Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers - an exposition of their similarities of throught and expression

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Title: Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers - an exposition of their similarities of throught and expression
Author: Green, Henry
Language: English
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------------------------------------------------------------------------

SHAKESPEARE
AND
THE EMBLEM WRITERS.

[Illustration]

[Illustration:

LANGTON.SC.MANCR
PORTRAITS FROM ORIGINAL PLATES,—_Bocchius by Bonasone_, A.D. 1555;
_the others by Theodore de Bry_, A.D. 1597.
]

SHAKESPEARE

AND

THE EMBLEM WRITERS

AN EXPOSITION OF THEIR
SIMILARITIES OF THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION.

PRECEDED BY A VIEW OF EMBLEM-LITERATURE DOWN TO A.D. 1616.

BY HENRY GREEN, M.A.

~With numerous Illustrative Devices from the Original Authors.~

[Illustration:

Portrait of Shakespeare.
From the Oil Painting in the possession of Dr. Clay, of Manchester.
]

LONDON: TRÜBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1870.

[_Right of Translation reserved._]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

PREFACE

FEW only are the remarks absolutely needed by way of introduction to a
work which within itself sufficiently explains and carries out a new
method of illustration for the dramas of Shakespeare. As author, I
commenced this volume because of various observations which, while
reading several of the early Emblem writers, I had made on similarities
of thought and expression between themselves and the great Poet; and I
had sketched the whole outline, and had nearly filled it in, without
knowing that the path pursued by me had in any instance been trodden by
other amateurs and critics. From the writings of the profoundly learned
Francis Douce, whose name ought never to be uttered without deep respect
for his rare scholarship and generous regard to its interests, I first
became aware that Shakespeare’s direct quotation of Emblem mottoes, and
direct description of Emblem devices, had in some degree been already
pointed out to the attention of the literary public.

And right glad am I to observe that I have had precursors in my labours,
and companions in my researches; and that, in addition to Francis Douce,
writers of such repute as Langlois of Rouen, Charles Knight, Noel
Humphreys, and Dr. Alfred Woltmann, of Berlin, have, each by an example
or two, shown how, with admirable skill and yet with evident
appropriation, our great Dramatist has interwoven among his own the
materials which he had gathered from Emblem writers as their source.

To myself the fact is an assurance that neither from aiming at
singularity of conjecture, nor from pretending to a more penetrating
insight into Shakespeare’s methods of composition, have I put before the
world the following pages for judgment. Those pages are the results of
genuine study,—a study I could not have so well pursued had not
liberal-minded friends freely entrusted to my use the book-treasures
which countervailed my own deficiencies. The results arrived at, though
imperfect, are also, I believe, grounded on real similitudes between
Shakespeare and his predecessors and contemporaries; and those
similitudes, parallelisms, or adaptations of thought, by whichever name
distinguished, often arose from the actual impression made on his mind
and memory by the Emblematists whose works he had seen, read, and used.

As a suitable Frontispiece the portraits are presented of five
celebrated authors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: one a
German—Sebastian Brandt; three Italian—Andrew Alciat, Paolo Giovio, and
Achilles Bocchius; and one from Hungary—John Sambucus. They were all men
of learning and renown, whom kings and emperors honoured, and whom the
foremost of their age admired. The central portrait, that of Bocchius of
Bologna, is from the famous artist Giulio Bonasone, and the original
engraving was retouched by Augustino Caracci. The other portraits have
been reduced from the “ICONES,” or _Figures of Fifty Illustrious Men_,
which Theodore de Bry executed and published during Shakespeare’s prime,
in 1597. In their own day they were regarded as correct delineations and
likenesses, and are said to be authentic copies.

The vignette of Shakespeare on the title-page is now engraved for the
first time. The original is an oil-painting, a head of the life size,
and possessing considerable animation and evidences of power. It is the
property of Charles Clay, Esq., M.D., Manchester. Without vouching for
its authenticity, we are justified in saying, when it is compared with
some other portraits, that it offers equal, if not superior, claims to
genuineness. To discuss the question does not belong to these pages, but
simply and cordially to acknowledge the courtesy with which the
oil-painting was offered for use and allowed to be copied, and to say
that our woodcut is an accurate and well-executed representation of the
original picture.

Of the ornamental capitals at the head of the chapters, and of the
little embellishments at their end, it may be remarked that, with
scarcely an exception, there are none later than our Poet’s day, and but
few that do not belong to Emblem books: they are forty-eight in number.
The illustrative woodcuts and photolith plates, of which there are one
hundred and fifty-three of the former and nineteen of the latter,
partake of the variety, and, it may be said, apologetically, of the
defects of the works from which they have been taken. However fanciful
in themselves, they are realities,—true exponents of the Emblem art of
their day; so that, within the compass of our volume, containing above
two hundred examples of emblematic devices and designs, is exhibited a
very full representation of the various styles of the original works,
and which, in the absence of the works themselves, may serve to show
their chief characteristics. The Photoliths, I may add, have been
executed by Mr. A. Brothers, of Manchester.

Doubtless both the woodcuts and the plates are very unequal in their
execution; but to have aimed at a uniformity even of high excellence
would have been to sacrifice truth to mere embellishment. It should be
borne in mind what one of our objects has been,—namely, to place before
the reader examples of the Emblem devices themselves, very nearly as
they existed in their own day, and not to attempt the ideal perfection
to which modern art rightly aspires.

The Edition of Shakespeare from which the extracts are taken is the very
excellent one, in nine volumes, issued from Cambridge, 1863–1866. Its
numbering of the lines for purposes of reference is most valuable.

Our work offers information, and consequently advantage, to three
classes of the literary public:—

1st. To the Book Agent and Book Antiquarian, so far as relates to books
of Emblems previous to the early part of the seventeenth century, A. D.
1616. In a collected and methodical form, aided not a little by the
General Index, the first chapters and sections of our volume supply
information that is widely scattered, and not to be obtained without
considerable trouble and search. The authors, titles, and dates of the
_chief_ editions of Emblem books within the period treated of, are
clearly though briefly given, arranged according to the languages in
which the books were printed, and accompanied where requisite by notices
and remarks. There is not to be found, I believe, in any other work so
much information about the early Emblem books, gathered together in so
compendious and orderly a manner.

2nd. To the Students and Scholars of Shakespeare,—a widely-extended and
ever-increasing community. Another aspect of the Master’s reading and
attainments is opened to them; and into the yet unquarried illustrations
of which his marvellous writings are susceptible, another adit is
driven. We may have followed him through Histories and Legends, through
the Epic and the Ballad, through Popular Tales and Philosophic
Treatises,—from the forest glade to the halls and gardens of
palaces,—across the wild moor where the weird sisters muttered and
prophesied, and to that moon-lighted bank where the sweet Jessica was
sitting in all maiden loveliness;—but if only for variety’s sake it may
interest us, even if it does not impart pleasure, to mark how much his
mind was in accord with the once popular Emblem literature, which now
perchance awakens scarcely a thought or a regret, though great scholars
and men of genius devoted themselves to it; and how from that
literature, imbued with its spirit and heightening its power, even
he—the self-reliant one—borrowed help and imagery, and made his own
creations more his own than otherwise they would have been.

And 3rd. To the great Brotherhood of nations among the Teutonic race, to
whom Shakespeare is known as a chieftain among the Lares,—the heroes and
guardians of their households. In him they recognise an impersonation of
high poetic Art, and they desire to see unrolled from the treasures of
the past whatever course his genius pursued to elevate and refine its
powers;—persuaded that out of the elevation and refinement ever is
springing something of his own inspiration to improve and ennoble
mankind.

A word or two may be allowed respecting the translations into English
which are offered of the Emblem writers’ verses occurring in the
quotations. An accurate rendering of the original was desirable; and,
therefore, in many instances, rhymes and strictly measured lines have
been abjured, and cadence trusted rather than metre; the defect of the
plan, perhaps, is that cadence varies with the peculiar pitch and
intonation of each person’s voice. Nevertheless, among rhymes the
_Oarsman’s Cry_ (p. 61) might find a place on Cam, or Isis, and the
_Wolf and the Ass_ (p. 54) be entitled to abide in a book of fables.

In behalf of quotations from the original, it is to be urged that, to
defamiliarise the minds of the public, so much as is now the custom,
from the sight of other languages than their own, is injurious to the
maintenance of scholarship; and were it not so, the works quoted from
are many of them not in general use, and some are of highest rarity;—it
is, therefore, only simple justice to the reader to place before him the
original on the very page he is reading.

The value of the work will doubtless be increased by the Appendices and
the very full Index which have been added. These will enable such as are
inclined more thoroughly to compare together the different parts of the
work, and better to judge of it, and to pursue its subjects elsewhere.

My offering I hang up where many brighter garlands have been placed,—and
where, as generations pass away, many more will be brought; it is at his
shrine whose genius consecrated the English tongue to some of the
highest purposes of which speech is capable. For Humanity itself he
rendered his Service of Song a guidance to that which is noble as well
as beautiful,—a sympathy with our nature as well as a truth for our
souls. God’s benison rest upon his memory!

[Illustration]

~Knutsford~,
_August 10, 1869._

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE.

FRONTISPIECE ii

TITLE-PAGE iii

PREFACE vii

CONTENTS xiii

CHAPTER I.
EMBLEMS AND THEIR VARIETIES, WITH SOME EARLY EXAMPLES 1–29

CHAPTER II.
SKETCH OF EMBLEM BOOK LITERATURE PREVIOUS TO A.D. 1616 30–104

Sect. 1. General Extent of the Emblem Literature 30–37
to which Shakespeare might have had
Access

” 2. Emblem Works and Editions down to the end 38–59
of the Fifteenth Century

” 3. Other Emblem Works and Editions previous 60–83
to A.D. 1564

_i.e._ 1. Before Alciat’s first Emblem 60–68
Work, A.D. 1522

2. Down to Holbein, La Perriere, 69–75
and Corrozet, A.D. 1543

3. Down to Shakespeare’s birth, 75–83
A.D. 1564

Sect. 4. Emblem Works and Editions from A.D. 1564 84–104
to 1616

_i.e._ 1. Before Shakespeare had entered 84–92
fully on his Work, A.D. 1590

2. Until he had ended the 92–104
_Twelfth Night_ in 1615

CHAPTER III.
SHAKESPEARE’S ATTAINMENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES WITH 105–118
RESPECT TO THE FINE ARTS

CHAPTER IV.
THE KNOWLEDGE OF EMBLEM BOOKS IN BRITAIN, AND GENERAL 119–155
INDICATIONS THAT SHAKESPEARE WAS ACQUAINTED WITH THEM

CHAPTER V.
SIX DIRECT REFERENCES IN THE _PERICLES_ TO BOOKS OF 156–186
EMBLEMS, SOME OF THEIR DEVICES DESCRIBED, AND OF
THEIR MOTTOES QUOTED

CHAPTER VI.
CLASSIFICATION OF THE CORRESPONDENCIES AND PARALLELISMS 187–462
OF SHAKESPEARE WITH EMBLEM WRITERS

Sect. 1. Historical Emblems 188–211

” 2. Heraldic Emblems 212–240

” 3. Emblems for Mythological Characters 241–301

” 4. Emblems Illustrative of Fables 302–317

” 5. Emblems in connection with Proverbs 318–345

” 6. Emblems from Facts in Nature, and from 346–376
the Properties of Animals

” 7. Emblems for Poetic Ideas 377–410

” 8. Moral and Æsthetic Emblems 411–462

CHAPTER VII.
MISCELLANEOUS EMBLEMS, RECAPITULATION, AND CONCLUSION 463–496

APPENDICES.

I.
COINCIDENCES BETWEEN SHAKESPEARE AND WHITNEY 497–514

II.
SUBJECTS, MOTTOES, AND SOURCES OF THE EMBLEM IMPRESE 515–530

III.
REFERENCES TO PASSAGES FROM SHAKESPEARE, AND TO THE 531–542
CORRESPONDING DEVICES OF THE EMBLEMS TREATED OF

GENERAL INDEX 543–571

PHOTO-LITH PLATES.

PLATE. SUBJECT. SOURCE. PAGE.

I. Dedication Plate Alciat’s _Emb._ Ed. 1661 1

I_a_. Tableau of Human De Hooghe, 1670 13
Life,—Cebes, B.C. 330.

I_b_. Tableau of Human Old Print 68
Life,—Cebes, B.C. 330.

