THE DANCE OF DEATH.

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land, in the church-yard formerly belonging tothe convent of Dominicans, which is said tohave been painted at the instance of the fathersand prelates assisting at the grand council atBasil, in 1431, in memory of a plague whichhappened soon afterwards, and during its con-tinuance. The name of the painter is unknown,and will probably ever remain so, for no depend-ence can be had upon vague conjectures of thosewho, without any authority, or even the smallestprobability, have attempted to ascertain it. Torefute, or even to mention the blunders whichhave been committed by most of the travellerswho have described the town of Basil, whenthey discuss this subject, would fill a volume :it will be sufficient to notice an assertion ofKeysler, that the painting was executed byHans Bok, a celebrated painter of this place,who, however, from the testimony of Scheutzer,in his Itinerary, was not born till 1584. Fromsome inscriptions on the spot it appears to havebeen retouched, or perhaps renewed, in 1566and 1616; the first time probably by HansKlauber, whose name occurs in the lines ad-dressed by Death to the Painter.

It has been frequently supposed that the Basilpainting was the first of the kind; but this isextremely doubtful, from the knowledge we haveof many others of apparently equal antiquity.