The designs for the Dance of Death, published at Lyons in 1538, and hitherto regarded as the invention of Holbein, are, in the course of this Dissertation, referred to under the appellation of _the Lyons wood-cuts_; and with respect to the term _Macaber_, which has been so mistakenly used as the name of a real author, it has been nevertheless preserved on the same principle that the word _Gothic_ has been so generally adopted for the purpose of designating the pointed style of architecture in the middle ages. F. D. CONTENTS. Page CHAPTER I. Personification of Death, and other modes of representing it among the Ancients.--Same subject during the Middle Ages.-- Erroneous notions respecting Death.--Monumental absurdities.--Allegorical pageant of the Dance of Death represented in early times by living persons in churches and cemeteries.--Some of these dances described.--Not unknown to the Ancients.--Introduction of the infernal, or dance of Macaber 1 CHAPTER II. Places where the Dance of Death was sculptured or depicted.-- Usually accompanied by verses describing the several characters.--Other metrical compositions on the Dance 17 CHAPTER III. Macaber not a German or any other poet, but a nonentity.-- Corruption and confusion respecting this word.--Etymological errors concerning it.--How connected with the Dance.--Trois mors et trois vifs.--Orgagna's painting in the Campo Santo at Pisa.--Its connection with the trois mors et trois vifs, as well as with the Macaber Dance.--Saint Macarius the real Macaber.--Paintings of this dance in various places.--At Minden; Church-yard of the Innocents at Paris; Dijon; Basle; Klingenthal; Lubeck; Leipsic; Anneberg; Dresden; Erfurth; Nuremberg; Berne; Lucerne; Amiens; Rouen; Fescamp; Blois; Strasburg; Berlin; Vienna; Holland; Italy; Spain 28 CHAPTER IV. Macaber Dance in England.--St. Paul's.--Salisbury.-- Wortley-hall.--Hexham.--Croydon.--Tower of London.--Lines in Pierce Plowman's Vision supposed to refer to it 51 CHAPTER V. List of editions of the Macaber Dance.--Printed Horæ that contain it.--Manuscript Horæ.--Other Manuscripts in which it occurs.--Various articles with letter-press, not being single prints, but connected with it 55 CHAPTER VI. Hans Holbein's connection with the Dance of Death.--A dance of peasants at Basle.--Lyons edition of the Dance of Death, 1538.--Doubts as to any prior edition.--Dedication to the edition of 1538.--Mr. Ottley's opinion of it examined.-- Artists supposed to have been connected with this work.-- Holbein's name in none of the old editions.--Reperdius 78 CHAPTER VII.