There is a most interesting reference to this home-coming in Dr. Ludwig Iselin’s additions to the Faesch manuscript (discovered by Dr. His-Heusler), in which he says: “When he returned to Basel for a time from England, he was attired in silk and velvet; before this he was obliged to buy wine at the tap.”[329] In Basel, a city where wine was both cheap and plentiful, and all men of means kept a well-stocked cellar, to be obliged to procure it, from day to day, from the tavern was a sign of poverty, and Iselin thus contrasts Holbein’s worldly condition before leaving Switzerland and after his entry into the service of Henry VIII. Iselin adds, after stating that Holbein died soon after his return to England, that “his intention was, had God lengthened his life, to paint many of his pictures again, at his own expense, as well as the apartment in the Town Hall. The house ‘zum Tanz,’ he said, was ‘rather good.’” The pictures which he wished to put in order were, of course, his wall-paintings on the exterior of several of the Basel houses, done in his youth, some eighteen years earlier, which even then were beginning to suffer from exposure to the weather, and his frescoes in the Town Hall, some of which were already damaged by damp. No doubt, too, he felt that he could improve upon them, though it is interesting to note that he expressed himself satisfied with the “House of the Dance” façade, in which he had given the freest play to his imagination. Footnote 329: See Woltmann, i. p. 456 and ii. p. 43. Twice during his absence in England, on November 23, 1533, and January 7, 1537, he had been “laid out for the banneret” by his Guild “zum Himmel”—that is, appointed as one of those who had to perform the military service of the Guild, but he had ignored the summons.[330] Possibly he knew nothing about it. He had even disregarded the letter from the burgomaster, sent to him in September 1532, shortly after his return to England, in spite of the offer of a pension which it contained; for England afforded far better opportunities than Switzerland for the making of money. Footnote 330: See Woltmann, i. p. 457. English translation, p. 430. The two items, from the Banner Book of the Guild “zum Himmel,” are as follows: “Item A^o 1533 Jar vff Sunthag vor kattrinen Sind dise her noch geschriben von beyden Zünfften vss gelegtt vom Himels vnnd Sternen. Erstlich zum Fenlin vnd Baner. . . . . . . . . . . Zum Baner. . . . . . . . . . . Hanns Holbein der Moller” (his name being at the head of a number of other guildsmen). “A^o 1537 Jar vf Sunthag noch dem nuwen Jar Sindt dise Hemach geschriben zum Fenlin vnd zu dem Baner vss geleytt erstlich Himels vij Mann (here follow the seven names). Zum paner xiij man.” Here follow the thirteen names, among them being “Hanns Holbein der maller.”[331] Footnote 331: Woltmann, ii. p. 32, quoting from His, _Die Baseler Archive_, &c.