The Dance of Death.

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Innocents, when it was entirely destroyed in 1786. It hadbeen usually regarded as the work of Germain Pilon, butwith greater probability belonged to Francois Gentil, asculptor at Troyes, about 1540. It was transplanted toNotie Dame, after being bronzed and repaired, by M.Deseine, a distinguished artist. It was saved from the furyof the iconoclast revolutionists by M. Le Noir, and depo-sited in the Museum which he so patriotically establishedin the Rue des petits Augustins, but it has since disappeared.It was an upright skeleton figure, holding in one hand alance which pointed to a shield with this inscription :—

II n'est vivant, tant soit plein d'art,

Ne de force pour resistance,Que je ne frappe de mon dart,

Pour bailler aux vers leur pitance.

Priez Dieu pour les trespasses.

I: is engraved in the second volume of M. Le Noir's" Musee des monumens Francais," and also in his " Histoiredes arts en France," No. 91.

DANSE AUX AVEUGLES.

There is a poetical work, in some degree connected withthe subject of this dissertation, that ought not to be over-looked. It was composed by one Pierre Michault, ofwhom little more seems to be known than that he was inthe service of Charles, Count of Charolois, son of Philip leBon, Duke of Burgundy. It is entitled " La Danse auxAveugles," and the object of it is to show that all men aresubject to the influence of three blind guides, Love, Fortune,and Death, before whom several persons are whimsicallymade to dance. It is a dialogue in a dream between theAuthor and Understanding, and the respective blind guidesdescribe themselves, their nature, and power over mankind,in ten-line stanzas, of which the following is the first ofthose which are pronounced by Death :—

Je suis la Mort de nature ennemie,Qui tous vivans finablement consomme,Anickillant a tous humams la vie,Reduis en terre et en cendre tout homme,Je suis la mort qui dure me surnomme.