^^1

THE DANCE OF DEATH,

29

it of them

vvledge ofpainted atils of thesumed byscertainedt etchingsloff; they;hem pre-script tie-which heit White-engraved:he Deadlg Henrythese de->nourabIef he hadolbeyn inlarge as; that hepossible,re him asbe consi-5 for thee an ac-3 therein,lestroyedcep table,more re-

mains of the palace left than his own dwelling."He then states, that the design of the painter re-sembled that of the founder of the Greek mo-narchy, who ordered these words to be written,to remind him of his mortality: ft Remember,Philip, that thou art a man!" and proceeds todescribe in a very quaint manner the different sub-jects of his work. The dedication to the othercopy is nearly in similar words, and addressed toMynheer Heymans, who appears, in considerationof his singular merits, to have had a dwelling as-signed him in the palace at Whitehall. Fromthe hand-writing and Dutch names in this work,it is evidently of the time of William III. but ofthe artist no memorial is preserved ; however, theimportance of the fact which he has recorded,will render him a valuable personage in the opi-nion of the lovers of the arts.

After what has been said then, it is to be hopedthat no additional evidence will be requisite toshew that Holbein did not invent the subjects, norexecute the cuts belonging to the Dance of Death,which is usually ascribed to him; that he paintedit, however, and most assuredly more than once,seems to be beyond the possibility of doubt.

It only remains to give some account of theprints which are the immediate object of this pub-lication, and to which it is hoped the precedingintroduction will not have appeared uninteresting.It has been commonly supposed that Hollar copiedthese prints from the original cuts; but Mr,