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THE MUEAL FIGURE AT THE WEST END OF 



PAETEICIO CHUECH. 



By the Rev. John Daviks, of Pandy. 



While a mason was engaged lately in doing some repairs at the west end of the 

 church, he discovered some red paint under a thickness of whitewash. He in- 

 formed the vicar, the Kev. T. Jones, Llanbeder, of what he had seen, who ordered 

 the wash to be scraped down. This having been done, the delineation on the wall 

 of a human skeleton, full size, was brought to light, which had never before been 

 seen by the oldest living inhabitant of the parish. While at Partricio the other day 

 (April 25th, 1881,) at a funeral, the service being over, the vicar called my atten- 

 tion to the newly-discovered figure, and asked my opinion as to what it represented, 

 and to what period it belonged. The skeleton is drawn on the wall at the west 

 end of the church by an artistic hand. It holds in the right hand a dagger, with 

 a spade hanging from the left arm, the left hand grasping something similar to a 

 bowl. The object in the left hand cannot well be made out, as it has been a 

 little mutilated in the clearing away of the wash that covered it. A lady who 

 was present suggested that the figure was the representation of the murderer of 

 St. Ishaw, who, according to tradition, was the patron saint of the church, and 

 who is said to have been slain on the banks of St. Mary's Brook, in close pro.x- 

 imity to the church. There is, perhaps, something to be said in favour of this 

 suggestion, though history is itself against it, as it is extremely doubtful whether 

 St. Ishaw was the real patron of the church. After consulting the history of 

 mural paintings in ecclesiastical buildings, I have no doubt that the skeleton 

 newly brought to light on the wall at the west end of Partricio church, was in- 

 tended to be the representation of Death. The representation of Death among 

 nations in their early stages, depends upon the ideas which they formed of the 

 state of man after this life. In this aspect the study of the representation is very 

 interesting. It is somewhat remarkable, that the Greeks, whose conceptions of 

 an after-life were so gloomy, represented Death as a pleasing, gentle being — a 

 beautiful youth — while Christians, whose religion teaches them to consider death 

 as a release from bondage, a change from misery to happiness, give him the most 

 repulsive, and even the most disgusting shapes. The Greeks, as a nation, wor- 

 shipped the beautiful, and were in the habit of beautifying every object, down 

 even to the commonest. This, perhaps, accounts for the beautiful representation 

 they gave to Death, notwithstanding their gloomy conceptions of an after-life. 

 The Christians, it may be, represented Death as a skeleton armed with weapons, 

 because the call to repentance is a prominent feature in the Christian religion, 

 and the notion of Death with terrors may have been supposed to give weight to 

 the summons. 



During the most flourishing period of the arts, Death was represented as a 



