growth, and reached full maturity only in his closing years; but, while he still worked at Bâsle, the essential lines of his development were clearly marked, and he had advanced so far along them as to be even then the most perfect artist whom the North had produced.
Holbein began to practise wood-engraving as soon as he settled in Bâsle, and designed many titlepages, initial letters, and cuts for the publishers of that city. The titlepages, which are numerous, were usually in the form of an architectural frame, in which groups of figures were introduced; they show how early his taste for the forms of Italian architecture became pronounced, and how bold and free was his power of drawing, and how highly developed was his sense of style, even in his first efforts. He illustrated the books of the humanists, especially the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, then a new and popular work; and he designed the cuts for the biblical translations of Luther, and for other publications of the Reformers. He served the Reformation, too, in a humorous as well as in a serious way, for he was as much a master of satire as of beauty. Two cuts in ridicule of the papal party are particularly noticeable, one in which he satirizes the sale of indulgences, contrasting it with true repentance; and one in which he represents Christ as the Light of the World, with a group of sinners approaching upon one side, and a group of papal dignitaries led by Aristotle turning away on the other side. The illustrations in which he depicts ordinary humble life, particularly the life of peasants and children, make another great department of his lesser work in wood-engraving; these scenes are sometimes separate cuts, and sometimes introduced as backgrounds of initial letters, twenty alpha-
