arises from the action of the planets upon the moon. He has also shewn
that this acceleration will go on till it arrives at a certain limit,
when it will be changed into a retardation, or in other words, there are
two limits between which the lunar period fluctuates, but neither of
which it can pass.

PASCHE.

* * * * *




Fine Arts.

* * * * *

HANS HOLBEIN.


Holbein is the man who has been hitherto considered as the most
brilliant genius Switzerland has produced in the art of painting. He
is here universally believed to have been a native of Switzerland. His
earliest biographers, Mander and Patin, asserted that he was born at
Basel, and they have been copied by all our biographical dictionaries.
Another biographer, however, appears, himself a Swiss, and known as the
author of some other clever works, and proves, on the most satisfactory
evidence, that Holbein was born 1498, at Augsburg, in Germany; but that
his father, a painter too, came to Basel between 1504-8, probably at the
invitation of the magistrates of Basel, as they required a painter to