4 6
The Dance of Death
Death answers :
Grosless galante in all thy luste and prydeRemembyr that thou schalle onys dyeDeth schall fro thy body thy sowle devydeThou mayst him not escape certaynlyTo the dede bodyes cast down thyne yeBeholde thayme well consydere and seeFor such as thay ar such shalt thou be.
This painting was made about the year 1460, and fromthe remaining specimen its destruction is extren ely to beregretted, as, judging from that of the young gallant, thedresses of the time would be correctly exhibited.
In the chapel at Wortley Hall, in Gloucestershire, therewas inscribed, and most likely painted, "an history andDaunce of Deathe of all estatts and degrees." Thisinscribed history was the same as Lydgate's, with someadditional characters. 5 From a manuscript note by JohnStowe, in his copy of Leland's Itinerary, it appears thatthere was a Dance of Death in the church of Stratfordupon Avon : and the conjecture that Shakespeare, in apassage in Measure for Measure, might have rememberedit, will not, perhaps, be deemed very extravagant. Hethere alludes to Death and the fool, a subject alwaysintroduced into the paintings in question. 6
On the upper part of the great screen which closesthe entrance to the choir of the church at Hexham, inNorthumberland, are the painted remains of a Dance ofDeath. 7 These consist of the figures of a pope, a cardinal,and a king, which were copied by the ingenious JohnCarter, of well-deserved antiquarian memory.
Vestiges of a Macaber Dance were not long since tobe traced on the walls of the hall of the Archiepiscopalpalace at Croydon, but so much obscured by time andneglect that no particular compartment could be ascer-tained.
The tapestries that decorated the walls of pakces, andother dwelling-places, were sometin.es applied in extensionof this moral subject. In the Tower of London, the original
5 Cotton MS. Vesp. A. xxv. fo. 181. 6 Leland's Itin. vol. iv.
part i. p. 69.—Meas. for Meas. Act iii. sc 1. 7 Hutchinson's
Northumberland, i. 98.
8 Warton's
9 And seep isa, mention.