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The Dance of Death. 189

At the head of this ballad is a lithographic print of theterrified Lise in Satan's clutches, surrounded by dancing,piping, and fiddling Deaths.

About the same time there appeared a silly ballad, set tomusic, entitled " The Cork Leg," accompanied by a print inwhich the man with the cork leg falling on the ground dropshis leg. It is seized by Death, who stalks away with it in avery grotesque manner.

CHAPTER XVInitial or capital Letters with the Dance of Death.

T is very well known that the use of ini-tial or capital letters, especially withfigures of any kind, is not coeval withthe invention of printing. It was sometime before they were introduced at all,a blank being left, or else a small letterprinted for the illuminators to cover orfill up, as they had been accustomed todo in manuscripts ; for, although the art of printing nearlyput an end to the occupation of that ingenious class ofartists, they continued to be employed by the early printersto decorate their books with elegant initials, and parti-cularly to illuminate the first pages of them with beautifulborders of foliage or animals, for the purpose of givingthem the appearance of manuscripts.

It has more than once been most erroneously assertedby bibliographers and writers on typography, that ErhardRatdolt, a printer at Venice, was the first person who madeuse of initial letters about the year 1477 ; for instances arenot wanting of their introduction into some of the earliestprinted books. Among the latter the most beautiful spe-