wiiaiiqwMBa

THE DANCE OF MACABER.

69

Again, the number of the characters in Lyd-gate is much less than in the French, being onlythirty-five, whilst the other contains seventy-six,and he has not only omitted several, but suppliedtheir places with others; so that if these lineswere inscribed under the painting at Saint Paul's,it must have differed materially from that atSaint Innocent's at Paris. Stowe, upon whosesole authority all the information concerning thispainting depends, says, that on the north side ofSaint Paul's church was a great cloister, environ-ing a plot of ground, of old time called PardonChurch-yard, whereof Thomas More, Dean ofSaint Paul's, was either the first builder, or agreat benefactor, and was buried there. Aboutthis cloister was artificially and richly painted theDance of Machabray, a Dance of Death com-monly called the Dance of Paul's; the likewhereof was painted about St. Innocent's cloisterat Paris. The metres or poetry of this Dancewere translated out of the French into English,by John Lydgate, Monk of Bury. He adds,that this was done at the expence of Jenken Car-penter*, in the reign of Henry the Vlth, so thatthe poem and the painting appear to have beenfinished about the same time.

printed. See De Bure Bibliog. Instruct. No. 3109, and War-ton's Correct, and Add. to Vol. II. of Hist, of Engl. Poetry.

* This Jenken Carpenter was town-clerk of London, 1430,and executor of Richard Whittington. Weever's Funeral Monum.p. 379, fo. edition.