II. Christ’s Adoption of the Otho Vænius, _Divini 32
Human Soul Amoris Emb_. 1615

III. Creation Symeoni’s _Ovid_, Ed. 35
1559, p. 13

IV. Title-page,—_Speculum A MS. of the 1st Edition, 44
Humanæ Salvationis._ 1440

V. Leaf 31,—_Speculum Humana A MS. of the 1st Edition, 44
Salvationis._ 1440

VI. A page from the _Biblia Noel Humphreys, p. 40, Pl. 46
Pauperum_. 2

VII. _Historia S. Joan. per Tracing from the 49
Figuras_,—Corser Block-book
Collection.

VIII. _Historia S. Joan. per Tracing from the 49
Figuras_,—Corser Block-book
Collection.

IX. Title-page of Seb. Locher’s _Stultifera 57
Brandt’s _Fool-freighted Navis_, Ed. 1497
Ship_

X. Title-page of Van der _Adams Appel_, Ed. 1642 132
Veen’s _Emblems_.

XI. Fall of Satan Boissard’s _Theat. Vit. 133
Hum._ 1596 Ed.

XII. Occasion seized David’s _Occasio arr._ &c. 265
Ed. 1605

XIII. The Zodiac Brucioli, _Della Sphera_, 353
Ed. 1543

XIV. Life as a Theatre Boissard’s _Theat. Vit. 405
Hum._ Ed. 1596.

XV. Seven Ages of Life,—an _Archæologia_, vol. xxxv. 407
early Block-Print, 1853, p. 167.
British Museum.

XVI. Providence making Rich and Coornhert, Ed. 1585 489
making Poor.

XVII. Time flying Otho Vænius, _Emblemata_, 491
Ed. 1612.

[Illustration:

_Hesius_, 1636.
_Stans uno capit omnia puncto._
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: In Remembrance of Joseph Brooks Yates]

In Remembrance
OF
JOSEPH BROOKS YATES
ESQUIRE,
OF WEST DINGLE,
LIVERPOOL,
WHOSE RARE AND EXTENSIVE
COLLECTION OF
BOOKS OF EMBLEMS
FIRST ENABLED THE
AUTHOR
TO STUDY THEIR LITERATURE,
THESE
_Shakespeare-Illustrations_
ARE GRATEFULLY
DEDICATED.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SHAKESPEARE

AND THE

EMBLEM-WRITERS OF HIS AGE.

CHAPTER I.
_EMBLEMS, AND THEIR VARIETIES, WITH SOME EARLY EXAMPLES._

WHAT Emblems are, in the general acceptation of the word in modern
times, is well set forth in Cotgrave’s _Dictionary_, Art. EMBLEMA, where
he defines an emblem to be, “a picture and short posie, expressing some
particular conceit;” and very pithily by Francis Quarles, when he
says,—“an Emblem is but a silent Parable.” Though less terse and clear
than either of these, we may also take Bacon’s description, in his
_Advancement of Learning_, bk. v. chap. 5;—“_Embleme_ deduceth
conceptions intellectuall to images sensible, and that which is sensible
more forcibly strikes the memory, and is more easily imprinted than that
which is intellectual.”

By many writers of Emblem books, perhaps by the majority in their
practice if not in their theories, there is very little difference of
meaning observed between Symbols and Emblems. We find, however, in other
Authors a more exact usage of the word Symbol. The Greek poet Pindar[1]
speaks of “a trustworthy symbol, or sign, concerning a future action,”
or from which the future can be conjectured; Iago, recounting the power
of Desdemona over Othello, act ii. scene 3, l. 326, declares it were
easy

“for her
To win the Moor, were’t to renounce his baptism,
All seals and symbols of redeemed sin;”

and Cudworth, in his _True Intellectual System of the Universe_, ed.
1678, p. 388, after giving Aristotle’s assertion “_that Numbers were the
Causes of the Essence of other things_,” adds, “though we are not
ignorant, how the Pythagoreans made also the Numbers within the Decad,
to be Symbols of things.”

Claude Marginality, or Minōs, the famous commentator on the Emblems of
Andreas Alciatus, in his Tract, _Concerning Symbols, Coats of Arms, and
Emblems_,—eds. 1581, or 1608, or 1614,—maintains there is a clear
distinction between emblems and symbols, which, as he affirms, “many
persons rashly and ignorantly confound together.”[2] “We confess,” he
adds, “that the force of the Emblem depends upon the Symbol: but they
differ, I say, as Man and Animal; for people who have any judgment at
all know, that here of a certainty the latter is taken more generally,
the former more specially.” Mignault’s meaning may be carried out by
saying, that all men are animals,—but all animals are not men; so all
emblems are symbols, tokens, or signs, but all symbols are not
emblems;—the two possess affinity but not identity,—they have no
absolute convertibility of the one for the other.

[Illustration: _Symeoni, 1559._]

An example of Emblem and Symbol united occurs in Symeoni’s Dedication[3]
“To Madame Diana of Poitiers, Dutchess of Valentinois;” for Emblem,
there are “picture and short posie” expressing the particular conceit,
“Quodcunque petit, consequitur,”—_She attains whatever she seeks_; and
for Symbols, or signs, the sun, the temple, the dogs, the arrow, and the
stag; and for exposition, the stanza;

“_Sante le Muse son, santa è Diana,
Caste son quelle, et casta è questa anchora.
Dalle Muse il Sol mai non s’ allontana,
Et d’ Apollo Diana vnica è suora.
Nelle Muse è d’ Amore ogni arte vana,
Et de i lacci d’ Amor Diana è fuora.
Chi fia Diana quel dunque che dica,
Che voi non siete delle Muse amica?_”

Thus metrically rendered,

“Holy the Muses are, holy is Diana,
Chaste are they, and chaste also is she.
From the Muses the Sun indeed moves not afar,
And alone of Apollo Diana is sister.
Against the Muses Love’s every art is vain,
And free is Diana from all snares of Love.
Who then is the Diana that says,
That you are not a friend of the Muses?”

The word emblem, ἐμβλημα, is one that has strayed very widely from its
first meaning, and yet by a sort of natural process, as the apple grows
out of the crab, its signification now is akin to what it was in distant
ages. It then denoted the thing, whether implement or ornament, placed
in, or thrown on, and so joined to, some other thing. Thus a word of
cognate origin, _Epiblēs_, in the _Iliad_, bk. xxiv. l. 453,[4] denoted
the bolt of fir that held fast the door;—it was something put against
the door,—the peg or bar that kept it from opening. So in the _Odyssey_,
bk. ii. l. 37,[5] the sceptre, the emblem of command, was the baton
which the herald Peisēnor _placed in_ the hand of the son of Ulysses;
and again in the _Iliad_, bk. xiii. l. 319, 20,[6] the flaming torch was
the implement which the son of Kronos might _throw on_ the swift ships.

Of the changes through which a word may pass, “the word Emblem presents
one of the most remarkable instances.” They cannot be better given than
in the “_Sketch of that branch of Literature called_ BOOKS OF EMBLEMS,”
read in 1848 before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool,
by the late Joseph Brooks Yates, Esq. He says of the word EMBLEM, pp. 8,
9,—“its present signification, ‘Type or allusive representation,’ is of
comparatively modern use, while its original meaning is become obsolete.
Among the Greeks an Emblem (εμβλημα), derived from ενβαλλειν, meant
something thrown in or inserted after the fashion of what we now call
Marquetry and Mosaic work, or in the form of a detached ornament to be
affixed to a pillar, a tablet, or a vase, and put off or on, as there
might be occasion. Pliny, in his _Natural History_,” bk. xxxiii. c. 12,
“mentions an artist called Pytheus, who executed works of this last
description in silver, one of which, intended to be attached to a jar
(in phialæ emblemate), represented Ulysses and Diomed carrying off the
Palladium.[7] It weighed two ounces, and sold for 10,000 sesterces =
80_l_. 14_s_. 7_d_. of our money. According to one ancient manuscript of
Pliny, it sold for double that amount. Marcus Curtius leaping into the
gulph forms the subject of a beautiful silver Emblem, in the possession
of the writer.[8] When the arts of Greece were transplanted into Italy
and Sicily, the word _Emblema_ became naturalised in the Latin tongue,
though not without some resistance on the part of the reigning prince
Tiberius. That emperor is reported by Suetonius,” _Tiber. Cæsar Vita_,
c. 71, “to have found fault with the introduction of the word into a
Decree of the Senate, as being of foreign growth. Cicero, however, had
used it in his orations against Verres, where he accuses that rapacious
governor (amongst other crimes) of having compelled the people of
Haluntium to bring to him their vases, from which he carefully
abstracted the valuable Emblems and inserted them upon his own golden
vessels. Quintilian,” lib. 2, cap. 4, “soon after this period, in
enumerating the arts of oratory used by the pleaders of his day,
describes some of them as in the habit of preparing and committing to
memory certain highly finished clauses, to be inserted (as occasion
might arise) _like Emblems_ in the body of their orations.”[9]

“Such was the meaning of the term in the classical ages of Greece and
Rome; nor was its signification altered until some time after the
revival of literature in the fifteenth century.”

Our own Geoffrey Whitney, deriving, as he does the other parts of his
_Choice of Emblemes_ from the writers on the subject that preceded him,
gives very exactly the same explanation as Mr. Yates. In his address “To
the Reader” (p. 2) he says;—“It resteth now to shewe breeflie what this
worde Embleme signifieth, and whereof it commeth, which thoughe it be
borrowed of others, & not proper in the Englishe tonge, yet that which
it signifieth: Is, and hathe bin alwaies in vse amongst vs, which worde
being in Greek ἐμβάλλεσθαι, vel ἐπεμβλῆσθαι is as muche to saye in
Englishe as _To set in, or to put in_: properlie ment by suche figures,
or workes; as are wroughte in plate, or in stones in the pauementes, or
on the waules, or suche like, for the adorning of the place: hauinge
some wittie deuise expressed with cunning woorkemanship, somethinge
obscure to be perceiued at the first, whereby, when with further
consideration it is vnderstood, it maie the greater delighte the
behoulder. And althoughe the worde dothe comprehende manie thinges, and
diuers matters maie be therein contained; yet all Emblemes for the most
parte, maie be reduced into these three kindes, which is _Historicall_,
_Naturall_, & _Morall_. _Historicall_, as representing the actes of some
noble persons, being matter of historie. _Naturall_, as in expressing
the natures of creatures, for example, the loue of the yonge Storkes, to
the oulde, or of suche like. _Morall_, pertaining to vertue and
instruction of life, which is the chiefe of the three, and the other two
maye bee in some sorte drawen into this head. For, all doe tende vnto
discipline, and morall preceptes of liuing. I mighte write more at large
hereof, and of the difference of _Emblema_, _Symbolum_, _& Ænigma_,
hauinge all (as it weare) some affinitie one with the other. But bicause
my meaning is to write as briefely as I maie, for the auoiding of
tediousnes, I referre them that would further inquire therof, to _And.
Alciatus_, _Guiliel. Perrerius_, _Achilles Bocchius_ & to diuers others
that haue written thereof, wel knowne to the learned. For I purpose at
this present, to write onelie of this worde Embleme: Bicause it chieflie
doth pertaine vnto the matter I haue in hande, whereof I hope this
muche, shall giue them some taste that weare ignoraunt of the same.”

Whitney’s namesake, to whom flattering friendship compared him, Geoffrey
Chaucer, gives us more than the touch of an Emblem, when he describes,
in the _Canterbury Tales_, l. 159–63, the dress of “a Nonne, a
Prioresse,”—

“Of smale corall aboute hire arm she bare
A pair of bedes, gauded all with grene;
And theron heng a broche of gold ful shene,
On whiche was first ywritten a crouned A,
And after, _Amor vincit omnia_.”[10]

So the “Cristofre,” which the Yeoman wore, l. 115,

“A Cristofre on his brest of silver shene,”

was doubtless a true Emblem, to be put on, and taken off, as occasion
served,—and was probably a cross with the image of Christ upon it: and
if pictured forth according to the description in _The Legend of Good
Women_, l. 1196–8, an emblematical device was exhibited, where

“With saddle redde, embrouded with delite
Of gold the barres, up enbossed high,
Sate Dido, all in gold and perrie wrigh.”

This form, the natural form of the Emblem, we may illustrate from a
Greek coin, figured in Eschenburg’s _Manual of Classical Literature_, by
Fisk, ed. 1844, pl. xl. p. 351.

The Flying Horse and other ornaments of this coin on the helmet of
Minerva are Emblems,—and so are the owl, the olive wreath, and the
amphora, or two-handled vase. Were these independent castings or
mouldings, to be put on or taken off, they would be veritable emblems in
the strict literal sense of the word.

[Illustration]

Spenser’s ideas of devices and ornaments correspond to this meaning.
Mercilla, the allegorical representation of the sovereign Elizabeth, is
described as

“that gratious Queene:
Who sate on high, that she might all men see
And might of all men royally be seene,
Upon a throne of gold full bright and sheene,
Adorned all with gemmes of endless price,
As either might for wealth have gotten beene,
Or could be fram’d by workman’s rare device
And all embost with lyons and with flour de lice.”
_Faerie Queene_, v. 9. 27.

In _Cymbeline_, Shakespeare represents Iachimo, act i. sc. 6, l. 188, 9,
describing “a present for the emperor;”

“Tis plate, of rare device; and jewels
Of rich and exquisite form; their values great.”

So Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, iv. 4. 15, sets forth, “a precious rebeke
in an arke of gold,” as

“A gorgeous Girdle, curiously embost
With pearle and precious stone, worth many a marke;
Yet did the workmanship farre passe the cost.”

