Hie Dance of Death.

121

There is indeed but very slight evidence, and none con-temporary, that he painted any Dance of Death at Basle.The indefinite statements of Bishop Burnet and M. Patin,together with those of the numerous and careless travellerswho have followed blind leaders, and too often copied eachother without the means or inclination of obtaining correctinformation, are deserving of very little attention. Thecircumstance of Holbein's having painted a Dance ofPeasants somewhere in the above city, in conjunction withthe usual mistake of ascribing to him the old MacaberDance, seems to have occasioned the ab*ove erroneousstatements as to a Dance of Death by his pencil. It ishardly possible that Zuinger, almost a contemporary, whendescribing the Dance of Peasants and other paintings byHolbein at Basle, would have omitted the mention of anyDance of Death : 2 but even admitting the former existenceof such a painting, it would not constitute him the inventorof the designs in the Lyons work. He might have imitatedor copied those designs, or the wood-cuts themselves,or perhaps have painted subjects that were different fromeither.

We are now to take into consideration some very clearand important evidence that Holbein actually did paint aDance of Death. This is to be found in the Nugcz ofBorbonius in the following verses :

De morte picta a Hanso pictore nobili.

Dum mortis Hansus pictor imaginum exprimit,Tanta arte mortem retulit, lit mors vivereVideatur ipsa : et ipse se immortalibusParem Diis fecerit, operis hujus gloria. 3

It has been already demonstrated that these lines couldnot refer to the old painting of the Macaber Dance at theDominican convent, whilst, from the important dedicationto the edition of the wood-cuts first published at Lyons in1538, it is next to impossible that that work could thenhave been in Borbonius's contemplation. It appears fromseveral places in his "Nugse" that he was in England in 1535,at which time Holbein drew his portrait in such a mannei

2 Zuinger, Msthodus apodemica. Basil, 1557. 4-to. p. 199. sp. 427^» edit Lugd. apul Grypkium, and p. 445, edit. Basil.