te feeling for every detail of the scene, every great emotion!
Had the painting been preserved, as it deserved to be, surely it too
could claim a part of that laurel wreath which Sandrart averred could
not be torn from the Basel altar-piece by any rival, whether Italian or
German.

Illustration: Plate 11
THE RISEN CHRIST
_Oils. Hampton Court Gallery_

The misty landscape, with the crosses of Golgotha and the eastern hills
catching the first brightness of the new Day dawning over mortality; the
broken clouds of night, scattered like the conquered horrors of the
grave, and the illuminated tomb where Hope and Faith henceforth ask
us why we weep; the hurrying agitation of St. Peter and the trusting
serenity of St. John, expressed in every gesture; the dusky trees;
Mary's quivering doubt and rapture, touched with some new awe; and
the simple majesty with which our Lord stays that unconscious innocent
presumption, _Touch me not_.

What forbidding tenderness in that Face lighted by the grave He has
passed through! What a subtle yet eloquent suggestion of the eternal
difference, henceforth, between Love and love is in these mortal
lineaments that have evermore resumed their divinity! No face, no type,
no art, can ever realise Christ; yet when this little painting was first
added to the great roll of Holbein _Basiliensis_, it must have gone as
near to realising its subject as the colours of earth can go.

But every man, happily for himself, has a material as well as an
immaterial world with which he must be concerned. To transpose Bagehot's
profound little saying,--Each man dines in a room apart, but we all go
down to dinner together. And though Holbein knew the pinch of narrow
means, he had no lack of good cheer as well as austere food in his art.

On March 12th, 1521, the Great Council held its first meeting in the new
Rathaus; and Meyer zum Hasen, who presided over it as Burgomaster,
entrusted to his protege the enviable task of decorating the Council
Chamber. Fifty-six years after Holbein's work was completed these
wall-paintings were described as "representations of the noblest
subjects--done by the German Apelles." By this title the painter was
everywhere recognised throughout the greater part of his lifetime.

In all, there would seem to have been six large pictures or set pieces;
but two were not done until years later. One wall being too broken up by
windows to be suitable, there remained three,--of which "t