did not get printed,
and would remain in Pope Leo's hands for a year yet. But Basel knew,
through More and Erasmus,--whose canny smile probably discounted its
critical quality,--pretty much its line of defence. Nor was Froben's
circle one whit more surprised than its royal author when its immediate
reward was that formal style and title--_Defender of the Faith_,--to
which a few years more were to lend so different a significance.

By this latter date Ulrich von Hutten had fled to Basel, only to find
that his violent "heresies" had completely estranged Erasmus, and closed
Froben's door, as well as all other Roman Catholic doors, against him
for ever. He lodged, therefore, at the Blume until the Basel Council
requested him to leave the town, a little before his death, in 1523. But
in 1520 Hutten was still at Sickingen's fortress, digging with fierce
ardour the impassable gulf between him and the band of friends and
Churchmen among whom Holbein ever ranged himself.

* * * * *

Among the five lost works which Patin says Holbein painted, there was a
"Nativity" and an "Adoration of the Kings." It is impossible now to say
what resemblances, if any, existed between these and the same subjects,
executed not much later, which are now in the University Chapel, Freiburg
Minster. These latter are the only known works of Holbein that still
hang in a sacred edifice. They were evidently designed to fold in upon a
central altar-piece with an arched top, thus making, when open, the
usual triptych; but the central painting has vanished. This large work
was a gift to the Carthusian monastery in Klein-Basel; and the arms of
the donor, Hans Oberriedt, are displayed below the Nativity, as well as
the portraits of himself and his six sons. Below the corresponding right
wing, the Adoration, are the arms of his wife and her portrait, with her
four daughters.

In both wings what I can only describe as the atmosphere of Infancy,--and
a touching atmosphere it is too--is strengthened by keeping all the
figures small and heightening this suggestion by contrast with a grandiose
architecture. In both, too, the sacred scenes reveal themselves like
visions unseen by the Oberriedt family, who face outward toward the
altar and are supposed to be lighted by the actual lights of the church.
The whole work must once have been a glorious creation, with its rich
colours, its beautiful architectural forms, and its mingling of pu