The British dance of death, exemplified in a series of engravings from drawings by Van Assen : with explanatory and moral essays / from drawings by Van Assen.

  • Van Assen, Benedictus Antonio, -1817.
Date:
1823
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The British dance of death, exemplified in a series of engravings from drawings by Van Assen : with explanatory and moral essays / from drawings by Van Assen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    to the purposes of virtue, for every hour mis- spent is duly recorded in the great chronicle of fate, and it is consequently expected that- those who have suffered the shortest pilgrimage on earth should render the most unblemished account of their time in futurity. Let the calls of industry therefore be always predominant in the mind of adolescency; use becomes second nature, and it is equally in our own power to acquire a praise-worthy mode of action, as to degrade the spirit by an oppo- site line of proceeding. Let it be also remem- bered that this very line of perseverance is equally applicable to empires as to individuals; the Grecian, the Roman, in short every state, as recorded in history, that has arisen to cele- brity, was indebted to industry for its aggran- dizement; while indolence and profligacy were the sources of their several degradations: like the human mind, when reared in the school of viituous adversity, each nation in succession struggled for a period, and overcame every impediment, till, yielding to the insidious blan-