In the literal use of the word emblem Shakespeare is very exact.
Parolles, _All’s Well_, act ii. sc. 1, l. 40, charges the young lords of
the French court, as

“Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin;” and adds, “Good sparks
and lustrous, a word, good metals: you shall find in the regiment of the
Spinii one Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on
his sinister cheek; it was this very sword entrenched it.”

The Coronation Scene in _Henry VIII_., act iv. sc. 1. l. 81–92,
describes the solemnities, when Anne Bullen, “the goodliest woman that
ever lay by man,

“with modest paces
Came to the altar; where she kneel’d, and saint-like
Cast her fair eyes to heaven, and pray’d devoutly:”

Each sacred rite is then observed towards her;—

“She had all the royal makings of a queen;
As holy oil, Edward Confessor’s crown,
The rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems
Lay’d nobly on her.”

And down to Milton’s time the original meaning of the word Emblem was
still retained, though widely departed from as used by some of the
Emblem writers. Thus he pictures the “blissful bower” of Eden, bk. iv.
l. 697–703, _Paradise Lost_,

“each beauteous flower,
Iris all hues, roses, and jessamin,
Rear’d high their flourish’d heads between, and wrought
Mosaic: underfoot the violet,
Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay
Broider’d the ground, more colour’d than with stone
Of costliest emblem.”

Thus, in their origin, Emblems were the figures or ornaments fashioned
by the tools of the artists, in metal or wood, independent of the vase,
or the column, or the furniture, they were intended to adorn; they might
be affixed or detached at the promptings of the owner’s fancy. Then they
were formed, as in mosaic, by placing side by side little blocks of
coloured stone, or tiles, or small sections of variegated wood. Raised
or carved figures, however produced, came next to be considered as
Emblems; and afterwards any kind of figured ornament, or device, whether
carved or engraved, or simply traced, on the walls and floors of houses
or on vessels of wood, clay, stone, or metal. These ornaments were
sometimes like the raised work on the Warwick and other vases, and
formed a _crust_ which made a part of the vessel which they embellished;
but at other times they were devices, drawings and carvings on a
_framework_ which might be detached from the cup or goblet on which the
owner had placed them, and be applied to other uses.[11]

We may here remark, since embossed ornaments and sculptured figures on
any plain surface are essentially Emblems, the sculptor, the engraver,
the statuary and the architect, indeed all workers in wood, metal, or
stone, who embellish with device or symbol the simplicity of nature’s
materials, are especially entitled to take rank in the fraternity of the
Emblematists. They and their patrons, the whole world of the civilized
and the intellectual, are not content with the beam out of the forest,
or with the marble from the quarry, or with even the gold from the mine.
In themselves cedar, marble and gold are only forms of brute and
unintelligent nature,—and therefore we impose upon them signs of
deep-seated thoughts of the heart and devices of wondrous meaning, and
out of the rocks call forth sermons, and lessons and parables, and
highly spiritual suggestions. On the very shrines of God we place our
images of corruptible things,—but then the soul that rightly reads the
images lifts them out of their corruptibility and makes them the
teachers of eternal truths.

The domains of the statuary and of the architect are however too vast to
be entered upon by us, except with a passing glance; they are like
Philosophy; it is all _Natural_,—and yet wisely men map it out into
kingdoms and divisions, and pursue each his selected work.

So we remember it is not the Universe of Emblematism we must attempt,
even though Shakespeare should lend us

“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
_To_ glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown,”

should add the gift of “the poet’s pen,” so that we might

“Turn them to shapes, and give to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.”
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, act v. sc. 1. l. 12–17.

Our business is only with that comparatively small section of the
Emblem-World, which, “like mummies in their cerements,” is wrapped up
within the covers of the so called Emblem-books. Whether, when they are
unrolled, they are worth the search and the labour, some may doubt;—but
perchance a scarabæus, or an emerald, with an ancient harp upon it, may
reward our patience.

By a very easy and natural step, figures and ornaments of many kinds,
when placed on smooth surfaces, were named emblems; and as these figures
and ornaments were very often symbolical, _i. e._, signs, or tokens of a
thought, a sentiment, a saying, or an event, the term emblem was applied
to any painting, drawing, or print that was representative of an action,
of a quality of the mind, or of any peculiarity or attribute of
character.[12] “Emblems in fact were, and are, a species of
hieroglyphics, in which the figures or pictures, besides denoting the
natural objects to which they bear resemblances, were employed to
express properties of the mind, virtues and abstract ideas, and all the
operations of the soul.”

~Tabula Cebetis philosophi so=~
cratici-cũ Iohãnis Aeſticãpiani Epiſtola.

[Illustration: _Fab. Cebetis, 1507._]

Plate 1^a

[Illustration: _Tableau of Human Life from Cebes B C 390_]

Thus, the _Tablet of Cebes_, a work by one of the disciples of Socrates,
about B.C. 390, is an explanation, in the form of a Dialogue, of a
picture, said to have been set up in the temple of Kronos at Athens or
at Thebes, and which was declared to be emblematical of Human Life.

One of the older Latin versions, printed in 1507, presents the foregoing
illustrative frontispiece.

As the book has come down to modern times it is, generally, what has
sometimes been named, _nudum Emblema_, a naked Emblem, because it has
neither device nor artistic drawing, but, like Shakespeare’s comparison
of all the world to a stage in which man plays many parts, the course of
Life, with its discipline, false hopes and false pleasures, is in the
Tablet so described,—in fact so delineated,[13] as to have enabled the
Dutch designer and engraver, Romyn de Hooghe, in 1670, to have pictured
“the whole story of Human Life as narrated to the Grecian sage.”

The Moral of the Allegory may not be set forth with entire clearness in
the picture, but it can be given in the words of one of the _Golden
Sentences_ of Democritus,—see Gale’s _Opus. Mythol._:—

“That human happiness does not result from bodily excellencies nor
from riches, but is founded on uprightness of mind and on righteousness
of conduct.”

Coins and medals furnish most valuable examples of emblematical figures;
indeed some of the Emblem writers, as Sambucus in 1564, were among the
earliest to publish impressions or engravings of ancient Roman money, on
which are frequently given very interesting representations of customs
and symbolical acts. On Grecian coins, which Priestley, in his _Lectures
on History_, vol. i. p. 126,—highly praises for “a design, an attitude,
a force, and a delicacy, in the expression even of the muscles and veins
of human figures,”—we find, to use heraldic language, that the owl is
the crest of Athens,—a wolf’s head, that of Argos,—and a tortoise the
badge of the Peloponnesus. The whole history of Louis XIV. and that of
his great adversary, William III., are represented in volumes containing
the medals that were struck to commemorate the leading events of their
reigns, and though outrageously untrue to nature and reality by the
adoption of Roman costumes and classic symbols, they serve as records of
remarkable occurrences.

Heraldry throughout employs the language of Emblems;—it is the
picture-history of families, of tribes and of nations, of princes and
emperors. Many a legend and many a strange fancy may be mixed up with it
and demand almost the credulity of simplest childhood in order to obtain
our credence; yet in the literature of Chivalry and Honours there are
enshrined abundant records of the glory that belonged to mighty names. I
recall now but one instance. In the fine folio lately emblazoned with
the well-known motto “GANG FORWARD,” “I AM READY,” what volumes, to
those who can interpret each mark and sign and tutored symbol, are
wrapped up in the _Examples of the ornamental Heraldry of the sixteenth
Century_: London, 1867, 1868.

The custom of taking a device or badge, if not a motto, is traced by
Paolo Giovio, in his _Dialogo dell’ Imprese militari et amorose_, ed.
1574, p. 9,[14] to the earliest times of history. He writes,

“To bear these emblems was an ancient usage.” GIO. “It is a point
not to be doubted, that the ancients used to bear crests and ornaments
on the helmets and on the shields: for we see this clearly in Virgil,
when he made the catalogue of the nations which came in favour of Turnus
against the Trojans, in the eighth book of the Æneid; Amphiaraus then
(as Pindar says) at the war of Thebes bore a dragon on his shield.
Similarly Statius writes of Capaneus and of Polinices, that the one bore
the Hydra, and the other the Sphynx,” &c.

But these were simple emblems, without motto inscribed. The same Paolo
Giovio, and other writers after him,[15] assign both “picture and short
posie,” to two of the early Emperors of Rome.

“Augustus, wishing to show how self-governed and moderate he was in
all his affairs, never rash and hasty to believe the first reports and
informations of his servants, caused to be struck, among several others,
on a gold medal of his own, a Butterfly and a Crab, signifying quickness
by the Butterfly, and by the Crab slowness, the two things which
constitute a temperament necessary for a Prince.”

The motto, as figured below,—“MAKE HASTE LEISURELY.”

AVGVSTE.

[Illustration: _Symeon, Dev. Her. 1561._]

The Device is thus applied in Whitney’s _Emblems_, p. 121, and dedicated
to two eminent judges of Elizabeth’s reign;

“This figure, lo, AVGVSTVS did deuise,
A mirror good, for Iudges iuste to see,
And alwayes fitte, to bee before their eies,
When sentence they, of life, and deathe decree:
Then muste they haste, but verie slowe awaie,
Like butterflie, whome creepinge crabbe dothe staie.”

“The Prince, or Iudge, maie not with lighte reporte,
In doubtfull thinges, giue iudgement touching life:
But trie, and learne the truthe in euerie sorte,
And mercie ioyne, with iustice bloodie knife:
This pleased well AVGVSTVS noble grace,
And Iudges all, within this tracke shoulde trace.”

[Illustration: _Symeoni._]

The other is the device which the Aldi, celebrated printers of Venice,
from A.D. 1490 to 1563, assumed, of the dolphin and anchor, but which
Titus, son of Vespasian, had long before adopted, with the motto
“PROPERA TARDE,”[16] _Hasten slowly_: “_facendo_,” says Symeoni, “_vna
figura moderata della velocità di questo, e della grauezza di quell’
altra, nel modo che noi veggiamo dinanzi à i libri d’ Aldo_.”

But the heraldry of mankind is a boundless theme, and we might by simple
beat of drum heraldic collect almost a countless host of crests, badges,
and quarterings truly emblematical, and adopted and intended to point
out peculiarities or remarkable events and fancies in the histories of
the coat-armour families of the world.

The emblematism of bodily sign or action constitutes the language of the
dumb. An amusing instance occurs in the Abbé Blanchet’s “APOLOGUES
ORIENTAUX,” in his description of “_The Silent Academy, or the
Emblems_:”—

“There was at Hamadan, a city of Persia, a celebrated academy, of
which the first statute was conceived in these terms; _The academicians
shall think much, write little, and speak the very least that is
possible._ It was named _the silent Academy_; and there was not in
Persia any truly learned man who had not the ambition of being admitted
to it. Dr. Zeb, an imaginary person, author of an excellent little work,
THE GAG, learned, in the retirement of the province where he was born,
there was one place vacant in the silent Academy. He sets out
immediately; he arrives at Hamadan, and presenting himself at the door
of the hall where the academicians are assembled, he prays the servant
to give this billet to the president: _Dr. Zeb asks humbly the vacant
place._ The servant immediately executed the commission, but the Doctor
and his billet arrived too late,—the place was already filled.

“The Academy was deeply grieved at this disappointment; it had admitted,
a little against its wish, a wit from the court, whose lively light
eloquence formed the admiration of all _ruelles_.[17] The Academy saw
itself reduced to refuse Doctor Zeb, the scourge of praters, with a head
so well formed and so well furnished! The president, charged to announce
to the Doctor the disagreeable news, could scarcely bring himself to it,
and knew not how to do it. After having thought a little, he filled a
large cup with water, but so well filled it, that one drop more would
have made the liquid overflow; then he made sign that the candidate
should be introduced. He appeared with that simple and modest air which
almost always announces true merit. The president arose and, without
offering a single word, showed, with an appearance of deep sorrow, the
emblematic cup, this cup so exactly filled. The Doctor understood that
there was no more room in the Academy; but without losing courage, he
thought how to make it understood that one supernumerary academician
would disarrange nothing. He sees at his feet a roseleaf, he picks it
up, he places it gently on the surface of the water, and did it so well
that not a single drop escaped.

“At this ingenious answer everybody clapped hands; the rules were
allowed to sleep for this day, and Doctor Zeb was received by
acclamation. The register of the Academy was immediately presented to
him, where the new members must inscribe themselves. He then inscribed
himself in it; and there remained for him no more than to pronounce,
according to custom, a phrase of thanks. But as a truly silent
academician, Doctor Zeb returned thanks without saying a word. He wrote
in the margin the number 100,—it was that of his new brethren; then, by
putting a 0 before the figures, 0100, he wrote below, _they are worth
neither less nor more_. The president answered the modest Doctor with as
much politeness as presence of mind. He placed the figure 1 before the
number 100, _i.e._ 1100; and he wrote, _they will be worth eleven times
more_.”

