It is worthy of remark, that many painters,
the greatest of them (Raphael) at their head, have represented the
tempter of Eden as a beautiful woman, whose body terminates in a
serpent. It was a mistake on their part to do so. They knew how much of
the Devil a woman might have in her, and how irresistible a temptress
she is; but they forgot, that, on this occasion, woman, not man, was
tempted.
There was a Dance of Death in Old St. Paul's Church, in London,--the
one burned down in the Great Fire; and another in the beautiful little
parish church of Stratford-on-Avon,--but this, too, has disappeared. It
is interesting to know that they were there, and that Shakspeare saw
them; for he has woven some of the thoughts that they awakened in his
mind into a noble passage in one of his historical plays. We shall recur
to it in examining Holbein's Dance.
The Dance was represented, and still exists, in one very singular place.
At Lucerne, in Switzerland, it appears upon a covered bridge, in the
triangles formed by the beams which support the roof. The groups, of
which there are thirty-six, are double, looking away from each other,
and are so arranged, that the passenger, on entering the bridge, has
before him a long array of these grotesque and gloomy pictures.
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