pper, one of a coarsely painted set on canvas, which
is attributed to him on much more doubtful grounds, to judge by the
composition and colouring. Myself I should be inclined to see the
inferior hand of Ambrose, Hans the elder, or perhaps even Sigmund
Holbein in these, if they are genuine Holbein works at all.

But there are still to be seen the traces of his own hand and mind in
the Last Supper in oils on wood. St. John's head must originally have
been very beautiful; very manly, too,--dark with sudden anguish and
recoil. There is a separate head of St. John, in oils, in the same
collection, which shows how fixed was this noble originality of type in
Holbein's conception of "the beloved apostle." But it is in Judas that
the patient student will find, perhaps, most of Holbein's peculiar cast
of thought, when once the initial repulsion is overcome.

By a very natural arrangement he is brought into the immediate foreground
and sits there, already isolated, already damned, in such a torment
of body and soul as haunts the spectator who has had the courage to
reconsider the dictum of authorities who call him "a Jew of frightful
vulgarity." Frightful he may be; but it is a strange judgment which can
find him vulgar. Unfortunately, the painting is no longer in a condition
to justify reproduction; but such as study this yellow-robed, emaciated,
shivering, fever-consumed Judas will, I venture to assert, find food for
thought in it even under all the injuries the work has undergone.

It is a demon-driven soul if ever there was one. He is in the very act
of springing to his feet and rushing away anywhere, anywhere out of this
Presence;--no more concerned about his money-bag than about the food he
loathes. Thirty pieces of silver! If the priests have lied, if this is
in very truth the Messiah his heart still half believes Him, will thirty
pieces of silver buy his soul from the Avenger? Is there time still to
escape? What if he break the promise given when he was over-persuaded in
the market-place the other day? But did not the High Priest himself
declare that this is Beelzebub in person,--this fair, false, dear,--oh!
still too dear Illusion? Up! Let him be gone out of this!--from the
sound of that Voice, from the sight of that Face, get the thing over and
done, done--done one way or another! If God's work, as the priests
swear, well and good. He will have earned the pity of God Himself. If
the devil's, as his heart whispers, well