The varieties in the Emblems which exist might be pursued from “the
bird, the mouse, the frog, and the four arrows,” which, the Father of
history tells us,[18] the Scythians sent to Darius, the invader of their
country,—through all the ingenious devices by which the initiated in
secret societies, whether political, social, or religious, seek to guard
their mysteries from general knowledge and observation,—until we come to
the flower-language of the affections, and learn to read, as Hindoo and
Persian maidens can, the telegrams of buds and blossoms,[19] and to
interpret the flashing of colours, either simple or combined. We should
have to name the Picture writing of the Mexicans, and to declare what
meanings lie concealed in the signs and imagery which adorn tomb and
monument,—or peradventure to set forth the art by which, on so simple a
material as the bark of a birch-tree, some Indians, on their journey,
emblematized a troop with attendants that had lost their way. “In the
party there was a military officer, a person whom the Indians understood
to be an attorney, and a mineralogist; eight were armed: when they
halted they made three encampments.” With their knives the Indians
traced these particulars on the bark by means of certain signs, or,
rather, hieroglyphical marks;—“a man with a sword,” they fashioned “for
the officer; another with a book for the lawyer, and a third with a
hammer for the mineralogist; three ascending columns of smoke denoted
the three encampments, and eight muskets the number of armed men.” So,
without paper or print, a not unintelligible memorial was left of the
company that were travelling together.

And so we come to the very Early Examples—if not the earliest—of
Emblematical Representation, as exhibited in fictile remains, in the
workmanship of the silversmith, and of those by whom the various metals
and precious stones have been wrought and moulded; and especially in the
numerous specimens of the skill or of the fancy which the glyptic and
other artizans of ancient Egypt have left for modern times.

For the nature of Fictile ornamentation it were sufficient to refer to
the recently published _Life of Josiah Wedgwood_;[20] but in the
_antefixæ_, or terra cotta ornaments, derived from the old Etruscan
civilisation, we possess true and literal Emblems. As the name implies,
these ornaments “were _fixed before the buildings_,” often on the
friezes “which they adorned,” and were fastened to them by leaden nails.
For examples, easy of access, we refer to the sketches supplied by James
Yates, Esq., of Highgate; to the _Dictionary of Gk. and Rom.
Antiquities_, p. 51; and especially to that antefixa which represents
Minerva superintending the construction of the ship Argo. The man with
the hammer and chisel is Argus, who built the vessel under her
direction. The pilot Tiphys is assisted by her in attaching the sail to
the yard. The borders at the top and bottom are in the Greek style, and
are extremely elegant.”

And the pressing of clay into a matrix or mould, from which the form is
taken, appears to be of very ancient date. The book of Job xxxviii. 14,
alludes to the practice in the words, “it is turned as clay to the
seal.” Of similar or of higher antiquity is “the work of an engraver in
stone, _like_ the engravings of a signet,” Exodus xxviii. 11. And “the
breastplate of judgment, the Urim and the Thummim,” v. 30, worn “upon
Aaron’s heart,” was probably a similar emblematical ornament to that
which Diodorus Siculus, in his _History_, bk. i. chap. 75, tells us was
put on by the president of the Egyptian courts of justice: “He bore
about his neck a golden chain, at which hung an image, set about, or
composed of precious stones, which was called TRUTH.”[21]

Among instances of emblematical workmanship by the silversmith and his
confabricators of similar crafts, we may name that shield of Achilles
which Homer so graphically describes,[22] “solid and large,” “decorated
with numerous figures of most skilful art;”—or the shields of Hercules
and of Æneas, with which Hesiod, _Eoeæ_, iv. 141–317, and Virgil,
_Æneid_, viii. 615–73, might make us familiar. Or to come to modern
times,—to days our very own,—there is the still more precious, the
matchless shield by Vehm, whereon, in most expressive imagery, are
hammered out the discoveries of Newton, Milton’s noble epics, and
Shakespeare’s dramatic wonders. We may, too, in passing, allude to the
richly-embossed and ornamented cups for which our swift racers and
grey-hounds, and those “dogs of war,” our volunteers, contend; and the
almost imperial pieces of plate, such as the Cæsars never beheld, in
which genius and the highest art combine, by their “cunning work,” to
carve the deeds and enhance the renown of some of our great Indian
administrators and illustrious generals; these all, truly “choice
emblemes,” intimate the extent to which our subject might lead. But I
forbear to pursue it, though scarcely any path offers greater
temptations for wandering abroad amid the marvels of human skill, and
for considering reverently and gladly how men have been “filled with the
spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in
all manner of workmanship.” Exodus xxxi. 3.

Of glyptic art the most ancient, as well as the most ample, remains are
found in the temples and the other monuments of Egypt. Various modern
explorers and writers have given very elaborate accounts of those
remains, and still are carrying on their researches; but of old writers
only Clemens, of Alexandria, who flourished “towards the end of the
second century after Christ,” “has left us a full and correct account of
the principle of the Egyptian writing,”[23] and has declared what the
subjects were which were included in the word hieroglyphics;[24] and as
far as is known, no other early author, except Horapollo of the Nile,
has written expressly on the Hieroglyphics of Egypt, and declared that
his work—which was probably translated into Greek in the reign of the
emperor Zeno, or even later—was derived from Egyptian sources; indeed,
was a book in the language of Egypt.

Probably the best account we have of the author and of the translator,
is given by Alexander Turner Cory, in the Preface to his edition of
Horapollo. He says, pp. viii. and ix.,—

“At the beginning of the fifth century, Horapollo, a scribe of the
Egyptian race, and a native of Phœnebythis, attempted to collect and
perpetuate in the volume before us, the then remaining, but fast fading
knowledge of the symbols inscribed upon the monuments, which attested
the ancient grandeur of his country. This compilation was originally
made in the Egyptian language; but a translation of it into Greek by
Philip has alone come down to us, and in a condition very far from
satisfactory. From the internal evidence of the work, we should judge
Philip to have lived a century or two later than Horapollo; and at a
time when every remnant of actual knowledge of the subject must have
vanished.”

However this may be, it is certainly a book of Emblems, and just
previous to Shakespeare’s age, and during its continuance was regarded
as a high authority. Within that time there were at least five editions
of the work,—and it was certainly the mine in which the writers of
Emblem books generally sought for what were to them valuable
suggestions. The edition we have used is the small octavo of 1551,[25]
with many woodcuts, imaginative indeed, but designed in accordance with
the original text. J. Mercier, a distinguished scholar, who died in
1562, was the editor. In 1547 he was professor of Hebrew at the Royal
College of Paris, and in 1548 edited the quarto edition of Horapollo’s
_Hieroglyphics_.

[Illustration: _Horapollo, 1551._]

From the edition of 1551, p. 52, we take a very popular illustration; it
is the Phœnix, and may serve to show the nature of Horapollo’s work.

“How,” he asks, “do the Egyptians represent a soul passing a long time
here?” “They paint a bird—the Phœnix; for of all creatures in the world
this bird has by far the longest life.”

Again, bk. i. 37, or p. 53, “How do they denote the man who after long
absence will return to his friends from abroad?” By the Phœnix; “for
this bird, after five hundred years, when the death hour is about to
seize it, returns to Egypt, and in Egypt, paying the debt of nature, is
burned with great solemnity. And whatever sacred rites the Egyptians
observe towards their other sacred animals, these they observe towards
the Phœnix.”

And bk. ii. 57,—“The lasting restoration which shall take place after
long ages, when they wish to signify it, they paint the bird Phœnix. For
when it is born this bird obtains the restoration of its properties. And
its birth is in this manner: the Phœnix being about to die, dashes
itself upon the ground, and receiving a wound, ichor flows from it, and
through the opening another Phœnix is born. And when its wings are
fledged, this other sets out with its father to the city of the Sun in
Egypt, and on arriving there, at the rising of the Sun, the parent dies;
and after the death of the father, the young one sets out again for its
own country. And the dead Phœnix do the priests of Egypt bury.”

But the drawings, which in the old editions of Horapollo were
fancy-made, have, through the researches of a succession of Egyptian
antiquaries, assumed reality, and may be appealed to for proof that
Horapollo described the very things which he had seen, though
occasionally he, or his translator Philip, attributes to them an
imaginative or highly mythical meaning. The results of those researches
we witness in the editions of Horapollo, first by the celebrated Dr.
Conrad Leemans, of Leyden, in 1835,[26] and second, by Alexander Turner
Cory, Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1840;[27] both of which
editions, by their illustrative plates, taken from correct drawings of
the originals, present Horapollo with an accuracy that could not have
been approached in the sixteenth century. We have indeed of that age the
great work of Pierius Valerian (ed. folio, Bâle, 1556, leaves 449), the
_Hieroglyphica_, dedicated to Cosmo de’ Medici, with almost innumerable
emblems, in fifty-eight books, and with about 365 devices. But it cannot
be regarded as an exposition of the Egyptian art, and labours under the
same defect as the early editions of Horapollo,—the illustrations are
not taken from existing monuments.

An example or two from Leemans and Cory will supply sufficient
information to enable the reader to understand something of the nature
of Horapollo’s work, and of the actual Hieroglyphics from which that
work has in great part been verified.

[Illustration: _Leemans’ Horapollo, 1835._]

The following is the 31st figure in the plates which Leemans gives; it
is the pictorial representation to explain “What the Egyptians mean when
they engrave or paint a star.”[28] “Would they signify the God who sets
in order the world, or destiny, or the number five, they paint a star;
God, indeed, because the providence of God, to which the motion of the
stars and of all the world is subject, determines the victory; for it
seems to them that, apart from God, nothing whatever could endure; and
destiny _they signify_, since this also is regulated by stellar
management,—and the number five, because out of the multitude which is
in heaven, five only, by motion originating from themselves, make
perfect the management of the world.”

[Illustration]

Of the three figures which are delineated above, the one to the left
hand symbolizes God, that in the middle destiny, and the third, the
number 5, from five rays being used to indicate a star.

The same subjects are thus represented in Cory’s Horapollo.

[Illustration: _Cory’s Horapollo, 1840._]

Cory’s Horapollo, bk. i. c. 8, p. 15, also illustrates the question,
“How do they indicate the soul?” by the accompanying symbols; of which
I. represents the mummy and the departing soul, II. the hawk found
sitting on the mummy, and III. the external mummy case. The answer to
the question is:—

“Moreover, the HAWK is put for the soul, from the signification of
its name; for among the Egyptians the hawk is called BAIETH: and this
name in decomposition signifies soul and heart; for the word BAI is the
soul, and ETH the heart: and the heart according to the Egyptians is the
shrine of the soul; so that in its composition the name signifies ‘soul
enshrined in heart.’ Whence also the hawk, from its correspondence with
the soul, never drinks water, but blood, by which, also, the soul is
sustained.”

And in a similar way many of the sacred engravings or drawings are
interpreted. A serpent with its tail covered by the rest of its body,
“depicts Eternity;”[29] “to denote an _only begotten_, or _generation_,
or a _father_, or the _world_, or a _man_, they delineate a
SCARABÆUS;”[30] a LION symbolises _intrepidity_,—its FOREPARTS,
_strength_, and its HEAD, _watchfulness_;[31] the STORK denotes _filial
affection_, the CRANE on the watch, a man on guard against his enemies,
and the FEATHER of an Ostrich, _impartial justice_,—for, adds the
author, “this animal, beyond other animals, has the wing feathers equal
on every side.”[32]

Christian Art, like the Religious Art of the world in general,—from the
_thou_ and _thee_ of simplest Quakerism, outward and audible sounds of
an inward and silent spirit, up to the profoundest mystic ritualism of
the Buddhist,—Christian Art abounds in Emblems; gems and colours,
genuflexions and other bodily postures supply them; they are gathered
from the mineral, animal, and vegetable kingdoms, and besides are
enriched from the whole domain of imaginary devices and creatures. Does
the emerald flash in its mild lustre?—it is of “victory and hope, of
immortality, of faith, and of reciprocal love,” that it gives forth
light. Is blue, the colour of heaven, worn in some religious
ceremony?—it betokens “piety, sincerity, godliness, contemplation,
expectation, love of heavenly things.” Do Christian men bare the head in
worship?—it is out of reverence for the living God, whose earthly
temples they have entered. The badge of St. John the Baptist, is a lamb
on a book,—that of St. John the Evangelist is a cup of gold with a
serpent issuing from it. The Pomegranate, “showing its fulness of seed
and now bursting,” typifies the hope of immortality;—and a Fleur-de-lys,
or the Rose of Sharon, embroidered or painted on a robe,—it marks the
Blessed Virgin. With more intricate symbolism the Greek Church
represents the Saviour’s name =ΙHϹΟΥϹ ΧΡΙϹΤΟϹ=.—IesuS CHristuS.
The first finger of the hand extended is for I, the second bent for =C=
or s, the thumb crossed upon the third finger for =Χ= or Ch, and the
fourth finger curved for =Ϲ= or s. Thus are given the initial and final
letters of that Holy Name, the Saviour, the Christ.[33]

Of early Emblems examples enough have now been given to indicate their
nature. Whether in closing this part of the subject we should name a
work of more ancient date even than the Greek version of Horapollo would
admit of doubt, were it not that every work partakes of an emblematical
character, when the descriptions given or the instances taken pertain,
as

Whitney says, “to vertue and instruction of life,” or “doe tende vnto
discipline, and morall preceptes of living.”

