Holbein represents the temper of
Northern Reformation. He has all the nobleness of that temper, but also
all its baseness. He represents, indeed, the revolt of German truth
against Italian lies; but he represents also the revolt of German
animalism against Hebrew imagination. This figure of Holbein's is
half-way from Solomon's mystic bride, to Rembrandt's wife, sitting on
his knee while he drinks.

But the key of the question is not in this. Florentine animalism has at
this time, also, enough to say for itself. But Florentine animalism, at
this time, feels the joy of a gentleman, not of a churl. And a
Florentine, whatever he does,--be it virtuous or sinful, chaste or
lascivious, severe or extravagant,--does it with a grace.

158. You think, perhaps, that Holbein's Solomon's bride is so ungraceful
chiefly because she is overdressed, and has too many feathers and
jewels. No; a Florentine would have put any quantity of feathers and
jewels on her, and yet never lost her grace. You shall see him do it,
and that to a fantastic degree, for I have an example under my hand.
Look back, first, to Bewick's Venus (Lecture III.). You can't accuse her
of being overdressed. She complies with every received modern principle
of taste. Sir Joshua's precept that drapery should be "drapery, and
nothing more," is observed more strictly even by Bewick than by Michael
Angelo. If the absence of decoration could exalt the beauty of his
Venus, here had been her perfection.

Now look back to Plate II. (Lecture IV.), by Sandro; Venus in her
planet, the ruling star of Florence. Anything more grotesque in
conception, more unrestrained in fancy of ornament, you cannot find,
even in the final days of the Renaissance. Yet Venus holds her divinity
through all; she will become majestic to you as you gaze; and there is
not a line of her chariot wheels, of her buskins, or of her throne,
which you may not see was engraved by a gentleman.

[Illustration: V.

"Heat considered as a Mode of Motion."

Florentine Natural Philosophy.]

159. Again, Plate V., opposite, is a facsimile of another engraving of
the same series--the Sun in Leo. It is even more extravagant in
accessories than the Venus. You see the Sun's epaulets before you see
the sun; the spiral scrolls of his chariot, and the black twisted rays
of it, might, so far as types of form only are considered, be a design
for some modern court-dress star, to be made in diamonds. And yet all
this wild