GERMAN SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING. 347 



miser. He had been happy, the old preachers thought, till 

 then : but his hour has come ; and the black covetousness of 

 hell is awake and watching ; the sharp, harpy claws will clutch 

 his soul out of his mouth, and scatter his treasure for others 

 So the commonplace preacher and painter taught. Not so 

 Holbein. The devil want to snatch his soul, indeed ! Nay, 

 he never had a soul, but of the devil's giving. His misery to 

 begin on his deathbed ! Nay, he had never an unmiserable 

 hour of life. The fiend is with him now, a paltry, abortive 

 fiend, with no breath even to blow hot with. He supplies the 

 hell-blast with a machine. It is winter, and the rich man has 

 his furred cloak and cap, thick and heavy ; the beggar, bare- 

 headed to beseech him, skin and rags hanging about him to- 

 gether, touches his shoulder, but all in vain ; there is other 

 business in hand. More haggard than the beggar himself, 

 wasted and palsied, the rich man counts with his fingers the 

 gain of the years to come. 



But of those years, infinite, that are to be, Holbein says 

 nothing. ' I know not ; I see not. This only I see, on this 

 very winter's day, the low pale stumbling-block at your 

 feet, the altogether by you unseen and forgotten Death. 

 You shall not pass him by on the other side ; here is a fasting 

 figure in skin and bone, at last, that will stop you ; and for 

 all the hidden treasures of earth, here is your spade : dig now, 

 and find them.' 



177. I have said that Holbein was condemned to teach 

 these things. He was not happy in teaching them, nor 

 thanked for teaching them. Nor was Botticelli for his lovelier 

 teaching. But they both could do no otherwise. They lived 

 in truth and steadfastness ; and with both, in their marvellous 

 design, veracity is the beginning of invention, and love its end. 



I have but time to show you, in conclusion, how this affec- 

 tionate self-forgetfulness protects Holbein from the chief 

 calamity of the German temper, vanity, which is at the root 

 of all Durer's weakness. Here is a photograph of Holbein's 

 portrait of Erasmus, and a fine proof of Durer's. In Hol- 

 bein's, the face leads everything ; and the most lovely quali- 

 ties of the face lead in that. The cloak and cap are perfectly 



