he gloomy spectre which had so long terrified them!

FOOTNOTES:

[136] Montfaucon, "L'Antiquite Expliquee," i. 362.

[137] A representation of Death by a skeleton appears among the
Egyptians: a custom more singular than barbarous prevailed, of
enclosing a skeleton of beautiful workmanship in a small coffin,
which the bearer carried round at their entertainments; observing,
"After death you will resemble this figure: drink, then! and be
happy." A symbol of Death in a convivial party was not designed to
excite terrific or gloomy ideas, but a recollection of the brevity
of human life.

[138] "The Accidence of Armorie," p. 199.

[139] A woodcut preserved in Mr. Dibdin's Bibliographical Decameron,
i. 35.

[140] My greatly-lamented friend, the late Mr. Douce, has poured
forth the most curious knowledge on this singular subject, of "The
Dance of Death." This learned investigator has reduced _Macaber_ to
a nonentity, but not "The Macaber Dance," which has been frequently
painted. Mr. Douce's edition is accompanied by a set of woodcuts,
which have not unsuccessfully copied the exquisite originals of the
Lyons wood-cutter.

[141] Goujet, "Bib. Francoise," vol. x. 185.

[142] _Tablature d'un luth_, Cotgrave says, is the belly of a lute,
meaning "all in nature must dance to my music!"

THE RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS OF HEYLIN.

Peter Heylin was one of the popular writers of his times, like Fuller
and Howell, who, devoting their amusing pens to subjects which deeply
interested their own busy age, will not be slighted by the curious.[143]
We have nearly outlived their divinity, but not their politics.
Metaphysical absurdities are luxuriant weeds which must be cut down by
the scythe of Time; but the great passions branching from the tree of
life are still "growing with our growth."

There are two biographies of our Heylin, which led to a literary quarrel
of an extraordinary nature; and, in the progress of its secret history,
all the feelings of rival authorship were called out.

Heylin died in 1662. Dr. Barnard, his son-in-law, and a scholar,
communicated a sketch of the author's life to be prefixed to a
posthumous folio, of which Heylin's son was the editor. This Life was
given by the son, but anonymously, which may not have gratified the
author, the son-in-law.[144]

Twenty years had elapsed when, in 1682, appeared "The Life of Dr. Peter
Heyl