Under this rule we hesitate not to admit into the wide category of
Emblem writers, EPIPHANIUS, who was chosen bishop of Constantia in
Cyprus, A.D. 367, and who died in 402. His _Physiologist_, published
with his sermon on the Feast of Palms, is, like many writings of the
Fathers, remarkable for highly allegorical interpretations. An edition,
by Ponce de Leon, a Spaniard of Seville, was printed at Rome in 1587,
and repeated at Antwerp[34] in 1588. It relates to the real and
imaginary qualities of animals, and to certain precepts and doctrines of
which those qualities are supposed to be symbolical. As an example we
give here an extract from chapter XXV. p. 106, “_Concerning the Stork._”

[Illustration: _Epiphanius, 1588._]

The Stork is described as a bird of extreme purity; and as nourishing,
with wonderful affection, father and mother in their old age. The
“interpretation” or application of the fact is;—“So also it behoves us
to observe these two divine commands, that is to turn aside from evil
and to do good, as the kingly prophet wrote; and likewise in the
decalogue the Lord commands, thus saying;—Honour thy father and thy
mother.”

In a similar way the properties and habits of various animals,—of the
lion, the elephant, the stag, the eagle, the pelican, the partridge, the
peacock, &c., are adduced to enforce or symbolize virtues of the heart
and life, and to set forth the doctrines of the writer’s creed.

To illustrate the Emblem side of Christian Art a great variety of
information exists in _Sketches of the History of Christian Art_, by
Lord Lindsay (3 vols. 8vo: Murray, London, 1847); and Northcote and
Brownlow’s _Roma Sotterranea_, compiled from De Rossi (8vo: Longmans,
London, 1869) promises to supply many a symbol and type of a remote age
fully to set forth the same subject.

[Illustration: _Giovio, 1556._]

-----

Footnote 1:

See the _Olympica_, 12. 10: “σύμβολον πιστὸν ἀμφὶ πράξιος ἐσομένης.”
Also Æschylus, _Agamemnon_, 8: “καὶ νῦν φυλάΣΣΑ λαμπ/δος τὸ σύμβολον.”

Footnote 2:

_Syntagma De Symbolis_, &c., per Clavdivm Minoëm, Lvgdvni, M.DC.XIII.
p. 13: “Plerique sunt non satis acuti, qui Emblema cum Symbolo, cum
Ænigmate, cum Sententia, cum Adagio, temerè & imperitè confundunt.
Fatemur Emblematis quidem vim in symbolo sitam esse: sed differunt,
inquam, vt Homo & Animal: alterum enim hîc maximè generaliùs accipi,
specialiùs verò alterum norũt omnes qui aliquid indicii habeant.”

Footnote 3:

“LA VITA ET METAMORFOSEO:” “A Lione, per Giouanni di Tornes,” 8vo,
1559, pp. 2, 3.

Footnote 4:

... “θύρην δ’ ἔχε μοῦνος ἐπιβλὴς
Εἰλάτινος.”

Footnote 5:

... “σκῆπτρον δέ οἱ ἔμβαλε χερὶ
Κήρυξ Πεισήνωρ.”

Footnote 6:

... “Νῆας ἐνιπρῆσαι, ὅτε μὴ αὐτὸς γε Κρονίων
Ἐμβάλοι αἰθόμενον δαλὸν νήεσσι θοῇσιν.”

Footnote 7:

Philemon Holland names the work of art, “A broad goblet or standing
piece,”—_“with a device appendant to it,_ for to be set on and taken
off with a vice.”

Footnote 8:

Now the property of his grandson, Mr. Henry Yates Thompson, of
Thingwall, near Liverpool.

Footnote 9:

“Quidam . . . . scriptos eos (scilicet locos) memoriæque
diligentissime mandatos, inpromptu habuerent, ut quoties esset
occasio, extemporales eorum dictiones, his, velut Emblematibus
exornarentur.”—_Quint. Lib. 2, cap. 4._

Footnote 10:

So the note in illustration quotes from Gower, _Conf. Am_. f. 190,

“Upon _the gaudees_ all without
Was wryte of gold, _pur reposer_.”

Footnote 11:

See Smith’s _Dictionary of Gk. and Rom. Ant._, p. 377 _b_, article
EMBLEMA.

Footnote 12:

See the Author’s _Introductory Dissertation_, p. x, to the Fac-simile
Reprint of Whitney’s _Emblems_.

Footnote 13:

See Plate I., containing De Hooghe’s engraving, reproduced on a
smaller scale.

Footnote 14:

“_Il portar queste imprese fu costume antico_. GIO. _Non è punto da
dubitare, che gli antichi vsassero di portar Cimieri & ornamenti ne
gli elmetti e ne gli scudi: perche si vede chiaramẽte in Vergil, quãdo
fa il Catalago delli genti, che vẽnero in fauore di Turno contra i
Troiani, nell’ ottauo dell’ Eneida; Anfiarao ancora (come dice
Pindaro) alla guerra di Thebe porto vn dragone nello scudo. Statio
scriue similmente di Capaneo & di Polinice; che quelli portò l’ Hidra,
e queste la Sfinge,_” &c.

Footnote 15:

See Gabriel Symeon’s _Devises ov Emblemes Heroiqves et Morales_, ed. à
Lyon, 1561, pp. 218, 219, 220.

Footnote 16:

See Paolo Giovio’s _Dialogo_, p. 10, and Symeon’s _Devises Heroiques_,
p. 220. Also _Le Imprese del. S. Gab. Symeoni_, ed. in Lyone 1574;
from which, p. 175, the above device is figured.

Footnote 17:

_i.e._, the space left between one of the sides of a bed and the wall.
Employed figuratively, this word relates to a custom which has passed
away, when people betook themselves to the alcove or sleeping room of
their friends to enjoy the pleasure of conversation.

Footnote 18:

Herodotus, in the _Melpomene_, bk. iv. c. 131.

Footnote 19:

So in the autumn and winter which preceded Napoleon’s return from
Elba, the question was often asked in France by his adherents,—“Do you
like the violet?” and if the answer was,—“The violet will return in
the spring,” the answer became a sure revelation of attachment to the
Emperor’s cause. For full information on _Flower signs_ see Casimir
Magnat’s _Traité du Langage symbolique, emblématique et religieux des
Fleurs_. 8vo: A. Touzet, Paris, 1855. In illustration take the lines
from Dr. Donne, at one time secretary to the lord keeper Egerton:—

“I had not taught thee then the alphabet
Of flowers, how they devisefully being set
And bound up, might with speechless secresy
Deliver errands mutely and mutually.”—_Elegy_ 7.

Footnote 20:

See also “REAL MUSEO BORBONICO,” _Napoli Dalla Stamperia Reale_, 1824.
Vol. i. tavola viii. e ix. Avventura e Imprese di Ercoli. Vol. ii.
tav. xxviii. Dedalo e Icaro. Vol. iii. tav. xlvi. Vaso Italo-Greco
depinto. Vol. v. tav. li. Vaso Italo-Greco,—a very fine example of
emblem ornaments in the literal sense.

Footnote 21:

“Εφορει δ’ αυτος περι τον τραχηλον εκ χρυσης ἁλυσεως ηρτημενον ζωδιον
των πολυτελων λιθων, ὁ προσηγορευον ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑΝ.”

Footnote 22:

_Iliad_, xviii. 478, “Ποίει δὲ πρώτιστα σάκος μέγα τε στιβαρόντε,—”
” ” _ 482, “Ποίει δαίδαλα πολλὰ ἰδυίῃσι πραπίδεσσιν.”

Footnote 23:

See Kenrick’s _Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs_, vol. i. p. 291.

Footnote 24:

See the _Stromata_ of Clemens, vi. 633,—where we learn that it was the
duty of the Hierogrammateis, or Sacred Scribe, to gain a knowledge of
“what are named Hieroglyphics, which relate to cosmography, geography,
the action of the sun and moon, to the five planets, to the topography
of Egypt, and to the neighbourhood of the Nile, to a record of the
attire of the priests and of the estates belonging to them, and to
other things serviceable to the priests.”

Footnote 25:

“ORI APOLLINIS NILIACI, De Sacris notis et sculpturis libri duo,” &c.
“Parisiis: apud Jacobum Keruer, via Jacobæa, sub duobus Gallis,
M.D.LI.” Also, _Martin’s_ “Orus Apollo de Ægypte de la sygnification
des notes hieroglyphiques des Ægyptiens: Paris, Keruer, sm. 8vo,
1543.”

Footnote 26:

_Horapollinis Niloi Hieroglyphica_, 8vo, pp. xxxvi. and 446:
“Amstelodami, apud J. Muller et Socios, MDCCCXXXV.”

Footnote 27:

_The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Nilous_, sm. 8vo, pp. xii. and 174:
“London, William Pickering, MDCCCXL.”

Footnote 28:

Horapollo’s _Hieroglyphica_, by Conrad Leemans, bk. i. c. 13, p.
20:—Τί ἀστέρα γράφοντες δηλοῦσι. Θεὸν δέ ἐγκόσμιον σημαίνοντες, ἢ
εἰμαρμένην, ἢ τὸν πέντε ἀριθμὸν, ἀστέρα ζωγραφοῦσι· θεὸν μὲν, ἐπειδὴ
πρόνοια θεοῦ τῆν νίκην προστάσσει, ᾗ τῶν ἀστέρων καὶ τοῦ παντὸς κόσμου
κίνησις ἐκτελεῖται· δοκεῖ γὰρ αὐτοῖς δίχα θεοῦ, μηδὲν ὃλως συνεστάναι·
ἑιμαρμένην δέ, ἐπεὶ καὶ αὔτη ἐξ ἀστρικῆς οἰκονομίας συνίσταται· τὸν δὲ
πέντε ἀριθμὸν, ἐπειδὴ πλήθους ὂντος ἐν οὐρανῷ, πέντε μόνοι ἐξ αὐτῶν
κινούμενοι, τὴν τοῦ κὸσμου οἰκονομίαν ἐκτελοῦσι.

Footnote 29:

Horapollo, bk. i. c. 1.

Footnote 30:

Bk. i. c. 10.

Footnote 31:

Bk. i. c. 17–19.

Footnote 32:

Bk. ii. c. 58, 94, 118.

Footnote 33:

For a further and very interesting account of the Emblems of Christian
Art, reference may be made to a work full of information,—too brief it
may be for all that is desirable,—but to be relied on for its
accuracy, and to be imitated for its candid and charitable
spirit:—_Sacred Archæology_, by Mackenzie E.C. Walcott, B.D., 8vo, pp.
640: London, Reeve & Co. 1868.

Footnote 34:

“Ex Officina Christophori Plantini, Architypographi Regij, 1588.”

-----

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER II.
SKETCH OF EMBLEM-BOOK LITERATURE PREVIOUS
TO A.D. 1616.

SECTION I.
_EXTENT OF THE EMBLEM LITERATURE TO WHICH SHAKESPEARE MIGHT HAVE HAD ACCESS._

IN the use of the word Emblem there is seldom a strict adherence
observed to an exact definition,—so, when Emblem Literature is spoken
of, considerable latitude is taken and allowed as to the kind of works
which the terms shall embrace. In one sense every book which has a
picture set in it, or on it, is an emblem-book,—the diagrams in a
mathematical treatise or in an exposition of science, inasmuch as they
may be, and often are, detached from the text, are emblems; and when to
Tennyson’s exquisite poem of “ELAINE,” Gustave Doré conjoins those
wonderful drawings which are themselves poetic, he gives us a book of
emblems;—Tennyson is the one artist that out of the gold of his own soul
fashioned a vase incorruptible,—and Doré is that second artist who
placed about it ornaments of beauty, fashioned also out of the riches of
his mind.

Yet by universal consent, these and countless other works, scientific,
historical, poetic, and religious, which artistic skill has embellished,
are never regarded as emblematical in their character. The “picture and
short posie, expressing some particular conceit,” seem almost essential
for bringing any work within the province of the Emblem Literature;—but
the practical application of the test is conceived in a very liberal
spirit, so that while the small fish sail through, the shark and the
sea-dog rend the meshes to tatters.

A proverb or witty saying, as, in Don Sebastian Orozco’s “EMBLEMAS
MORALES” (Madrid 1610), “Divesqve miserqve,” _both rich and wretched_,
may be pictured by king Midas at the table where everything is turned to
gold, and may be set forth in an eight-lined stanza, to declare how the
master of millions was famishing though surrounded by abundance;—and
these things constitute the Emblem. Some scene from Bible History shall
be taken, as, in “~Les figures du vieil Testament, & du nouuel~”
(at Paris, about 1503), _Moses at the burning bush_; where are printed,
as if an Emblem text, the passage from Exodus iii. 2–4, and by its side
the portraits of David and Esaias; across the page is a triplet woodcut,
representing Moses at the bush, and Mary in the stable at Bethlehem with
Christ in the manger-cradle; various scrolls with sentences from the
Scriptures adorn the page:—such representations claim a place in the
Emblem Literature. Boissard’s _Theatrum Vitæ Humanæ_ (Metz, 1596) shall
mingle, in curious continuity, the Creation and Fall of Man, Ninus king
of the Assyrians, Pandora and Prometheus, the Gods of Egypt, the Death
of Seneca, Naboth and Jezabel, the Advent of Christ and the Last
Judgment;—yet they are all Emblems,—because each has a “picture and a
short posie” setting forth its “conceit.” To be sure there are some
pages of Latin prose serving to explain or confuse, as the case may be,
each particular imagination; but the text constitutes the emblem, and
however long and tedious the comment, it is from the text the
composition derives its name.

