Rossetti's poem The Card Dealer is given in the original version published in the Athenaeum, 23rd October 1852 p 1147 where it is entitled The Car- Dealer; or Vingt-et-un and said to have been inspired by a picture by Theodore Von Holst... Burne-Jones gives a slightly different version of the motto to that published, and changes the date of the "Calendrier de la Vie" for 1630 to 1530, perhaps by accident or perhaps to fit in better with the "Venetian" conception of the main design.
The rules lines at the top of the following two pages were probably intended to have music added musical instruments occur in the lower right-hand corner of the main illustration, and Death plays music in the vignette on folio 16 recto. This design has many parallels in Burne-Jones's early work notably the pen drawing Ladies and Death of 1860 in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. The little sketch of a rose tree encircled by a malignant worm, like the "Dance of Death" design owes something to German prints, in this case the popular subject of The Fall. The theme of "The Rose and the Worm" is also treated by Ruskin in the penultimate chapter of the last volume of Modern Painters, published n 1860.