THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. III.--MARCH, 1859.--NO. XVII.








HOLBEIN AND THE DANCE OF DEATH.


At the northwest corner of Switzerland, just on the turn of the Rhine
from its westward course between Germany and Switzerland, to run
northward between Germany and France, stands the old town of Bâle. It is
nominally Swiss; but its situation on the borders of three countries,
and almost in them all, has given to the place itself and to its
inhabitants a somewhat heterogeneous air. "It looks," says one
traveller, "like a stranger lately arrived in a new colony, who,
although he may have copied the dress and the manner of those with whom
he has come to reside, wears still too much of his old costume to pass
for a native, and too little to be received as a stranger." Perhaps we
may get a better idea of the mixed nationality of the place by imagining
a Swiss who speaks French with a German accent.

Bâle is an ancient city; though Rome was bending under the weight of