Bruning the Bysshope of Seynt Tolous, Wrote thys tale so merveylous; Setthe was hys name of more renoun, Men called him the Pope Leon; Thys at the courte of Rome they wyte, And yn the kronykeles hyt ys write; Yn many stedys[23] beyounde the see, More than ys yn thys cuntre: Tharfor men seye an weyl ys trowed, The nere the cherche the further fro God. So fare men here by thys tale, Some holde it but a trotevale,[24] Yn other stedys hyt ys ful dere, And for grete merveyle they wyl hyt here. In the French copies the story is said to have been taken from the itinerary of St. Clement. The name of the girl who lost her arm is Marcent, and her brother's John.[25] Previously to entering upon the immediate subject of this Essay, it may be permitted to observe, that a sort of Death's dance was not unknown to the ancients. It was the revelry of departed souls in Elysium, as may be collected from the end of the fourth ode of Anacreon. Among the Romans this practice is exemplified in the following lines of Tibullus. Sed me, quod facilis tenero sum semper Amori, Ipsa Venus campos ducit in Elysios. Hic _choreæ_ cantusque vigent ...[26] And Virgil has likewise alluded to it: Pars pedibus plaudunt _choreas_ et carmina dicunt.[27] In the year 1810 several fragments of sculptured sarcophagi were accidentally discovered near Cuma, on one of which were represented three dancing skeletons,[28] indicating, as it is ingeniously supposed, that the passage from death to another state of existence has nothing in it that is sorrowful, or capable of exciting fear. They seem to throw some light on the above lines from Virgil and Tibullus. At a meeting of the Archæological Society at Rome, in December, 1831, M. Kestner exhibited a Roman lamp on which were three dancing skeletons, and such are said to occur in one of the paintings at Pompeii. In the Grand Duke of Tuscany's museum at Florence there is an ancient gem, that, from its singularity and connexion with the present subject, is well deserving of notice. It represents an old man, probably a shepherd, clothed in a hairy garment. He sits upon a stone, his right foot resting on a globe, and is piping on a double flute, whilst a skeleton dances grotesquely before him. It might be a matter of some difficulty to explain the recondite meaning of this singular subject.[29]