26

THE DANCE OF DEATH.

of" Simulachres," when published under the title of " ImaginesMortis."

In 1780, an artist at Basil, Cretien de Mechel, commenced thepublication of a series of engravings of Holbein's works, com-mencing with forty-five engravings of the Dance of Death. Theseare stated by Mr. Coxe to be from a set in Indian ink by Holbein,and, moreover, the set from which Wenceslaus Hollar preparedhis engravings of the Dance, and linked his own name with itin a degree only secondary to Hans Holbein.

The opinion that Hollar copied what we may call the Mechelset seems to be unsupportable, for, as one of his editors has re-marked, as his engravings now remain " they are not correctcopies of any existing model," and (being Hollar) we cannotsuppose him erroneous in this respect.

It may be that he copied the Whitehall frescoes, or someoriginal drawings by Holbein, which have not survived ; as Hollar'splates, Mechel's prints, and the cuts of the " Imagines Mortis," of1555, contain the same variations from the editions of 1538 and1542.

Hollar was born in 1607. His Dance of Death was firstpublished in 1651, though apparently prepared some years earlier.His engravings of the Dance bear the initials HB i. (Holbeininvent.?). One edition of thirty plates, with descriptions in Englishand French, have the plates in brown ink, and are colored.*

Probably few subjects have excited more conjecture, or givenrise to more mistakes, than the Dance of Death. This cannot besurprising when the enquirer has to look through centuries to seehis subject, but, though in the present age means of identificationare not so slight, error seems to have pursued the subject to our

* The copy I have seen of this is in the possession of Mr. Joseph Temple, of Hull, to whom,it may here be mentioned, I have obligation in the matter of the blocks.

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