A good number of stories are told of Holbein. Unable to pay his debts in a tavern, he discharged the bill by decorating the walls with paintings of flowers. Another time, for a similar purpose, he covered the walls all over with "the merry dance of peasants;" and in order to deceive one of his employers, he painted his own legs beneath the high scaffolding, that the watchful citizen should not suspect his having abandoned his work to carouse in wine-cellars. Here our biographer gravely says, "a man of spirit could not be expected to sit quietly painting the whole day long in the heat of the sun, or in the rain; if he saw a good friend go to the tavern, he felt disposed to follow him." Holbein did not keep the best company; but in this he resembled Rembrandt, who said, that when he wished to amuse himself, he avoided the company of the great, which put a restraint upon him; "for pleasure," he adds, "consists in perfect liberty only." Holbein no doubt felt a contempt for the great people of his time, as they did not understand much about his art, which he valued above all things. Holbein's wife, and he married early, was a perfect Xantippe, too shrewd to be despised, and not handsome enough to be admired. In the library at Basel is a family picture of Holbein, in which she is introduced, almost unconscious of the two children about her; but Holbein very shrewdly forgot to paint himself there. But he took care of the interests of his family, and obtained them a pension from the magistrates of Basel, during his stay in England. This pension was paid for past services, and in order to induce him finally to fix his residence in Switzerland. The absence of matrimonial felicity was probably an additional motive for Holbein to seek employment as an itinerant painter. He visited several Swiss towns, but certainly never saw Luther and Melancthon, so that the portraits of Luther and Melancthon exhibited in Italy, Germany, and England, as works of Holbein, cannot be genuine; and it is very improbable that he should have copied the works of Lucas Cranach, who several times painted the portraits of those lights of the reformation. Erasmus was frequently painted by Holbein; and as those portraits were sent as presents to the friends of Erasmus, Holbein's name became known all over Europe.