XI. “The Dance of Death of the celebrated Hans Holbein, in a series of fifty-two engravings on wood by Mr. Bewick, with letter-press illustrations.
What’s yet in this
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid more thousand Deaths: yet Death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.
Shakspeare.
London. William Charlton Wright.” 12mo. With a frontispiece, partly copied from that in the preceding article, a common-place life of Holbein, and an introduction pillaged verbatim from an edition with Hollar’s cuts, published by Mr. Edwards. The cuts, with two or three exceptions, are imitated from the originals, but all the human figures are ridiculously modernised. The text to the subjects is partly descriptions in prose, and partly Mr. Hawkins’s verses, and the cuts, if Bewick’s, very inferior to those in his other works.
XII. “Emblems of Mortality, representing Death seizing all ranks and degrees of people. Imitated in a series of wood cuts from a painting in the cemetery of the Dominican church at Basil in Switzerland, with appropriate texts of scripture, and a poetical apostrophe to each, freely translated from the Latin and French. London. Printed for Whittingham and Arliss, juvenile library, Paternoster-row.” 12mo. The frontispiece and the rest of the cuts, with two exceptions, from the same blocks as those used for the last-mentioned edition. The preface, with very slight variation, is abridged from that by Mr. Hawkins in No. VIII. and the descriptive verses altogether the same as those in that edition. Both the last articles seem intended for popular and juvenile use. It will be immediately perceived that the title page is erroneous in confounding the Basle Dance of Death with that in the volume itself.
XIII. The last in this list is “Hans Holbein’s Todtentanz in 53 getreu nach den holtz schnitten lithographirten Blattern. Herausgegeben von J. Schlotthauer, K. Professor. Mit erklärendem Texte. Munschen, 1832. Auf kosten des Herausgebers,” 12mo. or, “Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death in fifty-three lithographic leaves, faithfully taken from wood engravings. Published by J. Schlotthauer, royal professor, with explanatory text. Munich, 1832. At the cost of the editors.” This work is executed in so beautiful and accurate a manner that it might easily be mistaken for the wood originals.
The professor has substituted German verses, communicated by a friend, instead of the former Latin ones. He states that the subject will be taken up by Professor Massman, of Munich, whose work will satisfy all enquiries relating to it. Massman, however, has added to this volume a sort of explanatory appendix, in which some of the editions are mentioned. He thinks it possible that the cholera may excite the same attention to this work as the plague had formerly excited to the old Macaber Dance at Basle, and concludes with a promise to treat the subject more at large at some future time.
COPIES OF THE SAME DESIGNS, ENGRAVED IN COPPER.
I. “Todten Dantz durch alle stande und Beschlecht der Menschen, &c.” i. e. “Death’s Dance through all ranks and conditions of men.” This title is on a frontispiece representing a gate of rustic architecture, at the top of which are two boy angels with emblems of mortality between them, and underneath are the three Fates. At the bottom, Adam and Eve with the tree of knowledge, each holding the apple presented by the serpent. Between them is a circular table, on which are eight sculls of a Pope, Emperor, Cardinal, &c. with appropriate mottoes in Latin. On the outer edge of the table STATVTVM EST OMNIBVS HOMINIBVS SEMEL MORI POST HOC AVTEM IVDICIVM. In the centre the letters MVS, the terminating syllable of each motto. Before the gate are two pedestals, inscribed MEMENTO MORI and MEMORARE NOVISSIMA, on which stand figures of Death supporting two pyramids or obelisks surmounted with sculls and a cross, and inscribed ITER AD VITAM. Below, “Eberh. Kieser excudit.” This frontispiece is a copy of a large print engraved on wood long before. Without date, in quarto.
The work consists of sixty prints within borders of flowers, &c. in the execution of which two different and anonymous artists have been employed. At the top of each print is the name of the subject, accompanied with a passage from scripture, and at the bottom three couplets of German verses. Most of the subjects are copied from the completest editions of the Lyons cuts, with occasional slight variations. They are not placed in the same order, and all are reversed, except Nos. 57 and 60. No. 12 is not reversed, but very much altered, a sort of duplicate of the Miser. No. 50, the Jew, and No. 51, the Jewess, are entirely new. The latter is sitting at a table, on which is a heap of money, and Death appears to be giving effective directions to a demon to strangle her. No. 52 is also new. A castle within a hedge. Death enters one of the windows by a ladder, whilst a woman looks out of another.[121] The subject is from Jeremiah, ch. ix. v. 21. “Death is come up into our windows, &c.” In the subject of the Pope, the two Devils are omitted. Two military groups of boys, newly designed, are added. The following are copies from Aldegrever, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 11, and 12. At the beginning and end of the book there are moral poems in the German language.