on_

The pose and costume of Henry VIII. in the cartoon were, as Leemput's
copy shows, faithfully carried out in the painting; but in the latter
the face was afterwards turned to the full front view familiar to us in
the many copies of the King's portrait which so long passed as works of
Holbein, on the strength of reproducing his own painting. There is no
evidence that he ever again painted Henry VIII. or that he executed
any replica of this portrait. The old copy at Windsor Castle serves,
however, to recall its details of costume; such as his brown doublet
stiff with gold brocade and scintillating with the gleams of splendid
jewels, his coat of royal red embroidered with gold thread and lined
with ermine to match the wide collar; his plumed and jewelled cap; as
also the huge gems on collar, pendant, rings, and the gold-hilted dagger
in its blue velvet sheath.

But Holbein's own portrait of Henry VIII.--as shown by the original
chalk study from life now in the Munich Gallery (Plate 32)--may in
all sobriety of speech be called a stupendous work. Looking at this
marvellous drawing and picturing to one's self those cheeks informed
with pulsing blood, those lips with breath, those eyes with blue
gleams,--it is easy to understand that Van Mander was using no hyperbole
when he said that the painting on the wall of the Privy Chamber made the
stoutest knees to tremble. It was literally, as he said, "a terrible
painting," of which none of the stupidly-heavy copies that have for the
most part travestied Holbein's work give any true conception. Many a man
could paint cloth-of-gold and gems; but only once and again in the
centuries comes a man who can thus paint, not alone the mane and stride
of the lion, but the fires that light his glance, the roar rushing to
his lips. To look long into these eyes that Holbein had the genius to
read and the firmness to draw, is to feel one's self in the grip of an
insatiable, implacable, yet leonine soul; a being who, to borrow the
matchless description of Burke's political career, is "parted asunder in
his works like some vast continent severed by a convulsion of nature;
each portion peopled by its own giant race of opinions, differing
altogether in features and language, and committed in eternal hostility
with one another." And so long as the great drama of Tudor England
enthrals the minds of men, hard by Shakespeare's supreme name must be
read the name of the painter in whose pages the actor