The King of Terrors had an especial fascination for delineators of the fifteenth and sixteenth century.
"The scytheman of the earth
Whose harvest rounds the year; who ne'er had dearth
Since first the world was peopled,"
is depicted with loving carefulness by Dürer, by Burgkmair, and by Lucas Cranach as though they revelled in the gruesome thought, expressed by the statue of Rollo, the old Norman at Rouen, whose forefinger silently pointing to the dust, has hardly need for the inscription: "Great lords and simple serfs—we all must come to this."
In the illustrations we give of two cuts from Holbein's Dance of Death, it will be seen how the technique subordinates itself to the design. In good wood-cutting black lines never cross each other. (Facing p. 82.)
It will be seen that the design is drawn with the fewest possible lines. The Preacher, expounding the Scriptures to his flock, is being summoned by Death, unseen and unheeded by either the preacher or the listeners. An enlargement of a portion of this is given (Chapter I. opposite p. 38).
In the little cut of Death harrying the teamster's horses, the Ploughman has reached his last furrow, the sun is setting, and the weary man is unmindful of the stroke of fate that is about to strike him down.
The Pope, the Emperor, the King, the Cardinal, the Rich Man, the Young Child, the Duchess, the
