ts and copies of portraits of Erasmus, not only by
Holbein, but by other painters--for Erasmus was painted by Albert Duerer
and Quintin Matsys,--that this special portrait, like the true Holbein
family portrait of the More family, remains very much a subject of
speculation. Most of us must be well acquainted with the delightful
account which Erasmus gave of Sir Thomas More's country-house at
Chelsea, and the life of its occupants. It has been cited hundreds of
times as an example of what an English family has been, and what it may
be in dutiful discipline, simple industry, and high cultivation, when
Sir Thomas's young daughters repeated psalms in Latin to beguile the
time in the drudging process of churning the butter. During Holbein's
residence in or visits to the Mores' house at Chelsea, he sketched or
painted the original of the More family picture.

Holbein was introduced to Henry VIII, by Sir Thomas More, and was
immediately taken into favour by the king, and received into his
service, with a lodging in the palace, a general salary of thirty pounds
a year, and separate payment for his paintings. According to Horace
Walpole, Holbein's palace lodging was probably 'the little study called
the new library' of square glazed bricks of different colours, designed
by the painter at Whitehall. (This gateway, with the porch at Wilton,
were the painter's chief architectural achievements.) By another
statement, Holbein's house was on London Bridge, where it was destroyed
in the great fire.

I have already alluded to the anecdote of the value which Henry VIII,
put on Holbein. It was to this effect: that when an aggrieved courtier
complained to the king that the painter had taken precedence of him--a
nobleman, the king replied, 'I have many noblemen, but I have only one
Hans Holbein.' In fact, Holbein received nothing save kindness from
Henry VIII.; and for that matter, there seemed to be something in common
between bluff King Hal and the equally bluff German Hans. But on one
occasion Hans Holbein was said to have run the risk of forfeiting his
imperious master's favour by the too favourable miniature which the
painter was accused of painting of Anne of Cleves.

At Henry's court Holbein painted many a member of the royal family,
noble and knight, and English gentleman and lady. His fortune had made
him a portrait painter, but he was fully equal to other branches of art,
as shown by his 'Meier Madonna,' and still more by the de