in many cases by Indian-ink, is not due to the hand of Holbein himself. Among the drawings are a few which have never been so touched. The lines of these are of great delicacy and of the most expressive quality—an artistic dream which has almost faded from the paper. These are the select few which, having suffered most from rubbing, and having the faintest indications to guide the hand of the reinforcer, have been left in their ghostly beauty. Others have been revived by the application of a bolder chalk line of the proper colour in parts where the outline seemed most to need it. It has been done on the whole well, if such a thing can ever be said to have been well done at all. But these same lines will be found to be hard and wiry, and somewhat unfeeling as compared to the subtly sympathetic outline of the master himself. There remains yet the further manner of reinforcement by a strong outlining, often accompanied by a slight thickening in parts by means of a wash, in what appears to be Indian-ink. The ink has toned now, and has lost much of the offence of its once strong contrast with the rest of the delicate modelling. But remembering what that contrast would have been when the ink was fresh, I find it impossible to believe that it was added by the hand of Holbein.”[576] Mr. Davies suggests that this Indian-ink strengthening took place when the drawings came into the hands of Charles I, and that possibly Wenceslaus Hollar was employed for the purpose. It is difficult to follow him in this suggestion of Hollar’s retouching, nor can the writer agree with him in his opinion that a more or less wholesale retouching of the drawings has ever been undertaken by any hand than that of Holbein himself. A more credible suggestion is that of Mr. Lionel Cust, who says: “It is very probable that the drawings were refreshed by outlines very soon after Holbein’s death, if not by the painter himself. Since that date the most likely time for them to have suffered any alteration would have been after their rediscovery at Kensington, when they were for a time in the hands of George Vertue, an expert crayon-artist himself as well as engraver.”[577] Footnote 573: Walpole, _Anecdotes_, ed. Wornum, i. p. 85 _note_. Footnote 574: Holmes in Introduction to Hanfstaengl’s _Portraits of Illustrious Personages_, &c. Footnote 575: Vasari Society, Pt. ii. (1905-6), No. 31. Footnote 576: Davies, _Holbein_, p. 122. Footnote 577: _Burlington Magazine_, vol. xviii., February 1911, p. 270.