The Dance of Death. 193

friar holding his beads and endeavouring to escape. O.Death and the Swiss soldier with his battle-axe \ and, S. aqueen between two Deaths, one of whom leads her, theother holds up her train. The Gesner has also a Q fromthe same alphabet of Death and the nun. This secondalphabet is coarsely engraved on wood, and both are ofthe same size as the originals.

In Francolin's " Rerum praeclare gestarum, intra et extramcenia civitatis Viennensis, pedestri et equestri proelio,terra et aqua, elapso Mense Junio Anni Domini mdlx.elegantissimis iconibus ad vivum illustratarum, in laudemet gloriam sere, poten. invictissimique principis et Domini,Domini Ferdinandi electi Roma : imperatoris, &c. Viennaexcudebat Raphael Hofhalter," »t fo. xxii. b. the letter D isclosely copied in wood from the original, and appears tohave been much used. This very rare work is extremelyinteresting for its large and spirited etchings of the variousceremonies on the above occasion, but more particularlyfor the tournaments. It is also valuable for the marks ofthe artists, some of which are quite unknown.

Other copies of them on wood occur in English books,but whether the whole alphabet was copied would bedifficult to ascertain. In a Coverdale's Bible, printed byJames Nicolson in Southwark, the letters A, I, and Toccur. The subject of the A is that of the fool andDeath, from the R of the originals, with the addition ofthe fool's bauble on the ground : the two other letters arelike the originals. The size 2 inches by i-J. The sameletters, and no others, occur in a folio English Bible, thedate of which has not been ascertained, it being only afragment. The A is found as late as 1618 in an edition ofStowe's "Survey of London." In all these letters largewhite spots are on the background, which might be takenfor worm-holes, but are not so. The I occurs in J. Waley's"table of yeres of kings," 1567, i2.mo.

An X and a T, i-J inch square, with the same subjectsas in the originals, and not only closely copied, but nearlyas well engraved on wood, are in the author's collection.Their locality has not been traced.

Hollar etched the first six letters of the alphabet fromthe initials described in p. 190. They are rather larger

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