or confused his eye
this time. In vain she wears such sadness in her eyes, such pensive
dignity of attitude, such a wistful smile on her lips. He knows them,
now, for false lights on the wrecker's coast. No faltering; no turning
back. He can even fit a new head-dress on the lovely hair, and add the
puffed sleeves below the short ones. He is a painter now; not a lover.
And lest there should be one doubt as to his purpose, he flings a heap
of gold where "Cupid's" little hand would now seem desecrated, and
inscribes beneath it the name that fits her beauty and his contempt.
The plague was raging in Basel all through that spring and summer,
but I doubt if Holbein shuddered at its contact as at the loveliness he
painted. The brand he placed upon it is proof of that--Lais Corinthiaca,
the infamous mistress of the Greek Apelles.

Illustration: PLATE 17
DOROTHEA OFFENBURG AS LAIS CORINTHIACA
_Oils. Basel Museum_

But in 1526 men sat among the ashes of far goodlier palaces and larger
interests than personal ones. The party in power was not friendlier to
Art than to the Church of Rome. In January the Painters' Guild had
presented a petition to the Council,--humbly praying that its members,
"who had wives and children depending on their work," might be allowed
to pursue it in Basel! And so hard was Holbein himself hit by the
fanatical excitement of the time that the Council's account-books show
the paltry wage he was glad to earn for painting a few shields on some
official building "in the borough of Waldenburg."

Small wonder that an artist such as Holbein should feel his heart grow
sick within him, and should turn his thoughts with increasing
determination to some fresh field. Even without the bitterness that now
must have edged the tongue of a wronged wife, or the bitterer taste of
Dead Sea fruit in his own mouth,--he must have been driven to try his
luck elsewhere. And of all the invitations urged upon him, the chances
which Erasmus's introductions could give him in England would probably
offer the greatest promise.

But before he set out with these letters, in the late summer of 1526, he
executed yet one more great commission for his old friend, Jacob Meyer
zum Hasen, now leader of the Catholic party in opposition. This was the
work known now to all the civilised world as "The Meyer Madonna." For
centuries the beautiful picture which bears this name in the Dresden
Gallery has been cited by every expert authority and