124 The Dance of Death.

as to excite his gratitude and admiration in another copyof verses. 4 This was probably the chalk drawing still pre-served in the fine collection of portraits of the eminentpersons in the court of Henry VIII. formerly at Kensington,and thence removed to Buckingham House, and which hasbeen copied in an elegant wood-cut, that first appeared in theedition of the Paidagogeion of Borbonius, Lyons, 1536, andafterwards in two editions of his " Nugae." It is inscribed

NIC. BORBONIVS VANDOP. ANNO ^TATIS XXXII. 1535. He

returned to Lyons in 1536, and it is known that he wasthere in 1538, when he probably wrote the complimentarylines in Holbein's Biblical designs a short time before theirpublication, either out of friendship to the painter, or atthe instance of the Lyons publisher with whom he wascertainly connected.

Now if Borbonius, during his residence at Lyons, hadbeen assured that the designs in the wood-cuts of the Danceof Death were the production of Holbein, would not hisbefore-mentioned lines on that subject have been likewiseintroduced into the Lyons edition of it, or at least intosome subsequent editions, in none of which is any mentionwhatever made of Holbein, although the work was con-tinued even after the death of that artist % The appli-cation, therefore, of Borbonius's lines must be sought forelsewhere ; but it is greatly to be regretted that he has notadverted to the place where the painting, as he seems tocall it, was made.

Very soon after the calamitous fire at Whitehall in 1697,which consumed nearly the whole of that palace, a personcalling himself T. Nieuhoff Piccard, probably belonging tothe household of William the Third, and a man whoappears to have been an amateur artist, made the etchingsin the article IX. already described in p. 130. Copies ofthem were presented to some of his friends, with manuscriptdedications to them. Three of these copies have been seenby the author of this Dissertation; and as the dedicationsdiffer from each other, and are of very considerable im-portance on the present occasion, the following extractsfrom them are here translated and transcribed :—

4 Nugae, lib. vi. carm. ia.