The Dance of Deatn 47

and most ancient seat of our monarchs, there was sometapestry with the Macaber Dance. 8

The following lines in that admirable satire, the Visionof Pierce Plowman, written about the year 1350, haveevidently an illusion to the Dance, unless they might bethought to apply rather to the celebrated triumph of Deathby Petrarch, of which some very early paintings, and manyengravings, still exist: or they may even refer to some ofthe ancient representations of the infernal regions thatfollow Death on the Pale Horse of the Revelations, andin which is seen a grotesque intermixture of all classesof people. 9

Death came driving after, and all to dust pashedKynges and Kaysers, Knightes and Popes,Learned and lewde: he ne let no man standeThat he hitte even, he never stode after.Many a lovely ladie and lemmans of knightesSwouned and swelted for sorrowe of Deathes dyntes.

It is probable that many cathedrals and other edifices,civil as well as ecclesiastical, in France, Germany, England,and probably other European countries, were ornamentedwith paintings and sculpture of this extremely popularsubject

8 Warton's H. E. Poetry, ii. 43, ed. 8vo.

9 And see a portion of Orgagna's painting at the Campo Santo alPisa, mentioned before in p. 27.