“~Stam und Wapenbuch hochs und niders Standts~,”—_A stem and
armorial Bearings-book of high and of low Station_,—printed at
Frankfort-on-Mayne, 1579, presents above 270 woodcuts of the badges,
shields and helmets, with appropriate symbols and rhymes, belonging as
well to the humblest who can claim to be “vom gutem Geschlecht,” _of
good race_, as to the Electoral Princes and to the Cæsarean Majesty of
the Holy Roman Empire. Most of the figures are illustrated by Latin and
German verses, and again “picture and short posie” vindicate the
title,—book of Emblems.

And of the same character is a most artistic work by Theodore de Bry,
lately added to the treasure-house at Keir; it is also a _Stam und
Wapenbuch_, issued at Frankfort in 1593, with ninety-four plates all
within most beautiful and elaborate borders. Its Latin title, _Emblema
Nobilitate et Vulgo scitu digna, &c._, declares that these Emblems are
“worthy to be known both by nobles and commons.”

And so when an Emperor is married, or the funeral rites of a Sovereign
Prince celebrated, or a new saint canonized, or perchance some proud
cardinal or noble to be glorified, whatever Art can accomplish by symbol
and song is devoted to the emblem-book pageantry,—and the graving tool
and the printing press accomplish as enduring and wide-spread a
splendour as even Titian’s Triumphs of Faith and Fame.

Devotion that seeks wisdom from the skies, and Satire that laughs at
follies upon the earth, both have claimed and used emblems as the
exponents of their aims and purposes.

_Plate 2_

[Illustration: _Christ’s adoption of the Human Soul @span 2: Otho Vænius
1615@_]

With what surpassing beauty and nobleness both of expression and of
sentiment does Otho Vænius in his “AMORIS DIVINI EMBLEMATA,” Antwerp,
1615, represent to the mind as well as to the eye the blessed Saviour’s
adoption of a human soul, and the effulgence of love with which it is
filled! (See Plate II.) They are indeed divine Images portrayed for us,
and the great word is added from the beloved disciple,—“Behold, what
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be
called the sons of God.” And the simple _Refrain_ follows,—

_“C’est par cet Amour que les hommes
Sont esleuez de ce bas lieu;
C’est par cet Amour que nous sommes
Enfans legitimes de Dieu:
Car l’Ame qui garde en la vie
De son Pere la volonté,
Doit au Pere ès cieux estre vnie
(Comme fille) en eternité.”_

And that clever imitation of the “~Stultifera Nauis~,” _the
Fool-freighted Ship_, of the fifteenth century, namely, the “CENTIFOLIUM
STULTORUM,” edition 1707, or _Hundred-leaved Book of Fools_ of the
eighteenth, proves how the Satirical may symbolize and fraternize with
the Emblematical. The title of the book alone is sufficient to show what
a vehicle for lashing men’s faults the device with its stanzas and
comment may be made; it is, “A hundred-leaved book of Fools, in Quarto;
or an hundred exquisite Fools newly warmed up, in Folio,—in an
Alapatrit-Pasty for the show-dish; with a hundred fine copper
engravings, for honest pleasure and useful pastime, intended as well for
frolicsome as for melancholy minds; enriched moreover with a delicate
sauce of many Natural Histories, gay Fables, short Discourses, and
edifying Moral Lessons.”

Among the one hundred _distinguished_ characters, we might select, were
it only in self-condemnation, the Glass and Porcelain dupe, the
Antiquity and Coin-hunting dupe, and especially the Book-collecting
dupe. These are among the best of the devices, and the stanzas, and the
expositions. Dupes of every kind, however, may find their reproof in the
six simple German lines,—p. 171,

~“Wer Narren offt viel predigen will,
Ben ihnen nicht wird schaffen viel:
Dann all’s was man am besten redt,
Der Narr zum ärgsten falsch versteht,
Ein Narr, ein Narr, bleibt ungelehrt,
Wann man ihn hundert Jahr schon lehrt.”~

meaning pretty nearly in our vernacular English,

“Whoso to fools will much and oft be preaching,
By them not much will make by all his teaching.
For though we of our very best be speaking,
Falsely the fool the very worst is seeking.
Therefore the fool, a fool untaught, remains,
Though five score years we give him all our pains.”

But Politics also have the bright, if not the dark, side of their nature
presented to the world in Emblems. Giulio Capaccio, Venetia, 1620,
derives “IL PRINCIPE,” _The Prince_, from the Emblems of Alciatus, “with
two hundred and more Political and Moral Admonitions,” “useful,” he
declares, “to every gentleman, by reason of its excellent knowledge of
the customs, economy, and government of States.” Jacobus à Bruck, of
Angermunt, in his “EMBLEMATA POLITICA,” A.D. 1618, briefly demonstrates
those things which concern government; but Don Diego Saavedra Faxardo,
who died in 1648, in a work of considerable repute,—“IDEA de vn Principe
Politico-Christiano, representada EN CIEN EMPRESAS,”—_Idea of a
Politic-Christian Prince, represented in one hundred Emblems_ (edition,
Valencia, 1655), so accompanies his Model Ruler from the cradle to
maturity as almost to make us think, that could we find the bee-bread on
which Kings should be nourished, it would be no more difficult a task
for a nation to fashion a perfect Emperor than it is for a hive to
educate their divine-right ruling Queen.

_Plate 3_

La Creatione & confuſuione
del Mondo, 1

[Illustration: _Creation, Symeoni 1559_]

Prima ch’ il gran futtor dell’ Vniuerſo
Con pietà gli poneſſe intorno mente,
Era cieco nel Mar l’ Aer ſommerſo,
Nel centro il Fuoco, e’l tutto era niente,
Ch’ ogni Elemento, di virtù diuerſo,
Non hauea luogo à lui conueniente:
Ma del verbo diuím l’amor profondo
D’ vn C A O S ordinò ſi bello il Mondo,

But, so great is the variety of subjects to which the illustrations from
Emblems are applied, that we shall content ourselves with mentioning one
more, taking out the arguments, as they are named, from celebrated
classic poets, and converting them into occasions for pictures and short
posies. Thus, like the dust of Alexander, the remains of the mighty
dead, of Homer and Virgil, of Ovid and Horace, have served the base uses
of Emblem-effervescence, and in nearly all the languages of Europe have
been forced to misrepresent the noble utterances of Greece and Rome.
Many of the pictures, however, are very beautiful, finely conceived, and
skilfully executed;—we blame not the artists, but the false taste which
must make little bits of verses where the originals existed as mighty
poems.

Generally it is considered that the Ovids of the fifteenth century were
without pictorial illustrations, and could not, therefore, be classed
among books of Emblems; but the Blandford Catalogue, p. 21, records an
edition, “Venetia, 1497,” “_cum figuris depictis_,”—with figures
portrayed. Without discussing the point, we will refer to an undoubted
emblematized edition of the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid, “Figurato &
abbreviato in forma d’Epigrammi da M. Gabriello Symeoni,”—_figured and
abbreviated in form of Epigrams by M. Gabriel Symeoni_. The volume is a
small 4to of 245 pages, of which 187 have each a title and device and
Italian stanza, the whole surrounded by a richly figured border. The
volume, dedicated to the celebrated “Diana di Poitiers, Dvchessa di
Valentinois,” was published “A Lione per Giouanni di Tornes nella via
Resina, 1559.” An Example, p. 13, (see Plate III.,) will show the
character of the work, of which another edition was issued in 1584. The
Italian stanzas are all of eight lines each, and the passages of the
original Latin on which they are founded are collected at the end of the
volume. Thus, for “La Creatione & confusione del Mondo,” the Latin lines
are,

“_Ante mare & terras & quod tegit omnia, cœlum.
. . . . . . . Nulli sua forma manebat.
Hanc Deus, & melior litem natura diremit._”

Of the devices several are very closely imitated in the woodcuts of
Reusner’s Emblems, published at Frankfort, in 1581. The engravings in
Symeoni’s Ovid are the work of Solomon Bernard, “the little Bernard,” a
celebrated artist born at Lyons in 1512; who also produced a set of
vignettes for a French translation of Virgil, _L’Eneide de Virgile,
Prince des Poetes latins_, printed at Lyons in 1560.

“QVINTI HORATII FLACCI EMBLEMATA,” as Otho Vænius names one of his
choicest works, first published in 1607, is a similar adaptation of a
classic author to the prevailing taste of the age for emblematical
representation. The volume is a very fine 4to of 214 pages, of which 103
are plates; and a corresponding 103 contain extracts from Horace and
other Latin authors, followed, in the edition of 1612, by stanzas in
Spanish, Italian, French and Flemish. An example of the execution of the
work will be found as a Photolith, Plate XVII., near the end of our
volume; it is the “VOLAT IRREVOCABILE TEMPUS,”—_Irrevocable time is
flying_,—so full of emblematical meaning.

From the office of the no less celebrated Crispin de Passe, at Utrecht,
in 1613, issued, in Latin and French verse, “SPECVLVM HEROICVM Principis
omnium temporum Poëtarum HOMERI,”—_The Heroic Mirror of Homer, the
Prince of the Poets of all times_. The various arguments of the
twenty-four books of the _Iliad_ have been taken and made the groundwork
of twenty-four Emblems, with their devices most admirably executed. The
Latin and French verses beneath each device unmistakeably impress a true
emblem-character on the work. The author, “le Sieur J. Hillaire,”
appends to the Emblems, pp. 69–75, “Epitaphs on the Heroes who perished
in the Trojan War,” and also “La course d’Vlisses, son tragitte retour,
& deffaicte des amans qui poursuivoient la chaste & vertueuse Penelope.”

What might not in this way be included within the wide-encompassing
grasp of the determined Emblematist it is almost impossible to say; and
therefore it ought to be no matter of surprise to find there is
practically a greater extent given to the Literature of Emblems than of
absolute right belongs to it. We shall not go much astray if we take
Custom for our guide, and keep to its decisions as recorded in the chief
catalogues of Emblem works.

[Illustration: _Horapollo, 1551._]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION II.
_EMBLEM WORKS AND EDITIONS DOWN TO THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY._

LEAVING for the most part out of view the discussions which have taken
place as to the exact time and the veritable originators of the arts of
printing by fixed or moveable types, and of the embellishing of books by
engravings on blocks of wood or plates of copper, we are yet—for the
full development of the condition and extent of the Emblem Literature in
the age of Shakespeare—required to notice the growth of that species of
ornamental device in books which depends upon Emblems for its force and
meaning. We say advisedly “ornamental device in books,” for infinite
almost are the applications of Symbol and Emblem to Architecture,
Sculpture, and Painting, as is testified by the Remains of Antiquity in
all parts of the world, by the Pagan tombs and Christian catacombs of
ancient Rome, by nearly every temple and church and stately building in
the empires of the earth, and especially in those wonderful creations of
human skill in which form and colour bring forth to sight nearly every
thought and fancy of our souls.

Long before either block-printing or type-printing was practised, it is
well known how extensively the limner’s art was employed “to
illuminate,” as it is called, the Manuscripts that were to be found in
the rich abbeys or convents, and in the mansions of the great and noble.
For instance, the devices in the _Dance of Macaber_, undoubtedly an
Emblem Manuscript of the fourteenth century, were of painter’s
workmanship, and afterwards employed by the wood-engravers to embellish
type-printed volumes of a devotional character. To this Brunet, in his
_Manuel du Libraire_, vol. v. c. 1557–1560, bears witness, when speaking
of the printer Philip Pigouchet, and of the bookseller Simon Vostre, who
“furent les premiers à Paris qui surent allier avec succès la gravure à
la typographie;” and adds in a note, “La plus ancienne édition de la
Danse macabre que citent les bibliographes est celle de Paris, 1484;
mais, plus d’un siècle avant cette date, des miniaturistes français
avaient déjà figuré, sur les marges de plusieurs Heures manuscrites, des
Danses de morts, représentées et disposées à peu près comme elles l’ont
été depuis dans les livres de Simon Vostre; c’est ce que nous avons pu
remarquer dans un magnifique manuscrit de la seconde moitié du
quatorzième siècle, enrichi de nombreuses et admirables miniatures qui,
après avoir été conservé en Angleterre dans le cabinet du docteur Mead,
à qui le roi Louis XV. en avait fait présent, est venu prendre place
parmi les curiosités de premier ordre réunies dans celui de M. Ambr.
Firmin Didot.”

