50 
HOLBEIN IN GERMANY. 
[Nature and Art, February 1, 1867. 
known as Moria, from the Greek word for folly ; 
and it is dedicated to Sir Thomas More, as a fool 
(Morns) in name, if in nothing else. The most 
precious copy of the work is one belonging to the 
edition of Froben (1514), preserved in the museum 
of Basle ; it is adorned with eiglity-tliree pen-and- 
ink sketches by Holbein. 
The immense success of the Praise of Folly 
would surprise the modern reader. Its mytholo- 
gical quips and its critical paradoxes would seem 
stale or pointless to him. Yet the spirit of the 
book is modern, and reminds us of Thackeray and 
his Book of Snobs. It was intended to satirize very 
different vices, and to amuse a very different public. 
The discourse is general ; the periods are rounded ; 
and the style is altogether rhetorical, often vehe- 
ment, and sometimes coarse. But still there _ is 
much of Thackeray’s manner, in the mingled 
cynicism and geniality with which the author 
greets his brother fools, We will attempt to give 
a very brief abstract of it, without making a literal 
translation of any passage. A large audience is 
assembled, waiting with knit brows for some solemn 
lecturer, — when Folly bows to them from the 
rostrum, and their faces expand. “ I perceive,” she 
says, “that you were expecting one of my inferior 
professors ; but I have found time to come in person ; 
and I have chosen the theme most worthy of your 
attention; namely, the praise of myself.” She makes 
a long exordium to prove her superiority to all the 
Olympian deities, especially to the Goddess of 
Wisdom, who was nothing but the offspring of a 
headache. “ If you ask me,” she continues, “ where 
are my temples, I answer, within yourselves. ! am 
content with the unconscious worship of my 
votaries. When my son, the Emperor, is seated on 
his throne, I lend him my cap and bauble : the 
boor adores them as the insignia of divine authority; 
and I bless him, and he is happy. When my son 
the Pontiff has set up a new idol, and its paint 
glows in the broad sunshine, the boor’s wife lights 
her farthing candle before it; and I bless her, 
and she is happy.” Folly proceeds to show the 
supreme blessedness of vanity, whether individual 
or national. Thus, the father admires the reflec- 
tion of his ugly self, in the little squeaking puppet 
which is placed in his hands. Thus, the English- 
man brags of his fair women, his fine musicians, and 
his dainty dishes. This clause, we must stop to 
remark, was not meant to be quite so ironical as it 
sounds now ; for at that time England did really 
enjoy a good reputation for music and cookery. To 
return to the lecture-room. Folly confesses that 
she is tempted, now and then, to chastise some of 
her forgetful children. She sometimes sees a grave 
judge, or graver pedagogue, stalking across the 
market-place ; she suddenly looks round the corner 
in the shape of a buxom lass, and he catches her 
eye, and stumbles, and does penance in an old 
market-woman’s basket of eggs. For the more 
hardened reprobates who have absolute faith in 
their own wisdom, she reserves a much more awful 
punishment : she confronts them with one another. 
Hence arise wranglings and bloodshed ; hence the 
rack, the dungeon, and the stake. She then re- 
sumes her pleasing topic, the praise of herself. She 
enlarges upon Solomon and other first-rate autho- 
rities in the most approved style of the followers of 
Huns Scotus. She takes occasion to commend one 
j of her sons, her best Erasmus. Finally she extols 
| her plump darling, the genuine swine of Epicurus’ 
i sty : and contrasts him with the lean scholar, so 
J absorbed in his midnight studies that he mistakes 
his oil-flask for his wine-bottle, and dies at his book 
for lack of a dinner. “And so farewell,” she con- 
cludes, “ and enjoy all fruits, except that of the tree 
of knowledge : laugh and grow fat, my loving 
children and beloved fools.” 
All the points upon which we have been dwell- 
ing were illustrated by Holbein, from the first bow 
of Folly to her last wave of the hand. Her mock 
professional airs are excellent, and so are the 
gestures of her hearers, whether they are grim with 
idiotic attention or frantic with idiotic applause. 
Most of the other designs have rather disappointed 
us ; brit then we have only seen them in engravings ; 
and photography alone could reproduce these trifles 
of a master hand. Hr. Woltmann says that they 
were evidently dashed in at various periods of 
leisure. They are always carelessly, though well 
drawn, and the ink differs in different places. It is 
amusing to guess how Holbein could have under- 
stood the Latin text. We are inclined to agree 
Avitli Flegner,* that he must have gone through it 
with a learned friend. This may have occurred 
during his stay at Lucerne, and on the title-page is 
the signature of Myconius, who was then a famous 
schoolmaster at Lucerne. Myconius has added the 
inscription, “ Hanc Moriam pictam decern diebus, 
ut oblectaretur in ea, Erasmus habuit,” which surely 
means simply that Erasmus kept this pictured 
Moria for ten days, in order to amuse himself with 
it. Hr. Woltmann believes that somebody had 
presented it to Erasmus, and that at his death it 
came to Myconius. Our own belief is that it 
belonged to Myconius from the first, and that 
Holbein read it with him, and made the sketches at 
Lucerne. It was then lent to Erasmus, who re- 
turned it after scribbling a word in it, to which a 
most absurd importance has been attached. Against 
the figure of the half-starved scholar, Holbein had 
printed the name of Erasmus. The latter looked 
for the fat pig of Epicurus ; he found it portrayed 
as a gross man, with one hand on a woman’s 
shoulder, and the other lifting a bottle to his mouth ; 
and to this he affixed the name of Holbein. Such 
an interchange of small jokes might have been made 
between the most respectable churchwardens in the 
world. And yet this is the evidence bi’ought by 
Charles Patin to show that Holbein was a sot. 
Beally, if it wei’e evidence at all, it would be in his 
favour, for one might fairly argue that Erasmus, a 
man of the highest social dignity, would never 
treat a drunken ribald with such familiarity. 
Gossip is a hydra, whose filthy hands sprout up 
* Hans Holbein der Jung ere. by Ulrich Hegner. Berlin. 
1827. 
