REVIEWS THE DANCE OF DEATH. 221 



Turns round to look at him ; and Death, meanwhile, 

 Is putting out the candles on the altar ! 

 Elsie. Ah, what a pity 'tis that she should listen 

 Unto such songs, when in her orisons 

 She might have heard in heaven the angels singing. 



The subjects thus gracefully rendered by the poet, appear among 

 the wood cuts ascribed to Holbein ; and Douce remarks, in his elabo- 

 rate dissertation : "We find the Dance of Death often represented, not 

 only on the walls, but in the windows of churches, in the cloisters of 

 monasteries, and even on bridges, especially in Germany and Switzer- 

 land." Here is the modern prose comment, in the work under re- 

 view, on the subject so beautifully rendered in Longfellow's verse. It 

 illustrates the motto : Est via quae videtur homini justa : novissima 

 autem ejus deducunt hominem ad mortem. Proverb, iv. The woodcut 

 is entitled The Nun ; and the editor remarks : " Here is a mixture of 

 gallantry and religion. The young lady has admitted her lover into 

 her apartment. She is kneeling before an altar, and hesitates whether 

 to persist in her devotions, or listen to the amorous music of the young 

 man, who, seated on a bed, touches a theorbo lute. Death extinguishes 

 the candles on the altar, by which the designer of the subject probably 

 intimates the punishment of unlawful love." We doubt, however, the 

 necessity of the concluding remark. The idea is sufficiently accordant 

 with the general theme of the old pictorial moralist, that Death claims 

 all seasons for his own ; and the hour of devotion is alike his, with that 

 of the lover's interview, or of the wandering thoughts of the youth- 

 ful devotee, divided in thought between this world and the next. But, 

 like the older Bible illustrations, that which embodied only grave and 

 solemn lessons for simpler ages, is more apt to excite ludicrous thoughts 

 in the modern student's mind; and where the ancient "Dance of 

 Death " has not already been defaced or obliterated, it owes its preser- 

 vation far more to the archaeological zeal, than to the pious reverence 

 of modern ages. 



D. W. 



VOL. IV. 



