y
phase of it;--the power to be Caesar within himself; to say to his hand,
"thus far," to say to his fancy, "no farther." Those who have come to
know Holbein something more than superficially, or as a mere maker of
portraits, will smile at the dictum of some very recent "authority"
which pronounces him wanting in imagination; or at the hasty conclusion
that what he _would_ not, that he could not.

He has given us, for instance, no animal paintings or landscapes pure
and simple, or, at least, none such have come down to us. And yet what
gems of landscape he has touched into his backgrounds here and there!
And what drawings of animal life he made! There are two, for instance,
in the Basel Museum which could not be surpassed; studies in silver-point
and water-colours of lambs and a bat outstretched. No reproduction could
give the exquisite texture of the bat's wings, the wandering red veins,
the almost diaphanous membrane, the furry body,--a miracle of patience
and softness. It is all purest Nature. Like Topsy one can but "'spec' it
growed" rather than was created.

And they are not only beautiful in themselves but full of living
meanings. Many an hour the young painter enjoyed while he made such
studies as his lambs on the pleasant slopes about Basel; the mountains
scalloping the horizon, and all the sweet fresh winds vocal with
tinkling bells or the chant of the deep-throated Rhine. Many of "the
long, long thoughts" of youth,--those thoughts that ring like happy
bells or sweep like rushing rivers, kept him company as he laid these
delicate strokes and washes that seem to exhale the very breath of
morning across four hundred years.

In the next year after painting the portraits of Meyer and his wife
there is a sudden break in the painter's story which has always puzzled
his biographers. After such a brilliant start in Basel it is perplexing
to find the young man, instead of proceeding to join the Painters' Guild
and take the necessary citizenship, suddenly turn his back on all these
encouragements and leave the town for a long absence and remote journeys.
As will be seen when we come to consider the story of Holbein's married
life, however, I have a theory that the influence which sent him south
in such an unexpected fashion was apart from professional affairs.

Whether this is a good shot or no, certain it is that he did now go far
south,--as distances were in those days; and that, paying his way as he
went by his br