4 The Dance of Death.
about him, he exclaims, " En vobis quern scelestus ille sce-letum nominabat! Hiccine est sceletus 1 Haeccine estlarval Hoccine est quod appellitabatis Daemonium." 7It is among Christian writers and artists that the personifi-cation of Death as a skeleton is intended to convey terrificideas, conformably to the system that Death is the punish-ment for original sin.
The circumstances that lead to Death, and not ouiactual dissolution, are alone of a terrific nature; forDeath is, in fact, the end and cure of all the previoussufferings and horrors with which it is so frequentlyaccompanied. In the dark ages of monkish bigotry andsuperstition, the deluded people, seduced into a beliefthat the fear of Death was acceptable to the great andbeneficent Author of their existence, appear to have derivedone of their principal gratifications in contemplating thisnecessary termination of humanity, yet amidst ideas andimpressions of the most horrible and disgusting nature :hence the frequent allusions to it, in all possible ways,among their preachers, and the personification of it intheir books of religious offices, as well as in the paintingsand sculptures of their ecclesiastical and other edifices.They seemed to have entirely banished from their recollec-tion the consolatory doctrines of the Gospel, which con-tribute so essentially to dissipate the terrors of Death, andwhich enable the more enlightened Christian to abide thatevent with the most perfect tranquillity of mind. Thereare, indeed, some exceptions to this remark, for we maystill trace the imbecility of former ages on too many ofour sepulchral monuments, which are occasionally trickedout with the silly appendages of Death's heads, bones, andother useless remains of mortality, equally repulsive to theimagination and to the elegance of art.
If it be necessary on any occasion to personify Death,this were surely better accomplished by means of somegraceful and impressive figure of the Angel of Death, forwhom we have the authority of Scripture ; and such mightbecome an established representative. The skulls andbones of modern, and the entire skeletons of former times,especially during the Middle Ages, had, probably, derived7 Apolog. p. 506, 507, edit. Delph. 4to.
their originrelics that v\in the recolleand principaappears to 1familiarly knwhich it has,ludicrous attespecially frcruthless tyrameasure, attijwho were emIt is veryearly timesindecorous dor near themin Pagan tinjamong the Cof the Nortrltianity. A ithe ninth ceadmoneant yoccurrunt, mteneant, ac cCanciani raidance in honThese rioappear to hato exhibit thconsecratedinform us,Nuremberg ithe Emperormass on ChJin the dioceand ten wosinging in tflin his duty,to desist, an^them. The8 Lib. iiL