_From Brunet, v. 1559._

A strictly emblematical work in English is the following, “from a finely
written and illuminated parchment roll, in perfect preservation, about
two yards and three quarters in length,” “~The Five Wounds of
Christ~.” “~By William Billyng~;” “Manchester: Printed by R.
and W. Dean, 4to, 1814.” The date is fixed by the editor, William
Bateman, “between the years 1400 and 1430;” and the poem contains about
120 lines, with six illuminated devices. We give here, on page 40, in
outline, the DEVICE of “_The Heart of Jesus the Well of everlasting
Lyfe_.”

[Illustration: _Five wounds of Christ, 1400–1430._]

There follows, as to each of the Emblems, a Prayer, or Invocation; the
Device in question has these lines,—

~“Hayle welle and cõdyte of eu̾lastyng lyffe
Thorow launced so ferre w^tyn my lordes syde
The flodys owt traylyng most aromatys
Hayle prious ♥ wounded so large and wyde
Hayle trusty treuloue our joy to provide
Hayle porte of glorie w^t paynes alle embrued
On alle I sprynglyde lyke purpul dew enhuede.”~

An Astronomical Manuscript in the Chetham Library, Manchester, the
eclipses in which are calculated from A.D. 1330 to A.D. 1462, contains
emblematical devices for the months of the year, and the signs of the
zodiac; these are painted medallions at the beginning of each month; and
to each of the months is attached a metrical line explanatory of the
device.

~Januarius.~ Ouer yis feer I warme myn handes.
~Februarius.~ Wyth yis spade I delve my londes.
~Martius.~ Here knitte I my vynes in springe.
~Aprilis.~ So merie I here yese foules singe.
~Mayus.~ I am as Joly as brid on bouz.
~Junius.~ Here wede I my corn, clene I houz.
~Julius.~ Wyth yis sythe my medis I mowe.
~Augustus.~ Here repe I my corn so lowe.
~September.~ Wyth ys flayll I yresche my bred.
~October.~ Here sowe I my Whete so reed.
~November.~ Wyth ys knyf I steke my swyn.
~December.~ Welcome cristemasse Wyth ale and Wyn.

This manuscript contains, as J. O. Halliwell says of it, “an
astrological volvelle—an instrument mentioned by Chaucer: it is the only
specimen, I believe, now remaining in which the steel stylus or index
has been preserved in its original state.”

Doubtless it is a copy of the _Kalendrier des Bergers_, which with the
_Compost des Bergers_, has in various forms been circulated in France
from the fourteenth century almost, if not quite, to the present day. An
edition in 4to, of 144 pages, printed at Troyes, in 1705, bears the
title, _Le Grand Calendrier et Compost des Bergers; composé par le
Berger de la grand Montagne_.

Kindred works issued from the presses of Venice, of Nuremberg, and of
Augsburg, between 1475 and 1478, in Latin, Italian, and German, and are
ascribed to John Muller, more known under the name of Regiomontanus, a
celebrated astronomer, born in 1436, at Koningshaven, in Franconia, and
who died at Rome in 1476. One of these editions, in folio, was printed
at Augsburg in 1476 by Erhard Ratdolt, being the first work he sent
forth after his establishment in that city. (See _Biog. Univ._, vol.
xxx. p. 381, and vol. xxxvii. p. 25.) But the most thoroughly
emblematical work from Ratdolt’s press was an “~Astrolabium planũ in
tabulis~,” “wrought out anew by John Angeli, master of liberal arts,
MCCCCLXXXVIII.” There are 414 woodcuts, and all of them emblematical.
The library at Keir contains a perfect copy, 4to, in most admirable
condition. Brunet, i. c. 290, names a Venice edition in 1494, and refers
to other astronomical works by the same author.

In its manuscript form, too, the celebrated “SPECULUM HUMANÆ
SALVATIONIS,” _Mirror of Human Salvation_, exhibits throughout the
emblem characteristics. Of this work, both as it exists in manuscript
and in the earliest printed form by Koster of Haarlem, about 1430,
specimens are given in “A History of the Art of Printing from its
invention to its wide spread developement in the middle of the sixteenth
century;” “by H. NOEL HUMPHREYS,” “with one hundred illustrations
produced in Photo-lithography;” folio: Quaritch, London, 1867. Pl. 8 of
Humphreys’ learned and magnificent volume exhibits “a page from a
manuscript copy of the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_, executed previous
to the printed edition attributed to Koster;” and pl. 10, “A page from
the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_ attributed to Koster of Haarlem, in
which the text is printed from moveable types.”

The inspection of these plates, and the assurance by Humphreys, p. 60,
that “the illustrations, though inferior to Koster’s woodcuts, are of
similar arrangement,” may satisfy us that the _Speculum Humanæ
Salvationis_, and all its kindred works, in German, Dutch, and French,
amounting to many editions previous to the year 1500,[35] are truly
books that belong to the Emblem literature. Thus pl. 8, “though without
the decorative Gothic framework which separates, and, at the same time,
binds together the double illustrations of the xylographic artist,”
exhibits to us the exact character of “the double pictures of the
_Speculum_.” “These double pictures,” p. 60 of Humphreys, “illustrate
first a passage in the New Testament, and secondly the corresponding
subject of the Old, of which it is the antitype. In the present page we
have Christ bearing His cross (Christus bajulat crucem) typified by
Isaac carrying the wood for his own sacrifice (Isaac portat ligna sua).”
“The engravings,” p. 58, “_i.e._, of Koster’s first great effort, occur
at the top of each leaf, and the rest of the page is filled with two
columns of text, which, in the supposed first edition, is composed of
Latin verse

(or, rather, Latin prose with rhymed terminations to the lines, as the
lines do not scan); and in later editions, in Dutch prose.” “This
specimen,” pl. 8, p. 60, “will enable the student to understand
precisely the kind of manuscript book which Koster reproduced in a
cheaper form by xylography, to which he eventually allied the still more
important invention of moveable types.”

From a very fine MS. copy of the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_,
belonging to Mr. Henry Yates Thompson, our fac-simile Plates IV. and V.,
though on a smaller scale, present the Title and the first Pair of
devices with their text. The work is in twenty-nine chapters, and to
each there are four devices in four columns, with appropriate
explanations in Latin verse, and at the foot of the columns are the
references to the Old or the New Testament.

The manuscript entitled “~De Volueribus, sive de tribus
Columbis~,”—_Concerning Birds, or the Three Doves_, in the library
“du Grand Seminaire,” at Bruges, is also an emblem-book. It is
excellently illuminated, and the workmanship is probably of the
thirteenth century. (See the Whitney Reprint, p. xxxii.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Plate 4_

[Illustration: _Title Page from a M.S.: “Speculum Humanæ Salvationis”_]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Plate 5_

[Illustration: _Leaf 31 from a M.S. “Speculum Humanæ Salvationis”_]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The illuminated _Missal_,[36] executed in 1425 for John, Duke of Bedford
and regent of France, according to the account published of it by
Richard Gough, 4to, London, 1794, and by others, abounds in emblem
devices. It contains “fifty-nine large miniatures, which nearly occupy
the page, and above a thousand small ones in circles of about an inch
and half diameter, displayed in brilliant borders of golden foliage,
with variegated flowers, &c. At the bottom of every page are two lines
in blue and gold letters, which explain the subject of each miniature.”
“The Missal,” says Dibdin, “frequently displays the arms of these noble
personages,” (John, Duke of Bedford, and of his wife Jane, daughter of
the Duke of Burgundy,) “and also affords a pleasing testimony of the
affectionate gallantry of the pair: the motto of the former being ‘A
VOUS ENTIER;’ that of the latter, ‘J’EN SUIS CONTENTE.’” Among its
ornaments are emblems or symbols of the twelve months, and a large
variety of paintings derived from the Sacred Scriptures, many of which
possess an emblematical meaning.

Not aiming at any exhaustive method in the information we gather and
impart respecting Emblem works and editions previous to the year A.D.
1500, we pass by the very numerous other instances in support of our
theme which a search into manuscripts would supply. The
“Block-Books,”[37] which, in the main, are especially emblematical, we
next consider. We select two instances as representative of the whole
set;—namely, the “BIBLIA PAUPERUM,” _Bibles of the Poor_, and the “ARS
MEMORANDI,” _The Art of Remembering_.

In his “BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DECAMERON,” vol. i. p. 160, Dibdin tells us,
“The earliest printed book, containing _text_ and _engravings_
illustrative of scriptural subjects, is called the _Histories of Joseph,
Daniel, Judith, and Esther_. This was executed in the German language,
and was printed by Pfister at Bamberg in 1462. It is among the rarest of
typographical curiosities in existence.” Dibdin’s dictum is considerably
modified, if not set aside, by Noel Humphreys; who, though affirming, p.
41, that “a late German edition of the _Biblia Pauperum_ has the date
1475, but that before that period editions had been printed at the
regular press with moveable types, as, for instance, that of Pfister,
printed at Bamberg in 1462,”—yet had previously declared, p. 39, “many
suppose that Laurens Koster, of Haarlem, who afterwards invented
moveable types, was one of the earliest engravers of Block-books, and
that in fact the _Biblia Pauperum_ was actually his work.” “The period
of its execution may probably be estimated as lying between 1410 and
1420: probably earlier, but certainly not later.”

The earliest editions of these _Biblia Pauperum_ contain forty leaves,
the later editions fifty, printed only on one side. Opposite to p. 40,
Noel Humphreys gives, pl. 2, “A Page from the Biblia Pauperum generally
supposed to be one of the earliest block-books.”

_Plate 6_

[Illustration: _A Page from the “Biblia Pauperum” generally supposed one
of the earliest Block Books_]

Availing ourselves of the Author’s remarks, p. 40, we yet prefer, on
account of some inaccuracies in his decyphering the Latin contractions,
giving our own description of this plate. The page is in _three_
divisions, all in the Gothic decorative style, with separating archways
between the subjects. In the _upper_ division, in the centre, are
seated, each in his niche, “Isaya” and “Dauid.” (See Plate VI.) In the
upper corners, on the right hand of the first, and on the left hand of
the second, are Latin inscriptions,—the former relating to Eve’s seed
bruising the serpent’s head, Genesis iii. c., and the latter to Gideon’s
fleece saturated with dew, Judges vi. c. The _middle_ compartment is a
triptych, consisting of Eve’s Temptation, the Annunciation by the Angel
to the Blessed Virgin; and Gideon in his armour, on his knees, with his
shield on the ground, watching the fleece. Over Eve’s Temptation there
is a scroll issuing from Isaiah’s niche, and having this inscription:
~“Ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium,”~—_Behold a virgin shall
conceive and bear a son_, Is. vii. 14; Eve stands near the tree of life,
emblematized by God the Father among the branches,—and erect before her
is the serpent, almost on the tip of its tail, with its body slightly
curved. In the Annunciation appears a ray of light breathed upon the
Virgin from God the Father seated in the clouds, and in the ray are the
dove, the emblem of the Holy Spirit, descending, and an infant Christ
bearing his cross; the Angel stands before Mary addressing to her the
salutation, “~Ave gratiâ plena, dominus tecum~,”—_Hail full of
grace, the Lord is with thee_, Luke i. 28; and Mary, seated with a book
on her knees, and her hands devoutly crossed on her breast, replies,
“~Ecce, ancilla domini, fiat mihi~,”—Behold, _the handmaid of the
Lord, be it unto me_, Luke i. 38. Of Gideon and the fleece little needs
be said, except that over him from the niche of David issues a scroll
with the words “~Descendet dominus sicut pluvia in vellus~,” in
the Latin Vulgate, Ps. lxxi. 6, _i.e. The Lord shall descend as rain
upon the fleece_; but in the English version, Ps. lxxii. 6, _He shall
come down like rain upon the mown grass_. The Angel also addressing
Gideon bears a scroll, not quite legible, but evidently meaning,
“~Dominus tecum virorum fortissime~,” Judges vi. 12,—English
version, _The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour_. The _lower_
compartment, like the upper, has in the centre two arched niches, which
contain, the one Ezekiel, the other Jeremiah; beneath Eve’s temptation
and Gideon’s omen are the alliterative and rhyming couplets

~“Vipera vim perdet,
Sine vi pariente puella.”~

and

~“Rore madet vellus
Permansit arida tellus;”~[38]

and beneath the Annunciation, “~Virgo salutatur, Innupta manens
gravidatur~.”

From Ezekiel’s niche issues the scroll, Ez. xliv. 2, “~Porta hæc
clausa erit, et non aperietur;~” and from Jeremiah’s, xxxi. 22,
“~Creavit dominus novum super terram, femina circumdabit virum.~”

It requires no argument to prove the emblematical nature of the _middle_
compartment of this page from the _Biblia Pauperum;_ and the texts on
scrolls are but the accessories to the devices, and serve only the more
clearly to mark this Block-book as an Emblem-book.

