Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/476

390 NOTES AND QUERIES. [i2s.ix.Nov.i2.io2i.

light on the origin of this sign is afforded by a ballad contained in 'A Collection of Seventy-nine Black Letter Ballads and Broadsides printed between the years 1559 and 1597' (London, Joseph Lilly, 1870). The pieces contained in this volume were reprinted from the celebrated collection formerly in the library of George Daniel of Canonbury Square, at the sale of whose library it was purchased for Henry Huth.

At p. 98 is a ballad without title, having a large cut representing five figures, with that of Death with his dart pursuing them, having legends underneath each as follows:—

In the background, in a bower, are seated the soldier (sic), the harlot, the lawyer and the priest. A festive board furnished with viands is supported on the back of the clown, who rests on his hands and knees. Death, approaching with his dart, clutches at something on the table. Birds of prey are hovering in the air.

The ballad is too long to give at length, but the editor's Introduction thus shortly describes it:—

In a note, the Editor observes:—

Probably the original source of the idea was the Dance of Death or Danse macabre, a name given to a certain class of allegorical representations illustrative of the universal power of Death, and dating from the fourteenth century, in which Death was personified as a musician playing to dancing men, or as a dancer leading them on. The idea assumed the form of a drama, simply constructed, consisting of short dialogues between Death and 24, or more, followers, and was acted in or near churches by religious Orders in Germany during the fourteenth century, and at a rather later period in France. The subject was treated in painting, sculpture and tapestry, and in numerous woodcuts and accompanying letterpress which succeeded the invention of printing. 'Chambers's Encyclopædia' states that from Paris both dramatic poem and pictures were transplanted to London (1430), Salisbury (about 1460), Wortley Hall in Gloucestershire,. Hexham, &c. In other representations the chain of 24 dancers was replaced by a number of separate couples, as in the celebrated Dance of Death on the cloister walls of the Klingenthal at Basel. About the middle of the fifteenth century, the drama being altogether laid aside, the pictures became the main point of interest, and the verses merely subsidiary; and at length pictures occurred with different verses or without any at all, and in many respects the pictures themselves diverged from their original character. But in all the representations there was preserved the idea of the triumph of Death over all persons of every age, sex, rank, or station in life. There was a Dance of Death painted round the cloisters of Old St. Paul's in London in the reign of Henry VI.; and there is a sculptured one at Rouen in the cemetery of St. Maclou. Holbein's designs are well known, in which, departing from the idea of a dance, he illustrated the subject by 53 sketches for engravings, which he called 'Imagines Mortis.'

Perhaps the most familiar example of the subject to most travellers is the Dance of