The action described by Shakespeare is so conformable to Holbein’s Figures of Death and the Idiot Fool that, without doing violence to the probability, we may conclude that the two portraits had been in the Poet’s eye as well as in his mind.
Woltmann’s remarks in continuation uphold this idea. He says (vol. ii. p. 122),—
“Also in the Holbein picture the Fool is foolish enough to think that he can slip away from Death. He springs aside, seeks through his movements to delude him, and brandishes the leather-club, in order unseen to plant a blow on his adversary; and this adversary seems in sport to give in, skips near him, playing on the bag-pipe, but unobserved has him fast by the garment, in order not again to let him loose.”
Old Time is a character introduced by way of Chorus into the Winter’s Tale (act iv. sc. 1, l. 7, vol. III. p. 371), and he takes upon himself “to use his wings,” as he says,—
“It is in my power
To o’erthrow law and in one self-born hour
To plant and o’erwhelm custom. Let me pass
The same I am, ere ancient’st order was
Or what is now received: I witness to
The times that brought them in; so shall I do