Chapter I: 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 by a very hasty and imperfect dissertation; which, with fewer faults, and considerable enlargement, is here again submitted to public attention. It is appended to a set of fac-similes of the above-mentioned elegant designs, and which, at a very liberal expense that has been incurred by the proprietor and publisher of this volume, have been executed with consummate skill and fidelity by Messrs. Bonner and Byfield, two of our best artists in the line of wood engraving. They may very justly be regarded as scarcely distinguishable from their fine originals.

The remarks in the course of this Essay on a supposed German poet, under the name of Macaber, and the discussion relating to Holbein's connection with the Dance of Death, may perhaps be found interesting to the critical reader only; but every admirer of ancient art will not fail to be gratified by an intimate acquaintance with one of its finest specimens in the copy which is here so faithfully exhibited.

In the latest and best edition of some new designs for a Dance of Death, by Salomon Van Rusting, published by John George Meintel at Nuremberg, 1736, 8vo. there is an elaborate preface by him, with a greater portion of verbosity than information. He has placed undue confidence in his predecessor, Paul Christian Hilscher, whose work, printed at Dresden in 1705, had probably misled the truly learned Fabricius in what he has said concerning Macaber in his valuable work, the "Bibliotheca mediae et infimae aetatis." Meintel confesses his inability to point out the origin or the inventor of the subject. The last and completest work on the Dance, or Dances of Death, is that of the ingenious M. Peignot, so well and deservedly known by his numerous and useful books on bibliography. To this gentleman the present Essay has been occasionally indebted. He will, probably, at some future opportunity, remove the whimsical misnomer in his engraving of Death and the Ideot.

The usual title, "The Dance of Death," which accompanies most of the printed works, is not altogether appropriate. It may indeed belong to the old Macaber painting and other similar works where Death is represented in a sort of dancing and grotesque attitude in the act of leading a single character; but where the subject consists of several figures, yet still with occasional exception, they are rather to be regarded as elegant emblems of human mortality in the premature intrusion of an unwelcome and inexorable visitor.

It must not be supposed that the republication of this singular work is intended to excite the lugubrious sensations of sanctified devotees, or of terrified sinners; for, awful and impressive as must ever be the contemplation of our mortality in the mind of the philosopher and practiser of true religion, the mere sight of a skeleton cannot, as to them, excite any alarming sensation whatever. It is chiefly addressed to the ardent admirers of ancient art and pictorial invention; but nevertheless with a hope that it may excite a portion of that general attention to the labours of past ages, which reflects so much credit on the times in which we live.

The widely scattered materials relating to the subject of the Dance of Death, and the difficulty of reconciling much discordant information, must apologize for a few repetitions in the course of this Essay, the regular progress of which has been too often interrupted by the manner in which matter of importance is so obscurely and defectively recorded; instances of which are, the omission of the name of the painter in the otherwise important dedication to the first edition of the engravings on wood of the Dance of Death that was published at Lyons; the uncertainty as to locality in some complimentary lines to Holbein by his friend Borbonius, and the want of more particulars in the account by Nieuhoff of Holbein's painting at Whitehall.

The designs for the Dance of Death, published at Lyons in 1538, and hitherto regarded as the invention of Holbein, are, in the course of this Dissertation, referred to under the appellation of _the Lyons wood-cuts_; and with respect to the term _Macaber_, which has been so mistakenly used as the name of a real author, it has been nevertheless preserved on the same principle that the word _Gothic_ has been so generally adopted for the purpose of designating the pointed style of architecture in the middle ages.

F. D.

CONTENTS.

Page

CHAPTER I.

Personification of Death, and other modes of representing it
among the Ancients.--Same subject during the Middle Ages.--
Erroneous notions respecting Death.--Monumental
absurdities.--Allegorical pageant of the Dance of Death
represented in early times by living persons in churches and
cemeteries.--Some of these dances described.--Not unknown to
the Ancients.--Introduction of the infernal, or dance of
Macaber 1

CHAPTER II.

