ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS.

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P. 59. After No. 17 add “La Danse Macabre.” Paris, Nicole de la Barre, 1523, 4to. with very different cuts, and some characters omitted in former editions.

P. 77, last line of the text. There is a German work intitled “The process or law-suit of Death,” printed, and perhaps written, by Conrad Fyner in 1477; but as it is not noticed in Panzer’s list of German books, no further account of it can be given than that it is briefly mentioned by Joseph Heller, in a German work on the subject of engraving on wood, in which one cut from it is introduced, that exhibits Death conversing with a husbandman who holds a flail in one of his hands. It is probable that the book would be found to contain other figures relating to a Macaber Dance.

P. 112, l. ult. There is another work by Glissenti, intitled “La Morte innamorata.” Venet. 1608, 24mo. with a dedication to Sir Henry Wotton, the English ambassador at Venice, by Elisabetta Glissenti Serenella, the author’s niece; in which, after stating that Sir Henry had seen it represented, she adds, that she had ventured to have it printed for the purpose of offering it to him as a very humble donation, &c. It is a moral, dramatic, and allegorical fable of five acts, in which Man, to avoid Death, who has fallen in love with him, retires with his family to the country of Long Life, where he takes up his abode in the house of the World, by whom and his wife Fraud, who is in strict friendship with Fortune, he is apparently made much of, and calculates on being very happy. Death follows the Man, and being unknown in the above region, contrives, with the aid of Infirmity, the Man’s nurse, to make him fall sick. The World being tired of his guest, and very desirous to get rid of, and plunder him of his property, under pretence of introducing him to Fortune, and consequent happiness, enters into a plot with Time to disguise Death, who is lodged in the same house with him, as Fortune, and thus to give him possession of the Man, who imagines that he is just about to secure Fortune. Each act of this piece is ornamented with some wood-cut that had been already introduced into the other work of Glissenti.

P. 118, line 32. Ebert, in his “Bibliographisches Lexicon,” Leipsig. 1821, 4to. has mentioned some later editions of Denneker’s engravings. See the article Denecker, p. 972.

P. 126, l. 14. It is not impossible that Hollar may have copied a bust carved in wood, or some other material, by Holbein, as Albert Durer and other great artists are known to have practised sculpture in this manner.

P. 135, l. 25. These four prints are in the author’s possession.

P. 137, l. ult. Other imitations of the Lyons cuts are, 1. A wood engraving of Adam digging and Eve spinning, by Corn. Van Sichem in the “Bibel’s tresor,” Amst. 1646, 4to. 2. The Astrologer, a small circular print on copper by Le Blond. 3. The Bridegroom, an anonymous modern engraving on wood. 4. The Miser, a small modern and anonymous print on copper.

P. 147, l. 19. In the library at Lambeth palace, No. 1049, there is a copy of this book in Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, and French, printed by J. Day, 1569, 8vo. It was given by Archb. Tillotson, and from a memorandum in it supposed to have been the Queen’s own copy. The cut of the Queen kneeling was used so late as 1652, in Benlowes’ Theophila. Some of the cuts have the unexplained mark [monogram].

P. 164, Article xii. This print is a copy, with a few variations, of a much older one engraved on wood, and probably unique, in the very curious collection of single sheets and black letter ballads, belonging to George Daniel, Esquire, of Islington. The figures are executed in a style of considerable merit, and each of them is described in a stanza of four lines. It may probably be the same as No. 1 or No. 2, mentioned in p. 76, or either of Nos. x. or xi. described in p. 163.

P. 226, line 12. Another drawing by Rowlandson, intitled “Death and the Drunkards.” Five topers are sitting at a table and enjoying their punch. Death suddenly enters and violently seizes one of them. Another perceives the unwelcome and terrific intruder, whilst the rest are too intent on their liquor to be disturbed at the moment. It is a very spirited and masterly performance. 11 by 9. In the author’s possession.

P. 239, l. 12. There is likewise in the “Biographie Universelle” an article intitled “Macaber, poete Allemand” by M. Weiss, and it is to be regretted that a writer whose learning and research are so eminently conspicuous in many of the best lives in the work, should have permitted himself to be misled in much that he has said, by the errors of Champollion Figeac in the Magazin Encyclopedique. He certainly doubts the existence of Macaber as a writer, but inclines to M. Van Praet’s Arabic Magbarah. He states, that the English version of the Macaber Dance belongs to John Porey, a poet who remains unknown even to his countrymen, and is inserted in the Monasticon Anglicanum. Now this unknown poet, who is likewise adopted by M. Peignot, is merely the person who contributed Hollar’s plate in the Monasticon, already mentioned in p. 52, and whose coat of arms is at the top of that plate, with the following inscription, “Quo prÆsentes et posteri Mortis, ut vidimus, omni Ordini comunis, sint magis memores, posuit IOHANNES POREY.” Mr. Weiss has likewise inadvertently adopted the error that Holbein painted the old Dance of Macaber in the convent of the Augustines at Basle.

Two recently published Dances of Death have come to hand too late to have been noticed in their proper places.

1. “Der Todtentantz. Ein Gedicht von Ludwig Bechstein, mit 48 kupfern in treuen Conturen nach H. Holbein. Leipzig bei Friedrich August Leo, 1831.” 8vo. These prints are executed in a faithful and elegant outline, and accompanied with modern German verses.

2. “Hans Holbein’s Todtentanz in 53 getreu nach den Holz schnitten lithographirten Blattern. Heraus gegeben von J. Schlotthaver k. Professor Mit erklÄrendem Texte. Munchen, 1832, Auf Rosten des Heraus gegebers.” 12mo. The prints are most accurately and elegantly lithographed in imitation of wood engraving. The descriptions are in German verse, and accompanied with some brief prefatory matter by Dr. H. F. Massmann, which is said to have been amplified in one of the German journals or reviews.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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