The Dance of Death.

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which are wholly different from the dull and oftentimesdisgusting Macaber Dance, which is confined, with littleexception, to two figures only, we have the most interestingassemblage of characters, among whom the skeletonizedDeath, with all the animation of a living person, forms themost important personage ; sometimes amusingly ludicrous,occasionally mischievous, but always busy and characteristi-cally occupied.

Doubts have arisen whether the above can be regardedas the first edition of these justly celebrated engravings inthe form of a volume accompanied with text. In the" Notices sur les graveurs," Besancon, 1807, 8vo. a workascribed to M. Malpe, 9 it is stated to have been originallypublished at Basle in 1530; and in M. Jansen's "Essai surl'origine de la gravure," &c. Paris, 1808, 8vo. a work repletewith plagiarisms, and the most glaring mistakes, the sameassertion is repeated. This writer adds, but unsupportedby any authority, that soon afterwards another editionappeared with Flemish verses. Both these authors, follow-ing their blind leader Papillon, have not ventured to statethat they ever saw this supposed edition of 1530; and itmay indeed be asked, who has ? Or in what catalogue ofany library is it recorded ? Malpe acknowledges that theearliest edition he had seen was that of 1538. M. Fuseli,in his edition of Pilkington's Dictionary of Painters, hasappended a note to the article for Hans Holbein, where,alluding perhaps to the former edition of the present disser-tation, he remarks, that " Holbein's title to the Dance ofDeath would not have been called in question, had theingenious author of the dissertation on that subject beenacquainted with the German edition." This gentlemanseems, however, to have inadvertently forgotten a formeropinion which he had given in one of his lectures, wherehe says, " The scrupulous precision, the high finish, and theTitianesque colour of Hans Holbein would make the leastpart of his excellence, if his right to that series of emblem-atic groups known under the name of Holbein's Dance ofDeath had not, of late, been too successfully disputed." M.Fuseli would have rendered some service to this questionby favouring us with an explicit account of the above9 Some give it to the Abbe BavereL