478 Death's Doings. [Nov. 
cumstances, on that subject. Combe, at no period of his life, was'possessed of 
any poetic talent, and his sense of the ludicrous was very tame and Second+hand. 
In Doctor Syntax, where he had something like a chain of adventures to keep 
up, he got on passably. He versified in some sort the ludicrous ‘tavern adven- 
tures, travelling mishaps, &c. &c., of which he found the materials’ already 
drawn admirably to his hand in Fielding and Smollett ; and even these his’ sense 
of the decorum which is due to the clerical character so explained away every 
moment, as almost to destroy the comic effect. But, in illustrating a “ Dance 
of Death,” where he had no continued story to keep up, and where he could 
not lay his hand upon any ready comic store to supply the barrenness of his 
own invention, he merely drivelled away, heaping line upon line, in a sort of 
sleepy maundering. Yet we should be sorry, after all, to pass a very harsh 
judgment on poor Combe. To do even so much was a great effort, for a man 
past his seventieth year, and whose principal domicile, during the com- 
position of those works, wasa prison. His facility in pouring forth such a flood 
of octosyllabic verse appears to have astonished himself; and he yielded to it, 
not for fame, but bread. It is pleasant to reflect that they contributed much 
to cheer his declining years, and that his poverty and dependence upon book- 
sellers—a race who are not always very scrupulous—never seduced him to lend 
any aid to the cause of immorality in any shape. No line of his lay heavy on 
his soul, however leaden they might lie on the patience of his readers. 
Rowlandson was a caricaturist—nothing more: he, therefore, could not 
paint a “ Danceof Death.” The grotesque figures of every-day life he could 
represent with sufficient humour; he had not anatomical knowledge sufficient 
even to draw a skeleton. As for grouping, he knew nothing about it. He had, 
besides, the fault of most caricaturists—he was continually repeating himself. 
In all Rowlandson’s works there is but one female face or figure. His old men 
have a terrible family resemblance; so have his horses, trees, dogs, &c. This 
in separate pictures is pardonable—for we may forget the mannerism when it 
comes on as in detached pieces; but in a book it is absolutely distressing. 
Then his attempts at painting serious expression, which the nature of his subject 
now and then forced upon him, are quite pitiable. His principal figure was here 
sadly against him—he could make nothing of Death: he could not group him, 
or give him buffoon expression—nay, he could hardly draw him. In Doctor 
Syntax, he, as well as his poet, was more at home. The burlesque parson, with 
his quizzical hat and wig, and his gaunt steed, was just the lind of centre-piece 
for Rowlandson—this was the very thing which he could draw; and having 
Syntax in every plate, he was sure of producing one laughable figure. _In his 
“Dance of Death,”’ on the contrary, there was almost a decided certainty of 
his producing one, at all events, which would contribute much towards spoil- 
ing the effect of the rest. On the whole, the book is a failure, and is now for- 
otten. 
; Mr. Dagley has come to the task with, at all events, a more sober mind than 
Rowlandson, and numbers among his contributors writers of higher rank than 
poor old Combe, One thing, however, must always be defective in a work 
** by several hands ;’—there is no unity. The gaiety is not uniform gaiety— 
the gravities are pitched upon different keys, Yet the effect of the whole, every 
thing considered, is far from displeasing, and the perusal of the book leaves 
an impression of not disagreeable melancholy on the mind. Calderon dela 
Barca might supply an apt motto for such a work: 
“© Cada piedra un piramide levante 
Yeada flor costringe un monumento, 
Cada edificio es un sepulcro altivo 
Cada soldado un esquileto vivo.” 
) 50T09n) 
“ Each stone a star-ypointing pyramid 
Becomes ; each flower a monument’s device ; 
Each building is a lofty sepulchre ; 
Each soldier but a living skeleton.”’ 
And the living skeleton is sometimes very graphically and expressively depicted 
