pigments among the peasants who had pillaged the monastery.

By 1526 Holbein was back in Basel; but two works of this year would go
to show that he was little less separated from his wife in Basel than
when away. The first of these, about one-third life-size, is a portrait
of a woman with a child beside her who grasps an arrow to suggest the
Goddess of Love attended by a wingless Cupid (Plate 16). The little
red-haired child does not do much to r