Holbein continued to live in London until the year 1554, when that city suffered a visitation of the plague, similar to that which was the occasion of the painting of the Great Dance of Death at Bale.  Holbein was struck by the disease; and Death, knowing gratitude as little as remorse, triumphed over him who had blazoned his triumphs.  Upon the painter’s fame, however, and that of his great work, Death could not lay his hand; but so long as the grim tyrant shall claim his victims, so long will he perpetuate the memory of Hans Holbein.

Though he was a royal favorite, it is not known where he died; and the place where lie the ashes of him who, on a king’s word, was greater than seven earls, is equally unknown; there is not a line or a stone to mark it.  So soon after his death as in the reign of Charles I., (within one hundred years,) a nobleman—­noble by nature as well as by birth—­desirous of erecting a monument to him, sought his grave, but in vain, and was compelled to abandon his design.  And thus was Holbein driven to live among strangers, to die without a wife to console or children to mourn him, and to lay his bones in a nameless grave in a foreign land.

Such is an imperfect and brief account of the origin, the various forms, and the meaning of the Dance of Death, and of the life and character of him whose genius has caused it to be called by his name.  It may smell too much of mortality and antiquity for this fast-living and forward-looking age; for it is not only a monument of the past, but an exponent of its spirit.  We can look back at it, through the mellowing mist of centuries, with curiosity not unmixed with admiration; but we should turn with aversion from such a work, coming from the hands of an artist of our own day.  We think, and with some reason, that we do not need its teachings; for we are freed from the thraldom that gave edge to its democratic satire; and we have learned to look with greater calmness, if not with higher hope, upon the future, to which the grave is but the ever-open portal.  But we may yet profit by a thoughtful consideration of the eternal truths embodied by Holbein in his Dance of Death; and in the story of his life there is a lesson for every man, and every woman too, if they will but find it.

LIZZY GRISWOLD’S THANKSGIVING.

“So John a’n’t a-comin’, Miss Gris’ld,” squeaked Polly Mariner, entering the great kitchen, where Mrs. Griswold was paring apples and Lizzy straining squash.

“Isn’t he?” quietly replied the lady addressed, as the tailoress sat down in the flag-bottomed rocking-chair, and began rocking vehemently, all the time eyeing Lizzy from the depths of her poke-bonnet with patient scrutiny.