However interesting it may be to be acquainted with the time and circumstances of the birth of an eminent person, it is more instructive to ascertain when, where, and how he died. A man's career is then complete, his actions can be freely reviewed and recorded for the information of posterity, and nothing more can justly be added to the acts of his life on which to found his reputation. In more than one sense, therefore, is there truth in the words of Solomon, “A good name rather than good perfume, and a day of death rather than a day of birth.” (Eccl. vii. 1.) The case of the great painter Holbein strikingly illustrates this saying. His powers and reputation as an artist far transcended, even in his royal master's judgment, the accidental distinctions of rank and fortune; and the true date of his death is far more important to his posthumous reputation and to posterity than the date of his birth.