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DOMESTIC MANNERS OF TUE PRUSSIANS.

him from the door, pushed Lim from the top to the bottomof the stairs.

The lord hastened to the king, and recounting the igno-minious treatment he had received at the hands of a vulgärpainter, demanded that the fellow should be punished in amost exemplaiy manner for the base insult heaped upon him.

The monarch, however, replied, that he set more valueupon an artist such as Holbein than upon all the great lordsof his kingdom; " for," said he, " I have only to take so manypeasants to make out of them as many noblemen as I will, butif I were to take the entire peerage, I could not get one suchgenius as Holbein out of all the noblemen in the land."

In 1538 Holbein revisited Basel, when the city whichformerly could hardly find him subsistence even at sign-paintingwas, now that he was the favourite painter of the King ofEngland, so deeply impressed with his genius, that the Muni-cipality granted him a salary of 50 florins per annum. Thiswas done principally with the hope of rctaining the artist inthe town; but he returned to London, where he died of theplague in 1554.

The style of Holbein's works, though somewhat hard andformal, is manly and correct, while many of his portraits aremarked by great character and individuality.

The " Dance of Death" has been attributed to his pencil;but it is knovm to have adorned the walls of the DominicanChurch in Basel at the time of the assembling of the Council—some 50 years, at least, before Holbein's birth.

Basel is now the centre of a comparatively busy trade, thechief of which lies in the ribbons and paper which it produces,and the residence of the great chemical philosopher Schönbein,the discoverer of " gun-cotton," and more particularly of thatwondrous allotropic dement termed " Ozone." .