The Dance of Death. 215

Hegner does not appear to nave seen them, or at leastdoes not tell us so. His criticisms on the merit of theengravings in De Mechel's work cannot bs justified; forthough they may occasionally be faulty, taey are veryneatly, and many will think beautifully, executed

What Hegner has said respecting the alphabets o r initialletters, is at once futile and inaccurate ; bu' his commenton Hans Lutzenberger deserves the severest censure. Ad-verting to the inscription with the name of this fine artiston one of the sets of the initials, he terms him " anitinerant bookseller, who had bought the blocks and put hisname on them;" and this after having himself referred toa print on which Lutzenberger is called Formschneider,i. e. woodcutter : making in this instance a clumsy anddishonest effort to get rid of an excellent engraver, whostands so recorded in opposition to his own untenablesystem.

The very important and indelible expressions in thededication to the first known edition of the Lyons wood-cuts, he very modestly terms " a play upon words," andendeavours to account for the death of the painter bysupposing Holbein's absence in England would warrantthe language of the dedication. This is indeed a mostdesperate argument. Frellon, the publisher and proprietorof the work, must have known better than to have permittedthe dedication to accompany his edition had it been sus-ceptible of so silly a construction.

He again adheres to the improbable notion that Holbeinengraved the cuts to the Lyons book, and this in defiance

of the mark or monogram Jf* i which this painter never

used ; nor will a single print with Holbein's accreditedname be found to bear the slightest resemblance to thestyle of the wood-cuts. Even those in Cranmer's catechism,which approach the nearest to them, are in a differentmanner. His earlier engravings on wood, whether indesign only, or as the engraver, resemble those by UrsGraaf, who, as well as Holbein, decorated the frontispiecesor titles to many of the books printed at Basle. It is notimprobable that Urs Graaf was at that time a pupil otHolbein.