4© The Dance of Death.

Macaber Dance, executed by a painter named Mcglinger,but at what time we are not informed. It is said to havebeen very well painted, but injured greatly by injudiciousretouchings \ yet there seems to be a difference of opinionas to the merit of the paintings, which are or were thirty-sixin number, and supposed to have been copied from theBasle dance. Lucerne has also another of the same kindin the burial-ground of the parish church of Im-hof. Oneof the subjects placed over the tomb of some canon, thefounder of a musical society, is Death playing on the violin,and summoning the canon to follow him, who, not in theleast terrified, marks the place in the book he was reading,and appears quite disposed to obey. This Dance isprobably more modern than the other. 33 The subjectof Death performing on the above instrument to someperson or other is by no means uncommon among theold painters.

M. Maurice Rivoire, in his very excellent descriptionof the cathedral of Amiens, mentions the cloister of theMachabees, originally called, says he, the cloister ofMacabre, and, as he supposes, from the name of theauthor of the verses. He gives some lines that were onone of the walls, in which the Almighty commands Deathto bring all mortals before him. 34 This cloister wasdestroyed about the year 1817, but not before the presentwriter had seen some vestiges of the painting that remainedon one of the sides of the building.

M. Peignot has a very probable conjecture that thechurchyard of Saint Maclou, at Rouen, had a MacaberDance, from a border or frieze that contains severalemblematical subjects of mortality. The place had morethan once been destroyed. 35 On the pillars of the churchat Fescamp, in Normandy, the Dance of Death wassculptured in stone, and it is in evidence that the castleof Blois had formerly this subject represented in somepart of it.

In the course of some recent alterations in the newchurch of the Protestants at Strasburg, formerly a Domi-nican convent, the workmen accidentally uncovered a

33 Peignot, Recherches, xlv. xlvi. u Rivoire, Descr. de l'EgliseCathedrale d'Amiens. Amiens, 1806. 8vo. M Recherches *lvii.