In the fourth, Adam has begun to till the ground.  The pioneer of his race, he is uprooting a huge tree, all unconscious that another figure is laboring at his side.  It is not Eve, who sits in the background with her first-born at her breast and her distaff by her side,—­but Death, who, with a huge lever in his bony gripe, goes at his work with a fierce energy which puts the efforts of his muscular companion to shame.  The people of Holbein’s day not only saw in this subject the beginning of that toil which is the lot of humankind, but, as they looked upon the common ancestors of all men, laboring for the means of life, they asked, in the words of an old distich,—­

  “When Adam delved and Eve span,
  Where was then the gentleman?”

The fifth composition seems to represent a general rejoicing over the Triumph of Death.  It shows a churchyard and porch filled with skeletons, who blow trumpets of all sorts and sizes; one beats frantically upon a pair of kettle-drums, and another, wearing a woman’s nightcap, with a broad frill border, plays the hurdy-gurdy.

In the sixth, a Pope, the highest earthly potentate, is in the act of crowning an Emperor, who kneels to kiss his toe.  But the successor of St. Peter does not see, as he sits upon his throne, giving authority and sanction to the ruler of an empire, that a skeleton leans from behind that throne, and grins in his face, and that another in a cardinal’s hat mingles with the throng before him.

The seventh is one of the finest of the series.  An Emperor is enthroned, with his courtiers round him.  He is threatening one with his sword for some act of injustice from which a poor peasant who kneels before him has suffered.  But, unseen by all, a skeleton bestrides the shoulders of the monarch and lays his hand upon his very crown.  There can be no doubt that Shakspeare had this subject in his mind when he wrote that fine passage in “King Richard the Second,”—­

    “Within the hollow crown
    That rounds the mortal temples of a king
    Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,
    Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;
    Allowing him a breath, a little scene
    To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks;
    Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
    As if this flesh which walls about our life
    Were brass impregnable; and humored thus,
    Comes at the last, and with a little pin
    Bores through his castle wall, and—­farewell, King!”

In the eighth we see a King (it is unmistakably Francis I.) dining under a canopy, and served by a splendid retinue.  He stretches out his hand to receive a wine-cup; for he does not see that Death is filling it.

A Cardinal appears in the ninth, selling an indulgence for a heavy bribe; and we all rejoice to see that Death has laid hands upon his hat,—­the symbol of his rank,—­and is about to tear it from his head.