2na S. NO 94, Oct. 17. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



313 



HANS HOLBEIN. 



(2"'^ S. iv. p. 206.) 

 As no one lias yet noticed the Quex'y of Mr. J. 

 GoDGH Nichols, permit me to add to what he 

 has stated, that I have reason to know that many 

 of the Pell Records were some years ago gone 

 through without discovering any trace of Holbein, 

 or of his asserted residence in this country. The 

 importance of Holbein and his works in the his- 

 tory of art in this country has long been strongly 

 felt, and by no one more than by the excellent 

 keeper of the engravings at the British Museum. 

 He has made it a point to acquire for our national 

 repository such specimens of Holbein's drawings 

 as have fallen In his way. By his exertions the 

 British Museum has acquired the best collection 

 of these drawings to be found anywhere, except 

 at Basle. Mr. Nichols would find the study of 

 them extremely useful with reference to the 

 artist's biography. John Bruce. 



I hope the following replies may be of use to 

 Mr. Nichols : — 



The latest life of Holbein is, I believe, that 

 by Ulrich Hegner, Hans Holbein der Jungere, 

 Berlin, 1827. .Well do I remember translating 

 to my kind friend, the late Mr. Douce, Hegner's 

 hard criticisms on his early Essay on the Dance of 

 Death. The task was not altogether an enviable 

 one. I have called Hegner's the latest life, be- 

 cause Rumohr's Hmis Holbein der Jungere in 

 seiner Verhaltniss zum deutschen Formschnittwesen 

 (Leipzig, 1836,) is a critical and not a biographical 

 essay. 



With reference to Holbein's residence in Eng- 

 land, let me call attention to what Mr. Douce says 

 on this subject in his Dance of Death, pp. 143, 

 144. : — 



" There seems to be a doubt whether the Earl of Arun- 

 del recommended him (Holbein) to visit England ; but 

 certain it is, that in the year 1526 he came to London 

 with a Letter of that date addressed by Eaasmus to Sir 

 Thomas More, accompanied with his portrait, with which 

 More was so well satisfied, that he retained him at his 

 house at Chelsea upwards of two years, until Henry VIIL, 

 from admiration of his works, appointed him his painter, 

 with apartments at Whitehall. In 1529 he visited Basle, 

 but returned to England in 1530. In 1535 he drew the 

 portrait of his friend Nicholas Borbon or Borbonius at 

 London, probably the before-mentioned drawing at Buck- 

 ingham Palace, or some duplicate of it. In 1538, he 

 painted the portrait of Sir Richard Southwell, a privy- 

 Councillor to Henry VIIL, which was afterwards in the 

 Gallery of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.* About this 

 time the Magistrates of the City of Basle settled an an- 

 nuity on him; but conditionally that he should return 

 in two years to his native place and family, with which 

 terms he certainly did not comply, preferring to remain 

 in England. In the last-mentioned year he was sent by 

 the King into Burgundy to paint the portrait of the 



Duchess of Milan; and in 1539 to Germany, to paint 

 that of Anne of Cleves. In some Household Accounts of 

 Henry VIIL there are payments to him in 1538, 1539, 

 1540, and 1541, on account of his Salary, which appears to 

 have been thirty pounds per annum* From this time, 

 little more is recorded of him till 1553, when he painted 

 Queen Mary's portrait, and shortly afterwards died of 

 the plague at London in 1554." 



No one who knows the care with which he in- 

 vestigated any question of literary or historical 

 interest, or the scrupulous accuracy with which he 

 recorded the result of his inquiries, can doubt but 

 that my late excellent friend had good grounds for 

 the foregoing statements. William J. Thoms. 



* Baldinucci, Notizie d£ Professori de Disegno, torn. ii. 

 p. 317., 4to., where the inscription on it ia given. 



" BRAHM," DERIVATION OP. 



(2°" S. iv. 267.) 



Sir Wm, Jones, Bryant, and Nork, are not now 

 esteemed good authorities on Indian mythology. 

 Mill (i. 321.) has shown that ^'' Brahme" in the 

 neuter gender means the Great one, and is not 

 only applied to Brahma (of the same meaning 

 masculine), but also to Brahma's compeers, 

 Vishnu and Sivah. In the Oupnekat he is made 

 to say, " Whatever is, I am ; and whatever is not, 

 I am. I am Brahma ; and I am also Brahme ; 

 and I am the causing cause." &c. Qd. i. 316.) 

 Those who suppose Abraham to have supplied the 

 name of Brahma should read Nork's argument to 

 show that Abraham, conversely, took his name 

 from, and was de facto, Brahma (Braminen und 

 Rabbinen, c. iv. § 20, 21., p. 26.) : such reasoning 

 is wilder than Hindu mythology, for the latter is 

 intended to be understood symbolically by the 

 Te\eioi. See Penny Cyc, art. Brahma, where it is 

 said that Brahme or Brahm " designates the 

 essence of the Supreme Being in the abstract, de- 

 void of personal individuality ; " also that " it is 

 evidently connected with the verbal root brih, to 

 grow, to expand, whence brihat, great." This 

 root is written by EichhofF bhar, whence Greek 

 (ptpu, Latin fero, pario, English bear, German 

 geb'dren ; also from the same root bhratar, brother, 

 Greek (ppdrrip, LiRtin f rater, Gothic brothar. Abra- 

 ham is a well-known compound Shemitic word, 

 originally D")3N, chief father, whose name was 

 changed by the insertion of n to represerit /af Aer 

 of a great nation. Ab Raham in Arabic has the 

 same meaning. (Eichhom's Simonis Lex. Heb., 

 i. 20.) T. J. BucKTON. 



Lichfield. 



There is in Sanskrit a neuter noun, Brahma, 

 which Bopp explains as signifying " the Supreme 

 incorporeal Deity, the First Cause." The termi- 

 nation corresponds to that of the Latin men in 

 num^n. There is also a masculine noun Brahma, 



* Norfolk MS., 97., now in the British Museum. 