Places where the Dance of Death was sculptured or depicted.--
Usually accompanied by verses describing the several
characters.--Other metrical compositions on the Dance 17

CHAPTER III.

Macaber not a German or any other poet, but a nonentity.--
Corruption and confusion respecting this word.--Etymological
errors concerning it.--How connected with the Dance.--Trois
mors et trois vifs.--Orgagna's painting in the Campo Santo at
Pisa.--Its connection with the trois mors et trois vifs, as
well as with the Macaber Dance.--Saint Macarius the real
Macaber.--Paintings of this dance in various places.--At
Minden; Church-yard of the Innocents at Paris; Dijon; Basle;
Klingenthal; Lubeck; Leipsic; Anneberg; Dresden; Erfurth;
Nuremberg; Berne; Lucerne; Amiens; Rouen; Fescamp; Blois;
Strasburg; Berlin; Vienna; Holland; Italy; Spain 28

CHAPTER IV.

Macaber Dance in England.--St. Paul's.--Salisbury.--
Wortley-hall.--Hexham.--Croydon.--Tower of London.--Lines in
Pierce Plowman's Vision supposed to refer to it 51

CHAPTER V.

List of editions of the Macaber Dance.--Printed Horae that
contain it.--Manuscript Horae.--Other Manuscripts in which it
occurs.--Various articles with letter-press, not being single
prints, but connected with it 55

CHAPTER VI.

Hans Holbein's connection with the Dance of Death.--A dance
of peasants at Basle.--Lyons edition of the Dance of Death,
1538.--Doubts as to any prior edition.--Dedication to the
edition of 1538.--Mr. Ottley's opinion of it examined.--
Artists supposed to have been connected with this work.--
Holbein's name in none of the old editions.--Reperdius 78

CHAPTER VII.

Holbein's Bible cuts.--Examination of the claim of Hans
Lutzenberger as to the design or execution of the Lyons
engravings of the Dance of Death.--Other works by him 94

CHAPTER VIII.

List of several editions of the Lyons work on the Dance of
Death with the mark of Lutzenberger.--Copies of them on
wood.--Copies on copper by anonymous artists.--By Wenceslaus
Hollar.--Other anonymous artists.--Nieuhoff Picard.--
Rusting.--Mechel.--Crozat's drawings.--Deuchar.--Imitations
of some of the subjects 103

CHAPTER IX.

Further examination of Holbein's title.--Borbonius.--
Biographical notice of Holbein.--Painting of a Dance of Death
at Whitehall by him 138

CHAPTER X.

Other Dances of Death 146

CHAPTER XI.

Dances of Death, with such text only as describes the subjects 160

CHAPTER XII.

Books in which the subject is occasionally introduced 168

CHAPTER XIII.

Books of emblems and fables.--Frontispieces and title-pages
in some degree connected with the Dance of Death 179

CHAPTER XIV.

Single prints connected with the Dance of Death 188

CHAPTER XV.

Initial or capital Letters with the Dance of Death 213

CHAPTER XVI.

Paintings.--Drawings.--Miscellaneous 221

CHAPTER XVII.

Trois vifs et trois morts.--Negro figure of Death.--Danse aux
Aveugles 228

CHAPTER XVIII.

Errors of various writers who have introduced the subject of
the Dance of Death 233

ERRATA.

Page 7, line 25, for _Boistuan_ read _Boistuau_.
7, ... 26, for _Prodigeuses_ read _Prodigieuses_.
28, ... 14, read _in Holland_, &c.
32, ... 23, for _Lamorensi_ read _Zamorensi_.
81, ... 4, for _fex_ read _sex_.
88, ... 10, after _difficulty_ add ?
89, ... 21, after _works_ add "
180, ... 23, for _Typotia_ read _Typotii_.
197, ... 8, for _Stradamus_ read _Stradanus_.

THE Dance of Death.