Hans Holbein, the greatest painter of the German school, came honestly by his talent and his name.  He was the son of Hans Holbein, a painter, who was the son of another Hans Holbein, also a painter.  The first Hans was a poor painter; the second a good one; and the third so great, that the world, when it speaks their common name, means only him.  The father and grandfather were born at Augsburg, in Bavaria, and of late years it has been asserted by mousing antiquaries that the grandson was born there too; but this, perhaps, is not quite certain; and it is much pleasanter to adhere to the ancient faith, and believe that he was born at that strange old Bale, in sight of that great Dance, the reproduction, or rather recreation, of which was to make so great a part of his fame,—­especially as he was quite surely an inhabitant of the town at such tender years, that the veriest Know-Nothing in the place would not have deprived him of his citizenship.

Of Holbein’s life we unfortunately know very little.  He showed his talent early, as all the great painters have done.  Conscious of his abilities, he devoted himself eagerly to the study of the profession to which his genius urged him.  He learned not only painting, but engraving, the sculpture of metals, and architecture; and of all these, it will be remembered, Bale offered him facilities for study, in examples which must have stimulated both his imagination and his ambition.  He did not lack encouragement; for the nobles and burghers of Bale had begun to acquire a taste for the arts, which their ruder fathers contemned; and they had, at this time, a university in their city, which made them acquainted with Cicero and the orators, of whom Aeneas Sylvius found them so ignorant.

But Holbein, although eminent and well employed, did not thrive.  He had some Balois failings, and, as Aeneas Sylvius would have said, worshipped Father Bacchus and Dame Venus with too much devotion;—­not that he was a drunkard or a debauchee; but he sought in conviviality with men of talent, and in the company of beautiful women, too happy in the caresses of the great painter, who was generous with his florins, that happiness which he could not find at home.  For poor Hans was afflicted with what has been the moral and social ruin of many a better, if not greater man than he—­a froward, shrill-tongued wife.  Luckily, however, the great scholar and philosopher, Erasmus, went into retirement at Bale, in 1521; and he soon recognized the genius of Holbein, and became his admirer and friend.  By his advice, and at the solicitation of an English nobleman, and, poor fellow, seeking refuge from the temper of his wife, whom even the sweet cares of maternity could not mollify, Holbein determined to leave Bale for England.  What was the great cause of Frau Holbein’s tantrums,—­whether Hans’s ears were pierced with conjugal clamors, as poor Albert Duerer’s, the other great German painter’s, were, because he could not supply