in wine-cellars.  Here our biographer gravely says, “a man of spirit could not be expected to sit quietly painting the whole day long in the heat of the sun, or in the rain; if he saw a good friend go to the tavern, he felt disposed to follow him.”  Holbein did not keep the best company; but in this he resembled Rembrandt, who said, that when he wished to amuse himself, he avoided the company of the great, which put a restraint upon him; “for pleasure,” he adds, “consists in perfect liberty only.”  Holbein no doubt felt a contempt for the great people of his time, as they did not understand much about his art, which he valued above all things.

Holbein’s wife, and he married early, was a perfect Xantippe, too shrewd to be despised, and not handsome enough to be admired.  In the library at Basel is a family picture of Holbein, in which she is introduced, almost unconscious of the two children about her; but Holbein very shrewdly forgot to paint himself there.  But he took care of the interests of his family, and obtained them a pension from the magistrates of Basel, during his stay in England.  This pension was paid for past services, and in order to induce him finally to fix his residence in Switzerland.

The absence of matrimonial felicity was probably an additional motive for Holbein to seek employment as an itinerant painter.  He visited several Swiss towns, but certainly never saw Luther and Melancthon, so that the portraits of Luther and Melancthon exhibited in Italy, Germany, and England, as works of Holbein, cannot be genuine; and it is very improbable that he should have copied the works of Lucas Cranach, who several times painted the portraits of those lights of the reformation.  Erasmus was frequently painted by Holbein; and as those portraits were sent as presents to the friends of Erasmus, Holbein’s name became known all over Europe.

Holbein came to England in the year 1526, and Sir Thomas More wrote to Erasmus that he would take care of him.  Sir Thomas received him into his own house at Chelsea, and there Henry VIII. saw him one day, when paying a visit to the former.  He took him instantly into his service, gave him apartments in the royal palace, and a salary of 30_l_. a-year.  Holbein’s long residence in the house of Sir Thomas More had a good effect upon him; for although Erasmus describes the women of England as “nymphae divinis vultibus, blandae, faciles,” yet Holbein seems to have resisted those temptations in London, which rendered his conduct at Basel so reprehensible.  Holbein twice revisited Switzerland, once in 1526, the second and last time in 1538:  the zealots had just destroyed all the images; and even some painters, infected with the spirit of the age, had declared they would rather starve, than break the second commandment.  In England the same work of devastation took place; but Henry VIII., notwithstanding, gave Holbein abundance of work, as he had to paint all his royal consorts in succession, besides a number of portraits for English noblemen.