The Dance of Death

rtley Hall.-Hexham.-Croydon.-Tower of London.-Lines

"about this cloyster was artificially and richly painted the Dance of Machabray, or Dance of Death, commonly called the Dance of Paul's: the like whereof was painted about St. Innocent's cloyster at Paris: the meters or poesie of this dance were translated out of French into English, by John Lidgate, Monke of Bury, the picture of Death leading all estates; at the dispence of Jenken Carpenter in the reigne of Henry the Sixt."[78] Lydgate's verses were first printed at the end of Tottell's edition of the translation of his Fall of Princes, from Bo

th and the Young Man," and was, undoubtedly, a portion of the Macaber Dance, as there was close to it another compartment belonging to the same subjec

asse a blesful

spare us yn ou

tches that bet

clepe to slake

e thyne own se

h me that seygh

then that after

h an

te in all thy

at thou sch

ro thy body t

him not esc

bodyes cast

me well cons

hay ar such s

en its destruction is extremely to be regretted, as, judging from that of

me additional characters.[82] From a manuscript note by John Stowe, in his copy of Leland's Itinerary, it appears that there was a Dance of Death in the church of Stratford upon Avon: and the conjecture that Shakespe

orthumberland, are the painted remains of a Dance of Death.[84] These consist of the figures of a pope, a

of the hall of the Archiepiscopal palace at Croydon, but so much obscure

times applied in extension of this moral subject. In the tower of London, the original a

to apply rather to the celebrated triumph of Death by Petrarch, of which some very early paintings, and many engravings, still exist; or they may even refer to some of the anc

ng after, and al

ysers, Knight

wde: he ne let

even, he nev

ladie and lemm

ted for sorrowe

siastical, in France, Germany, England, and probably other European countries,