The twenty-fourth is of peculiar interest. In it we see a youthful Nun,
who, it is clear, has taken her vows too hastily, kneeling before the
oratory in her cell. But her heart is not in her devotions; for the
lover whom she abandoned has made his way into the apartment, and sits
on her bed singing to his lute. Her hands are clasped, not in prayer,
but in an agony of love and apprehension. She turns from the crucifix to
gaze at him; and we see how the interview will end: for an aged female
attendant, in coif and scapulary, leans over to extinguish the candles.
We see, too, what its consequence will be; for that attendant is Death.

Among the remaining subjects, which we cannot examine particularly, or
in their order, are those of the Old Man and Old Woman led by Death,
each to the sound of a dulcimer;--the Physician, to whom in mockery
Death himself brings a patient;--the Astronomer, to whom the skeleton
offers a skull in place of a celestial globe;--the Miser, from whom
Death snatches his hoarded gold; and the Merchant, whom the same
inexorable hand tears away from his ships and his merchandise;--the
storm-tossed ship, with Death snapping the mast;--a Count, dressed in
the extreme of courtly splendor, who recognizes Death in the disguise
of a peasant who has flung down his flail to seize his lordship's
emblazoned shield and dash it to pieces;--a Duchess, whom one skeleton
drags rudely from her canopied bed, while another scrapes upon a
violin;--a Peddler;--a Ploughman, of whose four-horse team Death is the
driver;--Gamblers, Drunkards, and Robbers, all interrupted in their
wickedness by Death;--a Wagoner, whose wagon, horse, and load have been
tumbled in a ruinous heap by a pair of skeletons;--a Blind Beggar, who
stumbles over a stony path after Death, who is his deceitful leader, and
who turns back with a look of malicious glee to see his bewilderment
and suffering;--and a Court Fool, whom Death, playing on bagpipes, and
dancing, approaches, and, plucking him by the garment, wins him, with a