articularity.

The satire of the next three is levelled against the Lawyers, who were
held in such little respect in Bale. They show a Judge who takes a bribe
from a rich to wrong a poor suitor, and a Counsellor and an Advocate who
lend their talents to wealthy clients, but turn their backs upon the
poor victims of "the oppressor's wrong." In one, a demon is blowing
suggestions into the Counsellor's ear from a pair of bellows, which he
has doubtless used elsewhere for other purposes; in all, Death stands
ready to avenge the poor.

In the twenty-first, a Preacher addresses a Congregation, whose
interested attention the painter has portrayed with great skill,
knowledge of character, and consequent variety and truth of expression.
Behind the Preacher stands Death, and, with a kind of grotesque
practical pun, holds the jaw of a skeleton over his head, as far more
eloquent than his own.

A Priest and a Mendicant Friar are the subjects of the twenty-second and
twenty-third.

The twenty-fourth is of peculiar interest. In it we see a youthful Nun,
who, it is clear, has taken her vows too hastily, kneeling before the
oratory in her cell. But her heart is not in her devotions; for the
lover whom she abandoned has made his way into the apartment, and sits
on her bed singing to his lute. Her hands are clasped, not in prayer,
but in an agony of love and apprehension. She turns from the crucifix to
gaze at him; and we see how the interview will end: for an aged female
attendant, in coif and scapulary, leans over to extinguish the candles.
We see, too, what its consequence will be; for that attendant is Death.

Among the remaining subjects, which we cannot examine particularly, or
in their order, are those of the Old Man and Old Woman led by Death,
each to the sound of a dulcimer;--the Physician, to whom in mockery
Death himself brings a patient;--the Astronomer, to whom the skeleton
offers a skull in place of a celestial globe;--the Miser, from whom
Death snatches his hoarded gold; and the Merchant, whom the same
inexorable hand tears away from his ships and his merchandise;--the
storm-tossed ship, with Death snapping the mast;--a Count, dressed in
the extreme of courtly splendor, who recognizes Death in the disguise
of a peasant who has flung down his flail to seize his lordship's
emblazoned shield and dash it to pieces;--a Duchess, whom one skeleton
drags rudely from her canopied bed, while another scrapes upon a
violin;--a P