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THE DANCE OF DEATH.




[Illustration]




  The Dance of Death

  EXHIBITED IN ELEGANT ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD

  WITH A DISSERTATION
  ON THE SEVERAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THAT SUBJECT
  BUT MORE PARTICULARLY ON THOSE ASCRIBED TO
  Macaber and Hans Holbein


  BY FRANCIS DOUCE ESQ. F. A. S.
  AND A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF NORMANDY
  AND OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ETC. AT CAEN

  Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas
  Regumque turres.                 HORAT. lib. i. od. 4.


  LONDON
  WILLIAM PICKERING
  1833


  C. Whittingham, Tooks Court, Chancery Lane.




PREFACE.


The very ample discussion which the extremely popular subject of the Dance
of Death has already undergone might seem to preclude the necessity of
attempting to bestow on it any further elucidation; nor would the present
Essay have ever made its appearance, but for certain reasons which are
necessary to be stated.

The beautiful designs which have been, perhaps too implicitly, regarded as
the invention of the justly celebrated painter, Hans Holbein, are chiefly
known in this country by the inaccurate etchings of most of them by
Wenceslaus Hollar, the copper-plates of which having formerly become the
property of Mr. Edwards, of Pall Mall, were published by him, accompanied