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THE DANCE OF DEATH.

as far as the year 1424*; it was called the Danceof Macaber, from a German poet of that name,who first composed some verses under the sametitle. Of this person very little is known, butFabricius thinks the poem more ancient than thepaintingsf. His work has been translated intoLatin and French, in the last of which languagesthere are some very ancient and very moderneditions.

The earliest allusion to the subject, but whe-ther to the above-mentioned farce or to the paint-ings seems uncertain, is in the following lines,from the Visions of Pierce the Plowman, whowrote about 1350.

Death came drivynge after, and all to dust pashed,Kynges and kaysers, knightes and popesLearned and lewde, he ne let no man standeThat he hitte even, he never stode after.Many a lovely ladie, and lemmans of knightsSwonned and swelted, for sorrow of death dyntes.

When the arts of printing and engraving be-came established, various copies of the Dance ofMacaber made their appearance, particularly inthe Hours, Breviaries, Missals, and other servicebooks of the church, few of which were unac-companied with a Dance of Death; and in thesethe designs sometimes varied. Many of our ownservice books for the use of Salisbury were thus

* Glossar. Carpentier, torn, ii, 1103.t Bibl. med. <& infim. MM.