the Reformation was a cruel blow to artists, for it took away Church
patronage and made them dependent for employment upon merchants and
princes. Except at courts or in great mercantile towns they fared
extremely ill. Altar-pieces were rarely wanted, and there were no more
legends of saints to be painted upon the walls of churches.

The demand for portraiture, on the other hand, was increasing, whilst
the growth of printing created a new field for design in the preparation
of woodcuts for the illustration of books. Thus it came to pass that
the printer Froben, at Basle, was one of the young Holbein's chief
patrons. We find him designing a wonderful series of illustrations
of _The Dance of Death_, as well as drawing another set to illustrate
_The Praise of Folly_, written by Erasmus, who was then living in Basle
and frequenting the house of Froben. Erasmus was a typical scholar
of the sixteenth century, belonging rather to civilized society as
a whole than to any one country. He moved about Europe from one centre
of learning to another, alike at home in educated circles in England,
Flanders, and Germany. He had lived for some time in England and knew
that there were men there with wealth who would employ a good painter
to paint their portraits if they could find one. Erasmus himself sat
to Holbein, and sent the finished portrait as a present to his friend
Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England.

In England, owing to the effects of the Wars of the Roses, good painters
no longer existed. A century of neglect had destroyed English painting.
Henry VIII., therefore, had to look to foreign lands for his court
painter, and where was he to come from? France was the nearest country,
but the French King was in the same predicament as Henry. He obtained
his painters from Italy, and at one time secured the services of
Leonardo da Vinci; but Italy was a long way off and it would suit Henry
better to get a painter from Flanders or Germany if it were possible.
So Erasmus advised Holbein to go to England, and gave him a letter
to Sir Thomas More. On this first visit in 1526, he painted the
portraits of More and his whole family, and of many other distinguished
men; but it was not till his second visit in 1532 that he became Henry
VIII.'s court painter. In this capacity he had to decorate the walls
of the King's palaces, design the pageantry of the Royal processions,
and paint the portraits of the King's family. Although Holbein could
do and did do anything that was demanded of him, what he liked best
was to paint portraits. Romantic subjects such as the fight of St.
George and the dragon, or an idyll of the Golden Age, little suited
the artistic leanings of a German. To a German or a Fleming the world
of facts meant more than the world of imagination; the painting of
men and women as they looked in everyday life was more congenial to
them than the painting of saints and imaginary princesses.

But how unimportant seems all talk of contrasting imagination and
reality when we see them fused together in this charming portrait of
Edward, the child Prince of Wales. It belongs to the end of the year
1538, when he was just fifteen months old, and the imagination of
Holbein equipped him with the orb of sovereignty in the guise of a
baby's rattle. It is in the coupling of distant kingship and present
babyhood that the painter works his magic and reveals his charm.

[Illustration: EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, AFTERWARDS EDWARD VI.
From the picture by Holbein, in the Collection of the Earl of Yarborough,
London]

If you recall for a moment what you know of Henry VIII., his masterful
pride, his magnificence, his determination to do and have exactly what
he wanted, you will understand that his demands upon his court painter
for a portrait of his only son and heir must have been high. No one
could say enough about this wonderful child to please Henry, for all
that was said in praise of him redounded to the glory of his father.

The following is a translation of the Latin poem beneath the picture:

  Child, of thy Father's virtues be thou heir,
  Since none on earth with him may well compare;
  Hardly to him might Heaven yield a son
  By whom his father's fame should be out-done.
  So, if thou equal such a mighty sire,
  No higher can the hopes of man aspire;
  If thou surpass him, thou shalt honoured be
  O'er all that ruled before, or shall rule after thee.[3]

[Footnote 3: Translated by Miss K. K. Radford.]

In justice be it said that the little Edward VI. was of an extraordinary
precocity. When he was eight years old he wrote to Archbishop Cranmer
in Latin. When he was nine he knew four books of Cato by heart as well
as much of the Bible. To show you the way in which royal infants were
treated in those days,--we read that at the time this picture was
painted, the little prince had a household of his own, consisting of
a lady-mistress, a nurse, rockers for his cradle, a chamberlain,
vice-chamberlain, steward, comptroller, almoner, and dean. It is hard
to believe that the child is only fifteen months old, so erect is the
attitude, so intelligent the face. The clothes are sumptuous. A piece
of stuff similar in material and design to the sleeve exists to-day
in a museum in Brussels.

In the best sense Holbein was the most Italian of the Germans. For
in him, as in the gifted Italian, grace was innate. He may have paid
a brief visit to Italy, but he never lived there for any length of
time, nor did he try to paint like an Italian as some northern artists
unhappily tried to do. The German merits, solidity, boldness, detailed
finish, and grasp of character, he possessed in a high degree, but
he combined with them a beauty of line, delicacy of modelling, and
richness of colour almost southern. His pictures appeal more to the
eye and less to the mind than do those of Durer. Where Durer sought