and men's conscience: Christ alone is the peace-maker, which straitly commands peace between brother and brother. And so long as ye use these ceremonies, so long shall ye use these significations[1]." ALBERT WAY.
SOME OBSERVATIONS UPON THE "DANSE MACABRE," OR DANCE OF DEATH.
IN EXPLANATION OF A PASSAGE IN "THE KNIGHT'S TALE" OF CHAUCER.
There is no subject in the whole range of mediæval art of greater interest, nor one, the origin of which is involved in greater obscurity, notwithstanding the vast amount of antiquarian learning which has been expended on its investigation, than the so called Dance of Death. Its history yet remains to be written; and the learned dissertation of the late Mr. Douce, valuable as it must ever be to all inquirers into the subject, can, in spite of the great labour and erudition displayed in its pages, only be regarded as a collection of materials towards such history[2]. May the following observations be considered no unworthy addition to the materials so industriously accumulated by my late accomplished friend.
They are intended in the first place to clear up a passage in Chaucer, which defied the ingenuity of Tyrwhitt, and thereby, in the second place, to shew that the Dance of Death was a subject perfectly familiar to the English at the time when the Canterbury Tales were written. The passage to which I allude is contained in "The Knight's Tale;" and forms a portion of that in which Chaucer describes
"The portreyture that was upon the wall,
Within the Temple of mighty Mars the redde."
Chaucer is represented both by Warton and Tyrwhitt as
- ↑ Burnet's History of the Reformation, Records, Book 1, no. xxi. See further, on the subject of the use of the Pax, the Hierolexicon, by Dom. and Car. Macer, Romæ, 1677; Durandi Ration. Div. Off. c. de pacis osculo; and De Vert, Explic. des Cerem. de l'Eglise, tome iii.
- ↑ The curious collections of the late talented artist Langlois, of Rouen, with numerous illustrations unnoticed by previous writers, will shortly be given to the public, under the care of M. Pottier, Librarian to the city of Rouen.
