om his uncle, the famous printer Johann Petri, by whose ingenious
improvements the art of printing was so greatly facilitated. Two years
later, in 1522, Froben bought this granary, ze Cruez, and converted it
into the book-magazine which was known all over Europe as "Froben's
Book-house." And in this latter year Adam Petri, greatly to Luther's
disgust, pirated Luther's translation of the New Testament, which had
appeared three months before.

Holbein drew a superb title-page, ante-dated 1523, for this "enterprise"
of Petri--the New Testament "now right faithfully rendered into
German,"--with the symbols of the Evangelists at the four corners, the
arms of Basel at the top, the device of the printer at the foot, and the
noble figures of St. Paul and St. Peter on either side; figures which
will bear comparison with Duerer's "Four Temperaments" of a later date.
Later still he designed another striking title-page for Thomas Wolff's
translation; and his beautiful title-pages and ornaments for Froben,
with whom his connection was not a temporary matter such as these
others, would need a volume to themselves.

Holbein's only rival, if he could be called such, in work of this sort
was the talented goldsmith, Urs Graf, who, as an exceedingly loose fish,
lived most appropriately in the Fischmarkt in his own house near the old
Birsig Bridge, when he was not in the lock-up for one or another of his
constant brawls and scandals. But to compare the best work of both
is to recognise a difference in kind as well as degree: the essential
difference between even negligent genius and the most elaborate talent.
High talent Urs Graf had unquestionably; though stamped,--I think,--with
the lawless caprices of his own character. Holbein's every design has
not only what Urs Graf lacked--that ordered imagination which is
Style--but over and above all, the subtle expression of Power.

Many a time, too, just where he would turn away from the Rhine for the
business centre of Gross-Basel, the artist would make some little pause
at the old "Flower" Inn (_zur Blume_), which gave its name to the
Blumenplatz, and is still commemorated in the greatly extended Blumenrain
of to-day. All the world now knows the famous hotel of "The Three
Kings"; and where it reaches nearest to the Old Bridge stood the "Blume"
of Holbein's time, even then the oldest of the Basel inns. This Blume,
not to be confused with later inns of the same name, shared with its no
less fa