The Dance of Death / Exhibited in Elegant Engravings on Wood with a Dissertation on the Several Representations of that Subject but More Particularly on Those Ascribed to Macaber and Hans Holbein

by Francis Douce

11. Death seizing the master of a family.

12. Death seizing Caillette, a celebrated fool mentioned by Rabelais, Des Periers, &c. He is represented in the French translation of the Ship of Fools.

13. Death seizing a beggar.

14. Death seizing a man playing at tennis.

15. Death striking the miller going to his mill.

16. Death seizing Ragot, a famous beggar in the reign of Louis XII. He is mentioned by Rabelais.

This precious volume is in the present writer’s possession.

Other manuscripts connected with the Macaber Dance are the following:

1. No. 1849, a Colbert MS. in the King of France’s library, appears to have been written towards the end of the fifteenth century, and is splendidly illuminated on vellum with figures of men and women led by Death, the designs not much differing from those in Verard’s printed copy.

2. Another manuscript in the same library, formerly No. 543 in that of Saint Victor, is at the end of a small volume of miscellanies written on paper about the year 1520; the text resembles that of the immediately preceding article, and occasionally varies from the printed editions. It has no illuminations. These are the only manuscript Macaber Dances in the royal library at Paris.