scelestus ille sce-; 1 Haeccine estis Dsemonium." 7hat the personifi-to convey terrificath is the punish-

ith, and not oui•rific nature ; for' all the previous

is so frequentlyikish bigotry anded into a belief

to the great andir to have derivedontemplating thisamidst ideas andlisgusting nature :all possible ways,ification of it inls in the paintingsid other edifices.•om their recollec-ospel, which Con-ors of Death, andstian to abide that

of mind. Therenark, for we may

on too many ofxasionally trickedheads, bones, andlly repulsive to the

> personify Death,y means of somengel of Death, for; j and such mightThe skulls andis of former times,, probably, derivedph. 4to.

The Dance of Death. 5

their origin fron* the vast quantities of sanctified humanrelics that were continually before the eyes, or otherwisein the recollection of the early Christians. But the favouriteand principal emblem of mortality among our ancestorsappears to have been the moral and allegorical pageantfamiliarly known by the appellation of the Dance of Death,which it has, in part, derived from the grotesque, and oftenludicrous attitudes of the figures that composed it, andespecially from the active and sarcastical mockery of theruthless tyrant upon its victims, which may be, in a greatmeasure, attributed to the whims and notions of the artistswho were employed to represent the subject.

It is very well known to have been the practice in veryearly times to profane the temples of the Deity withindecorous dancing and ludicrous processions, either withinor near them, in imitation, probably, of similar proceedingsin Pagan times. Strabo mentions a custom of this natureamong the Celtiberians, 8 and it obtained also among severalof the Northern nations before their conversion to Chris-tianity. A Roman council, under Pope Eugenius II. inthe ninth century, has thus noticed it : " Ut sacerdotesadmoneant viros ac mulieres, qui festis diebus ad ecclesiamoccurrunt, ne ballando et turpia verba decantando chorosteneant, ac ducunt, similitudinem Paganorum peragendo."Canciani mentions an ancient bequest of money for adance in honour of the Virgin. 9

These riotous and irreverent tripudists and caperersappear to have possessed themselves of the churchyardsto exhibit their dancing fooleries, till this profanation ofconsecrated ground was punished, as monkish historiesinform us, with divine vengeance. The well-knownNuremberg Chronicle 10 has recorded, that in the time oithe Emperor Henry the Second, whilst a priest was sayingmass on Christmas Eve, in the church of Saint Magnus,in the diocese of Magdeburg, a company of eighteen menand ten women amused themselves with dancing andsinging in the churchyard, to the hindrance of the priestin his duty. Notwithstanding his admonition, they refusedto desist, and even derided the words he addressed tothem. The priest being greatly provoked at their conduct,8 Lib. iil » Leg. Antiq. iii. 84. 10 Folio clxxxvii.