But where a selection must be made, there are two drawings with their own special claim to consideration. These are the Ploughman and the Priest (Plates 14 and 15). The former has been cited by Ruskin as an example of a perfect design for wood-engraving; but even higher than its art, to my thinking, is its feeling. To the labourer of this sort,--poor, patient, toilworn,--Holbein's heart is very gentle. And so is Death--who muffles up his harsh features and speeds the heavy plough with a step like that of Hope. And at the end of the long, last uphill furrow, see how the setting sun shines on "God's Acre!" Illustration: PLATE 15 THE PLOUGHMAN _"Images of Death" Woodcut series_ THE PRIEST _"Images of Death" Woodcut series_ The second selection, the Priest, is its own proof, if any were needed, of how sharply Holbein distinguished cloth from cloth. In it, nearly a decade after he had pointed Erasmus's satire on the unworthy prelate or the unclean friar, may plainly be read that reverence for the true priest which Holbein shared with all his best friends. In the quaint, quiet street this solemn procession is too familiar a sight to draw any spectator from the hearth where the fire of the Living is blazing so cheerily. The good Father, very lovingly drawn, casts his kind glance around as he passes on his Office with the veiled Pyx carried reverently. Before him goes Death, his Server, hastening the last mercy with eager steps. Under his arm is the tiny glass that has measured the whole of a mortality; the sands have lost their moving charm, and all their dazzle makes but a little shadow now. In his hand is the bell that sounds Take heed, Take heed, to the careless; and Pardon, Peace, to dying ears that strain to hear it. But largest of all his symbols is the lamp in his right hand; his own lamp, the lamp that dissipates Earth's last shadows--the Light of Death. Holbein must have had his own solemn memories of the Last Office as he drew this picture of the good parish priest. For it was just about this time that the Viaticum must have been administered to his father. In 1526 the then Burgomaster of Basel wrote to the monastery at Issenheim, where Hans Holbein the Elder had left his painting implements behind him years before, in which he recalls to the Fathers how vainly and how often "our citizen," Hans the Younger, had applied to get these costly materials restored to their owner during his life; or to himself as his father's heir afterwards. This application was no more successful than Holbein's own, apparently; and the painter was told to seek his father's gold and pigments among the peasants who had pillaged the monastery.