616 



DEATH DEBTOR AND CREDITOR. 



I Ylfr's church at Rome, represents Death as a beau- 

 tiful youth. He is sometimes portrayed under the 

 ti-i'ure of a dying lion. 



DEATH, APPARENT. See Drowning. 

 DEATH, DANCE or; an allegorical picture, in 

 uiiicli are represented the various figures and appear- 

 ances of ilriit h in the different relations of life, as a 

 ilance where Death takes Uie lead. The idea of 

 such a dance appears to be originally German, and 

 to Ix-long to poetry. In later times, it was used, 

 also, in England and France, by poets and artists. 

 The French nave such a dance La danse Macabre 

 derived, it is said, from a poet called Macaber. but 

 little known. A dance of Death was painted on the 

 walls of the church-yard of the Innocents, at Paris, 

 about the middle of tlu- fifteenth century, which the 

 chapter of St Paul's in London, caused to be copied, 

 to adorn the walls of its monastery. Gabriel Peignot, 

 in the Recherches sitr les Danses des Marts et sur 

 I'Origme des Cartes d jouer (Dijon and Paris, 1826), 

 investigated the origin of the dance of Death in 

 France, and thus explained the dancing positions of 

 the skeletons ; that, according to the relations of old 

 chronicles, those who were attacked by the plague 

 ran from their houses, making violent efforts to 

 restore their rapidly declining strength by all kinds 

 of morbid movements. Others derive the origin of 

 this representation from the masquerade. These 

 dances are often found painted on the walls of 

 Catholic burial-places. The most remarkable dance 

 of Death was painted, in fresco, on the walls of the 

 church-yard, in the suburb of St John, at Basle, 

 which was injured, in early times, by being washed 

 over, and is now entirely destroyed. This piece 

 has been ascribed to the celebrated Hans Holbein ; 

 but it has long since been proved that it existed 

 sixty years before his birth. It was painted at Basle, 

 in the year 1431, by an unknown artist, in com- 

 memoration of the plague, which prevailed there at 

 that time ; the council was then sitting, and several 

 of its members were carried off by it. It repre- 

 sented Death as summoning to the dance persons of 

 all ranks, from the pope and the emperor down to 

 the beggar, which was explained by edifying rhymes. 

 That piece contained about sixty figures as large as 

 Me. Besides being ascribed to Holbein, as was 

 before stated, it has also been ascribed to a painter 

 named Glauber, but without foundation. Holbein 

 perhaps conceived, from this picture, the idea of his 

 dance of Death, the original drawings of which are in 

 the cabinet of the empress of Russia, Catharine II. 

 Some say that Holbein himself made the wood-cut 

 of it. The latest engravings of this picture of Hol- 

 bein are in thirty-three plates, in the (Euvres de Jean 

 Holbein, par Chr. de Meckel (1st vol., Basil, 1780). 

 Similar representations were painted, in the fifteenth 

 century, in other cities of Switzerland. (See Mueller's 

 Geschichte der Schweizer History of Switzerland 

 4 vols.) The dance of Death in St Mary's church 

 at Luebeck, was completed in 1 463. On the walls ol 

 the church-yard of the Neustaedt of Dresden, there is, 

 even at the present tune, to be seen a similar dance 

 of Death. It consists of twenty-seven basso-relievo 

 figures, worked on sand-stone, and includes persons 

 of both sexes, and of all ranks. The labour of the 

 sculptor has more merit than the unpoetical rhymes 

 which were afterwards added. (See Fiorillo's Ges 

 chichtederzeichnenden Kuenstein Deutschlandunddei 

 Niederlanden, 4 volumes.) See Capital Punishment 

 DEATH-WATCH ; a species of termes, so called 

 on account of an old superstition that its beating 01 

 ticking in a sick room is a sure sign of death. 

 DEBENTURE. See Drawback. 

 DEBT, NATIONAL. See Public Debt. 

 DEBTOR AND CREDITOR, LAWS OF. One 



f the first steps, in a community, towards industry 

 Hid wealth, is the institution of the individual right 

 a property. The guarantee of the indiv idual's earn- 

 ngs to himself is the strongest stimulus to his exor- 

 ions ; and this measure is so obvious, and the one 

 in which every member of a community has so evi- 

 lent an interest, that it is of universal adoption 

 among rude as well as civilized nations, and even 

 precedes the establislunent of a regular government ; 

 or men will sell, and, as far as they are able, enforce 

 heir exclusive right to the fruits of their own labour, 

 >efore they are in a condition to establish MMOU 

 aws. But, though this principle is so obviously 

 ust, and of so early adoption, its extension and ;\\>- 

 jlication to complicated affairs, and various species 

 )f property, and divisions, and modifications of rights 

 a, and interest in, possessions of all sorts, are among 

 the most difficult subjects of legislation. Tin- riuht 

 of property being once established, the conditions on 

 which the owner will part with and transfer it arc, 

 as a natural and necessary consequence, left to his 

 own determination, with some few exceptions ; espe- 

 cially one usually made in favour of the government, 

 or, rather, of the whole collective community, who 

 reserve the right of taking individual property for 

 the public use, without the consent of the proprietor, 

 and upon such terms as the government itself shall 

 prescribe. But, even in this case, a debt or obliga- 

 tion on the part of the government or community 

 arises in favour of the proprietor whose property lias 

 been taken. So that we may lay it down as a gene- 

 ral doctrine, that, where one parts with and transfers 

 to another any property, or right, of which, by the 

 laws of the community, he was exclusively possessed, 

 this transfer is the basis of meritorious consideration 

 of a promise or obligation on the part of the person 

 to whom the transfer is made, to return some equi- 

 valent, or what may be agreed on as an equivalent 

 by the parties. Whether this return be stipulated 

 for in money, lands, goods, or personal services, or 

 anything of which the value can be estimated, is 

 immaterial hi respect to the force of the obligation, 

 which will be the same hi either case. The validity 

 of the obligation thus arising is recognized by the 

 laws of all civilized states. But, then, the question 

 arises and it is one which has much perplexed le- 

 gislators What degree of force or sacredness shall 

 be assigned to this obligation, and by what sanctions 

 and penalties shall it be guarded ? The personal 

 rights of citizens are, in general, more scrupulously 

 guarded and vindicated by the laws, than those of 

 property, or those the value of which, in money or 

 exchange, admits of an exact estimate. The lives 

 of men, for instance, are generally protected by in- 

 flicting the extreme penalty of death for die crime of 

 murder. Such a punishment is only commensurate 

 with the crime, and its justice is universally acknow- 

 ledged ; but a law which should inflict the same 

 punishment for a mere assault on the person, attend- 

 ed by no serious injury, would excite the abhorrence 

 of all men ; for, though men are under an undoubted 

 obligation not to commit an unprovoked assault, 

 though not attended by a serious wound, yet such a 

 penalty would be at once pronounced to be out of all 

 proportion to the force and sacredness of the obliga- 

 tion which it would be designed to protect. The 

 question then occurs How forcible, how binding, 

 how sacred, is this promise and obligation to pay 

 a sum of money or deliver an article of property ? 

 Is it so sacred that the debtor ought to be put to 

 death, sent to the galleys, put into the pillory, or the 

 stocks, or whipped, or imprisoned, in case of his 

 failing to fulfill it ? 



In one point all communities agree, namely, as far 

 as the property of the debtor goes, it ought to an- 





