stume. The spectral figures in the Dance of
Death, the most frightful shapes that the ablest painter ever portrayed
on canvas, never presented an appearance half so ghastly. His bloated
body and shrunken legs--their deformity enhanced a hundredfold by the
fantastic dress--the glassy eyes, contrasting fearfully with the
thick white paint with which the face was besmeared; the
grotesquely-ornamented head, trembling with paralysis, and the long
skinny hands, rubbed with white chalk--all gave him a hideous and
unnatural appearance, of which no description could convey an adequate
idea, and which, to this day, I shudder to think of. His voice was
hollow and tremulous as he took me aside, and in broken words recounted
a long catalogue of sickness and privations, terminating as usual with
an urgent request for the loan of a trifling sum of money. I put a few
shillings in his hand, and as I turned away I heard the roar of laughter
which followed his first tumble on the stage. 'A few nights afterwards,
a boy put a dirty scrap of paper in my hand, on which were scrawled a
few words in pencil, intimating that the man was dangerously ill, and
begging me, after the performance, to see him at his lodgings in some
street--I forget the name of it now--at no great distance from the
theatre. I promised to comply, as soon as I could get away; and after
the curtain fell, sallied forth on my melancholy errand.

'It was late, for I had been playing in the last piece; and, as it was
a benefit night, the performances had been protracted to an unusual
length. It was a dark, cold night, with a chill, damp wind, which blew
the rain heavily against the windows and house-fronts. Pools of water
had collected in the narrow and little-frequented streets, and as many
of the thinly-scattered oil-lamps had been blown out by the violence of
the wind, the walk was not only a comfortless, but most uncertain one. I
had fortunately taken the right course, however, and succeeded, after a
little difficulty, in finding the house to which I had been directed--a
coal-shed, with one Storey above it, in the back room of which lay the
object of my search.

'A wretched-looking woman, the man's wife, met me on the stairs, and,
telling me that he had just fallen into a kind of doze, led me softly
in, and placed a chair for me at the bedside. The sick man was lying
with his face turned towards the wall; and as he took no heed of my
presence, I had leisure to observe the