in 1527 to illustrate a large broadsheet, the “Evangelistical Calendar” of Dr. Johannes Copp. Holbein’s fertility of invention in this field was not confined to subjects chosen from the Bible or from classical literature. Numerous woodcuts occur in which he has made excellent use of incidents taken from the ordinary life of his day. There is a well-known border representing a group of peasants chasing a fox which has stolen a goose from the farmyard, an engraving on metal, which, in spite of the inferiority of the cutting, is full of humour and rapid movement.[457] The small figures, carrying flails, spades, and other hastily snatched-up weapons—among them a girl with a hayrake on her shoulder and a soldier with his spear—are running at full speed, while behind them an old man, leaning on a stick, stands among the remaining geese and shouts directions for the fox’s capture. Another border shows a peasants’ dance,[458] very similar in treatment to the same subject in the wall-painting of the House of the Dance. These two borders, with two side ones, representing children climbing trees, were frequently used by Cratander of Basel in books published between 1526 and 1534, and a second “Peasants’ Dance”[459] is often found in Adam Petri’s publications. Similar borders with dancing or playing children frequently occur. Most of them appear to have been cut in metal by Faber. [Sidenote: ALPHABETS WITH PEASANTS & CHILDREN] Both peasants and children were favourite themes with him in his designs for initial letters, which formed an important part of the decoration of the books issued from the Basel presses. He produced a number of complete alphabets, from A to Z, in which the little pictures which surrounded the letters formed a connected series of designs. Almost invariably the letter itself was shown in plain Roman type, placed within a small square, the background being filled in with small figures which have no actual connection with the letter, but are so combined with it as to produce a very decorative effect. One of the most beautiful of these alphabets, of which complete proof-sheets are to be found at Basel and Dresden, represents the merry-makings of a rustic fair,[460] and was used by both Froben and Cratander. The series opens with two musicians playing bagpipes, and the ten next letters represent dancing couples. In succeeding letters the peasants are represented making love, fighting, playing games and practical jokes, drinking, and other scenes in which the humour is too gross for modern tastes, and concluding with the return from the fair, the peasant riding home with his wife behind him, and the visit of the doctor on the following morning, made necessary by over-indulgence in merry-making. The cutting of the set is so beautiful that it must be from the hand of Lützelburger; no other engraver then working in Basel was capable of such minutely fine work, or could do such full justice to Holbein’s