in 
and Art. 
Literatzzre 
217 
on wood, in a fniall folio iize, reprefenting the fame dance, though {ome- 
what differently treated. France, indeed, appears to have been the 
native country of the " Danfe Macabre." But in the century following 
the beautiful fet ofdrawings by the great artiItHans Holbein, firli publifhed 
at Lyons In I538, gave to the Dance of Death a Hill greater and wider 
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No. 133. The Mqfirian in Death": Hunds. 
celebrity. From this time the fubjects of this dance were commonly 
introduced in initial letters, and in the engraved borders of pages, 
efpecially in books of a religious character. 
Death may truly be [aid to have ihared with Folly that melancholy 
period-the fifteenth century. As fociety then prefented itfelf to the 
eye, people might eaiily fuppofe that the world was running mad, and 
folly, in one ihape or other, feemed to be the principle which ruled mott 
men's aritions. The jocnlar focieties, defcribed in my laft chapter, which 
multiplied in France during the fifteenth century, initiated a fort of 
mock worfhip of Folly. That fort of inauguration of death which was 
F F performed