THE DANCE OF DEATH.

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vagueness of grasp held on the idea of Eternity by a monk-taughtpeople.

Whatever the reason, we have very curious illustrations ofthe fact in the art of mediaeval times. Isolated instances of theartistic use of the personified skeleton abound in manuscript andprint, in missal and in prayer-book.

We have here, however, to confine ourselves to a brief glanceat the one systematic use of the Lett Memor, the great instanceof the class, that work of art—The Dance of Death. We have tolook at this as a historical work of Art, yet not forgetting how itreflected the opinions and feelings of its day ; from each of thecharacters pourtrayed as being seized by the grim tyrant, we mightexpect the words of Posthumius :

"Quo vadam nescio, " Where I am going I know not :

Invitus morior, I die against my will ;

Valete posthumi." Farewell, you survivors."

The Dance of Death in its original artistic form is a sort ofprocessional series, in which *' all sorts and conditions of men"are shewn merrily conducted or seized by dancing skeletons, andthe representation is met upon the walls of buildings and bridges,but chiefly in churches and churchyards.

The origin of the Dance has been conjectured to have beenone of the religious Mysteries, Moralities, or dramatic exhibitions,which at the same time supplied a comedy and a homily. Therecertainly was an acted processional dance, in which the playersone by one were snatched away; Cervantes in Don Quixotementions it as the " Cortes of Death." Also there is no lack ofconfirmation of the thing from the poets, of whom Piers Plowman(1350) affords the first allusion to the subject in literature :" Death came drivynge after, and all to dust pashed,Kynges and kaysers, knightes and popes,