“Holbius est homini nomen, qui nomina nostra Obscura ex claris ac prope nulla facit.” The verses are too long for quotation. Bourbon has added to them a Greek distich, with its translation into Latin: “Cernere vis, hospes, simulacra simillima vivis? Hoc opus Holbinae nobile cerne manus.” [Illustration: VOL. II., PLATE 13 TITLE-PAGE OF COVERDALE’S BIBLE 1535 _From a copy in the British Museum_ ] No other portrait by Holbein can be definitely attributed to the year 1535. It was in this year that he lost two of his first English patrons, and both on the scaffold—Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher, and his distress must have been keen, more particularly over the death of the former, who had done so much for him when he first arrived in London, a practically unknown foreign painter, with no knowledge of the English language. One other work of his, however, the design for the title-page of Coverdale’s Bible, in the publication of which Thomas Cromwell was greatly interested, was issued in this year, and possibly it was he who placed the commission in Holbein’s hands. It is interesting to note that Holbein, who illustrated the first translations of the Bible into German in Switzerland, also supplied a design for its first complete rendering into English, which was published under the title of “Biblia. The Bible, that is, the holy Scripture of the Olde and New Testament, faithfully and truly translated out of Douche and Latyn in to Englishe, M.D.XXV.” This fine folio was printed in Zürich by Froschover, and no doubt Holbein’s title-page[160] (Pl. 13) was also cut abroad, for there was no one in England at that time capable of producing so excellent an engraving. The design is divided into six little pictures which surround the title. The one across the top contains the Fall and the Redemption; on the left Adam and Eve stand under the Tree, and on the right Christ rises from the tomb, triumphant over Death and Hell. On the left-hand side of the page Moses is shown on Mount Sinai receiving the Tables of the Law, and beneath him is a representation of Ezra reading the Old Law to the Jews on their return from the Captivity. On the opposite side, in the upper picture, Christ is sending forth His disciples into the world to preach the gospel, and in the lower Paul is seen preaching. In the panel across the bottom of the page Henry VIII is seated on his throne under a canopy, with a sword of state in one hand and a Bible in the other, which he presents to the high dignitaries of the Church and the nobles of his Court, who kneel below him. On either side within arched niches are the figures of King David playing the harp, and the Apostle Paul. The King is represented with a beard, which became the fashion in the year Coverdale’s Bible was published, but in facial likeness there is little resemblance to Henry, due, possibly, to the fact that the block was cut in Switzerland.