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THE DANCE OF DEATH,

one of their principal gratifications in contem-plating it amidst ideas the most horrid and dis-gusting: hence the frequent descriptions ofmortality in all its shapes amongst their writers,and the representations of this kind, in theirbooks of religious offices, and the paintings andsculptures of their ecclesiastic buildings. Theyhad altogether lost sight of the consolatory doc-trines of the Gospel, which regard death in noterrific point of view whatever ; a discovery re-served for the discernment of modern and en-lightened Christians, who contemplate sceneswhich excited gloom and melancholy in theminds of their forefathers, with the gratifica-tion of philosophic curiosity. Some exceptions,however, to this remark are not wanting, forwe may yet trace the imbecility of former agesin the decorations of many of our monuments,tricked out in all the silly ornaments of deaths*heads and marrow-bones.

The most favourite subject of the kind, how-ever, was what is usually denominated theDance of Death, or a representation of Death iathe act of leading all ranks and conditions of mento the grave; with gesticulations not a little bor-dering upon the grotesque, though probablywithout any view to provoke the mirth of thespectator in those times. One of the most an-cient still existing, is that at Basil in Switzer-