THE DANCE OF DEATH.
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 æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres. HORAT. lib. i. od. 4. |
LONDON
WILLIAM PICKERING
1833
C. Whittingham, Tooks Court, Chancery Lane.
PREFACE.
he very ample discussion which the extremely popular subject of the Danceof Death has already undergone might seem to preclude the necessity ofattempting to bestow on it any further elucidation; nor would the presentEssay have ever made its appearance, but for certain reasons which arenecessary to be stated.
The beautiful designs which have been, perhaps too implicitly, regarded asthe invention of the justly celebrated painter, Hans Holbein, are chieflyknown in this country by the inaccurate etchings of most of them byWenceslaus Hollar, the copper-plates of which having formerly become theproperty of Mr. Edwards, of Pall Mall, were published by him, accompaniedby a very hasty and imperfect dissertation; which, with fewer faults, andconsiderable enlargement, is here again submitted to public attention. Itis appended to a set of fac-similes of the above-mentioned elegantdesigns, and which, at a very liberal expense that has been incurred bythe proprietor and publisher of this volume, have[Pg vi] been executed withconsummate skill and fidelity by Messrs. Bonner and Byfield, two of ourbest artists in the line of wood engraving. They may very justly beregarded as scarcely distinguishable from their fine originals.
The remarks in the course of this Essay on a supposed German poet, underthe name of Macaber, and the discussion relating to Holbein’s connectionwith the Dance of Death, may perhaps be found interesting to the criticalreader only; but every admirer of ancient art will not fail to begratified by an intimate acquaintance with one of its finest specimens inthe 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 ofverbosity than information. He has placed undue confidence in hispredecessor, Paul Christian Hilscher, whose work, printed at Dresden in1705, had probably misled the truly learned Fabricius in what he has saidconcerning Macaber in his valuable work, the “Bibliotheca mediæ et infimæ