was published a few years ago by the well-known antiquary M. Jubinal. This remarkable picture begins with the figures of Adam and Eve, who are introducing death into the world in the form of a serpent with a death's head. The dance is opened by an ecclesiastic preaching from a pulpit, towards whom death is leading first in the dance the pope, for each individual takes his precedence strictly according to his class--alternately an ecclesiastic and a layman. Thus next after the pope comes the emperor, and the cardinal is followed by the king. The baron is followed by the bishop, and the grim partner of the latter appears to pay more intention to the layman than to his own priest, so that two dead men appear to have the former in charge. The group thus represented by the nobleman and the two deaths, is copied in our cut No. 132, and will serve as an example of the style and grouping of this remarkable painting. After a few other figures, perhaps less striking, we come to the merchant, who receives the advances of his partner with a thoughtful air; while immediately after him another death is trying to make himself more acceptable to the bashful nun by throwing a cloak over his nakedness. In another place two deaths armed with bows and arrows are scattering their shafts rather dangerously. Soon follow some of the more gay and youthful members of society. Our cut No. 133 represents the musician, who appears also to attract the attentions of two of the persecutors. In his dismay he is treading under foot his own viol. The dance closes with the lower orders of society, and is concluded by a group which is not so easily understood. Before the end of the fifteenth century, there had appeared in Paris several editions of a series of bold engravings on wood, in a small folio size, representing the same dance, though somewhat differently treated. France, indeed, appears to have been the native country of the "Danse Macabre." But in the century following the beautiful set of drawings by the great artist Hans Holbein, first published at Lyons in 1538, gave to the Dance of Death a still greater and wider celebrity. From this time the subjects of this dance were commonly introduced in initial letters, and in the engraved borders of pages, especially in books of a religious character. [Illustration: _No. 132. The Knight in the Dance of Death._] [Illustration: _No. 133. The Musician in Death's Hands._]