representations of peasant life are peculiarly attractive, because of the force of realism displayed in them, whether he depicted the marriage festival, or mere jollity or drunken brawl. In the breadth of his interests, in the variety of his subjects, and in his sympathy with the special movements of his age, he was as an engraver more characteristic of the civilization in which he lived than any other of the Little Masters who gave their attention to wood-engraving. Of the rest of this group none, excepting Hans Brosamer (1506-1552), left works in wood-engraving of any consequence; he designed in a free and bold manner, and his engravings are to be found in books of the third quarter of the century. [Illustration: FIG. 49.--Virgin and Child. From a print by Hans Sebald Behaim.] Other artists of this period devoted their attention to wood-engraving; but as they did not mark any new progress in the art, or reflect any aspect of German civilization which has not already been illustrated, they need not be treated in any detail. Virgil Solis (1514-1562), a very productive designer, who was employed by the Nuremberg printers to illustrate the books by which they attempted to rival the productions of the Lyonese press; Jobst Amman (1539-1591), whose excellent engravings of costumes and trades are well known; Erhard Schön (d. 1550), Melchior Lorch (1527-1586), whose works were of little merit; and Tobias Stimmer (1539-1582), a popular designer for book illustration, are all who deserve mention. Their engravings are inferior to the productions of previous artists, and after their death the art in Germany fell into speedy and irretrievable decay. The work of the wood-engravers who were imbued with the German spirit exhibits the same excellences and defects as other German work in art. It is characterized by vigor principally, and in its higher range it has great value, because of the imaginative and reflective spirit by which it was animated; in its lower range, as a portrayal of life and manners, it derives from its realism an extraordinary interest. Its great deficiency is its lack of beauty, and is due to the inborn feebleness of the sense of beauty in the German race; but, notwithstanding this deformity, German wood-engraving was invaluably useful in its day in the cities where it became so popular, because it was so widely and variously practised, and entered into the life of the people in so many ways with an effective influence of which it is difficult to form an adequate conception. It facilitated the spread of literature and helped on the progress of the Reformation to a degree which is little recognized; it disseminated ideas and standards of art, and made them common property; and, finally, it prepared the way for the great master who was to embody in wood-engraving the highest excellence of art and thought. VI. HANS HOLBEIN. [Illustration: G FIG. 50.--From the “Epistole di San Hieronymo.” Ferrara, 1497.]