_Plate 7_

[Illustration: _S. John the Evangelist. 1st edition Block Book from the
Corser Collection._]

_Plate 8_

[Illustration: _A Page of the Apocalypse from Block Book in the Corser
Collection._]

Passing by similar Block-books, as _The Book of Canticles_, and _The
Apocalypse of St. John_, we will conclude the subject with a notice of
Humphreys’ pl. 5, following p. 42 of his text; it is “A Subject from the
Block-book entitled ‘Ars memorandi,’ executed probably at the beginning
of the fifteenth century.”

“The entire work,” we are informed, p. 42, “consists of the symbols of
the four evangelists, each occupying a page, and being most grotesquely
treated, the bull of St. Luke and the lion of St. Mark standing upright
on their hind legs. These symbols are surrounded with various objects,
calculated to recall the leading events in their respective Gospels.”

But the whole passage in explanation of the Plate is so much to our
purpose, that we ask pardon of the author for inserting it entire. He
says:—

“The page I have selected for reproduction is the fourth ‘image or
symbol’ of St. Matthew—the Angel. The objects grouped around are many of
them very curious, and, without the assistance of the accompanying
explanations, would certainly not serve to aid the memory of the modern
Biblical students. The symbolic Angel holds in the left hand objects
numbered 18, which by the explanation we learn to be the sun and moon,
accompanied by an unusual arrangement of stars and planets; intended to
recall the passage, ‘there were signs in the sun and moon’—_erant signa
in sole et luna_. I give the text of monkish explanation in MS. No. 19,
the clasped hands, represents marriage, in reference to the generations
of the Ancestors of Christ as enumerated by St. Matthew. No. 20, the
cockle shell and the bunch of grapes are emblems of travelling and
pilgrimage, and appear to represent the flight into Egypt; 21, the head
of an ass, is intended to recall the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem
riding on an ass; 22, a table, with bread-knife and drinking cup,
recalls the Last Supper (_Cæna magna_); and the accompanying symbol,
without a number, represents the census rendered to Cæsar.”[39]

With great kindness Mr. Corser, of Stand, offered me, in the spring of
1868, the use of a very choice Block-book, soon after sold for £415,
entitled _Historia S. Joan. Euangelist. per Figuras_, and which is, I
believe, the very copy from which Sotheby’s specimens of the work are
taken. Whether it be the “_editio princeps_,” as a former owner claimed
it to be, is doubted on merely conjectural grounds; but a most precious
copy it is, internally vindicating its claim to priority. The volume
measures 2.82 decimetres by 2.14; or 11 inches by 8.42. There are
forty-eight leaves, in perfect preservation, printed on one side. The
figures, all coloured, relate either to the traditions and legends of
the Evangelist, or to the visions of the Apocalypse, the former being
simply pictorial, the latter emblematical.

The two Plates uncoloured (Plate VII. and Plate VIII.) very clearly show
the difference between the mere drawing and the device. The pictures of
the Evangelist preaching, of Drusiana being baptized, and of the search
after John, have no meaning beyond the historical or legendary
event;—but the two wings of an eagle given to the woman, of the angel
flying with a book above the tree of life, of the dragon persecuting the
woman, and of the mother-church passing into the desert: these have a
meaning beyond that of the figures delineated;—they are emblematical of
hidden truths;—so are all the other plates of this Block-book which
represent the visions of the Apocalypse. The date is probably 1420 to
1425.

The Bodleian Library at Oxford is very rich in this particular
Block-book, possessing no fewer than _three_ copies of the _History of
S. John the Evangelist_. Among its treasures, however, is a MS. on the
same subject, worth them all by reason of its beauty and exquisite
finish, which the Block-books certainly do not claim. This MS., on fine
vellum and finely drawn and illuminated, is said to have been written in
the twelfth century, and to have belonged to Henry II.

But the printing with moveable types is firmly established, and
Emblem-books are among its earliest productions. At Bamberg, a city on
the Regnitz, near its influx into the Main, the first purely German book
was printed in 1461, by the same Pfister who published an edition of the
_Biblia Pauperum_, and who probably learned his art at Mayence with
Guttenberg himself. The work in question was a Collection of eighty-five
Fables in German, with 101 vignettes cut on wood, each accompanied by a
German text of rhyming verses. The first device, says Brunet, vol. i. p.
1096, represents three apes and a tree, and the verses begin with—

“Once on a time came an ape (_gerãt_) upright.”

The colophon, or subscription, at the end informs us,

“At Bamberg this little book ended is
After the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ,
When one counts a thousand four hundred year,
And to it, as truth, one and sixty more,
On the day of holy Valentine;
God shield us from the wrath divine. Amen.”

The fables were collected by Ulric Boner, a Dominican friar of Bonn, in
the thirteenth or at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Their
chief value is that they present the most precious remains of the
Minnesingers, or German Troubadours, and possess much grace, and “une
moralité piquante.” See _Biographie Universelle_, vol. v. pp. 97, 98:
Paris, 1812; and vol. xxxiii. p. 584: Paris, 1823.

Of Æsop’s _Fables_ in Greek, the Milan edition, about A.D. 1480, was the
earliest. There had been Latin versions, previously at Rome in 1473, at
Bologna and Antwerp in 1486, and elsewhere. The German translation
appeared in 1473, the Italian in 1479, the French and the English in
1484, and the Spanish in 1489. Besides these there were at least thirty
other editions previous to the year 1500.

It has been doubted if Fables should be classed among the Emblem
Literature,—but whether _nude_, as other emblems have been named when
unclothed in the ornaments of wood or copper engravings, or _adorned_
with richly embellished devices, they are, as Whitney would name them,
_naturally_ emblematical. Apart from whatever artistic skill can effect
for them, they have in themselves meanings to be evolved different from
those which the words convey. The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass are not
simply names for the veritable animals, but emblems of different
characters and qualities among the human race; they symbolize moral
sentiments and actions, and when we add the figures of the creatures,
though we may make pleasing and significant pictures, we do little for
the real development of the emblems.

Books of Fables, however, are so numerous that they and their editors
may be counted by hundreds; and as Dibdin intimates, the Bibliomaniac
who had gathered up all the editions of Æsop in nearly all the languages
of the civilized world, would have formed a very considerable library.
Only on a few occasions therefore shall we make mention of books of
Fables in our present inquiries.

We shall not however pass unnoticed, since it belongs especially to this
period, the “~Dyalogus Creaturarum~,” or, _Dialogues of the
Creatures_, a collection of Latin Fables, attributed in the fourteenth
century to Nicolas Pergaminus, first printed at Gouda in Holland by
Gerard Leeu in 1480, and at Stockholm by John Snell in 1483. (See
Brunet, vol. ii. p. 674.) A French version, by Colard Mansion, was
issued at Lyons in 1482, _Dialogue des Creatures moralizie_; and an
English version, about 1520, by J. Rastall, “Powly’s Churche,” London,
namely, “The Dialogue of Creatures moralyzed, of late translated out of
latyn in to our English tonge.”

[Illustration: _Dyalogus Creat., ed. 1480._]

There were various editions and modifications of the work,[40] but
perhaps the contrast between them cannot be better pointed out than by
selecting the Fable of the Wolf and the Ass from the Gouda edition of
1480, and also from the Antwerp edition of 1584. The original edition,
with the woodcut on the next page in mere outline, tells in simple Latin
prose how a wolf and an ass were sawing a log of wood together. From
good nature the ass worked up above, the wolf through maliciousness down
below, desiring to find an opportunity for devouring the ass; therefore
he complained that the ass was sending the sawdust into his eyes. The
ass replied, “It is not I who am doing this,—I only guide the saw. If
you wish to saw up above I am content,—I will work faithfully down
below.” And so they talked on, until the wolf threatening revenge drew
back, and the fissure in the beam being suddenly widened, the wedge fell
upon the wolf’s head, and the wolf himself was killed.

The Antwerp edition of 1584[41] changes the simple Latin prose into the
elegant Latin elegiacs of John Moerman, and the outline woodcuts of an
unknown artist into the copperplate engravings of Gerard de Jode, the
eldest of four generations of engravers. THE WOLF and THE ASS are made
to emblematize, “scelesti hominis imago et exitus,”—_the image and end
of a wicked man_. Moerman’s Latin may thus be rendered, from leaf 54,
ed. 1584:—

“The Wolf and careless Ass a treaty made,
Both studious with a saw a beam to rive;—
The ready Ass above directs the blade,
The Wolf doth down below deceit contrive.
He seeks for cause the wretched Ass to slay,
And cries,—‘With sawdust much thou troublest me,—
The trouble check, or with these teeth, I say,
My spoil to be devoured thou straight shalt be.’
To this the Ass,—‘Friend Wolf, be not annoyed;
Guileless the saw I guide with might and main.’
But soon the long-eared brute would be destroyed,
When falls the wedge;—ah! ’tis the Wolf is slain.”

[Illustration: _Apologi Creaturarum_, 1584.]

MORAL.

“Insonti qui insidias struit, ipse perit.”

“Who for the innocent spreads snares,
Himself shall perish unawares.”

“_The wicked man his nets doth spread
The innocent to take the while;
But who would harm his brother’s head
Doth perish from his selfish guile.
God will not deem him innocent,
Nor raise him to the stars above,
Who on unrighteous thoughts is bent,
Or neighbours serves with feigned love.
But after death to the fiery marsh
Of Phlegethon shall he be hurled,
Where Tartaræan Pluto harsh
With hated sceptres rules a world_.”

As in the Blandford Catalogue, it has been usual to count among
Emblem-books the “ECATONPHYLA,” printed at Venice in 1491. The French
translation of 1536 describes the title as, “signifiãt centiesme amour,
sciemment appropriees a la dame ayãt en elle autant damour que cent
aultres dames en pouroient comprendre,” _signifying a hundredth love,
knowingly appropriated to the lady having in her as much love as a
hundred other ladies could possibly comprehend_. (Brunet’s _Manuel_, i.
c. 131, 132.) The author of this work, of which there are several
editions, was the celebrated Italian architect, Leoni-Baptista Alberti,
born of a noble family of Florence in 1398, and living as some suppose
up to 1480. He was a universal scholar, a doctor of laws, a priest, a
painter, and a good mechanic.

We are inclined to ask whether _Gli Trionfi del Petrarcha_, printed at
Bologna in 1475,—especially, when as in the Venice editions of 1500 and
1523 they were adorned by the vignettes and wood engravings of Zoan
Andrea Veneziano,—whether these “Triumphs of Love, Chastity, and Death”
may not, from their highly allegorical character, be included among the
Emblem-books of this age?[42] The same question we might ask respecting
“~Das Heldenbuch~,”—_The Book of Heroes_,—printed at Augsburg, in
1477, by Gunther Zainer, who had first been a printer at Cracow about
1465; and also concerning the “~Libri Cronicarum cũ figuris et
imaginibus ab inicio mũdi~,” a large folio known as the _Chronicles
of Nuremberg_, which with its 2000 fine wood engravings, attributed to
Michael Wohlgemuth, was published in that city in 1493.[43]

The original “~Todtentanz~,” or _Dance of Death_, painted as a
memorial of the plague which raged during the Council of Bâle, held
between 1431 and 1446 (Bryan, p. 335), certainly was not the work of
either of the Holbeins. There are several representations of a
Death-dance in the fifteenth century, between 1485 and 1496 (Brunet, v.
873, 874); and there can be little doubt of their emblematical
character. The renowned _Dance of Death_ by Hans Holbein the younger we
will reserve for its proper place in the next section.

We must not however leave unmentioned _The Dance of Macaber_, especially
as it is presented to us in an English form by John Lydgate, a monk of
the Benedictine abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, who was born about 1375, and
attained his greatest eminence about 1430. His own power for supplying
the materials for an Emblem-device we observe in the lines on “_God’s
Providence_.”

“God hath a thousand handés to chastise;
A thousand dartés of punicion;
A thousand bowés made in divers wise;
A thousand arlblasts bent in his dongèon.”

For an account of Lydgate’s _Dance of Macaber_, and indeed for his
version in English, we should do well to consult the remarks by Francis
Douce, in Wenceslaus Hollar’s _Dance of Death_, published about the year
1790, and more particularly the remarks in Douce’s Dissertation, edition
1833.

_Plate 9_

~Stultifera Nauis.~

~Narragonice profectionis nunquam satis laudata Nauis: per Sebastianũ
Brant: vernaculo vulgarique sermone & rhythmo / pro cũctorum mortaliũ
fatuitatis semitas effugere cupiẽtiũ directione / speculo / cõmodoque &
salute: proque inertis ignaue̦que stultitie̦ perpetua infamia /
execratione / & confutatione / nuper fabricata: Atque iam pridem per
Iacobum Locher / cognomẽto Philomusum: Sue̦uũ: in latinũ traducta
eloquiũ: & per Sebastianũ Brant denuo seduloque reuisa / & noua quadã
exactaque emendatõe elimata: atque superadditis quibusdã nouis /
admirãdisque fatuorum generibus suppleta: fœlĩci exorditur
principio.~

_~.1497.
Nihil sine causa.
Io.de.Olpe.~_

[Illustration: _Title of Brandts Stultifera Navis edition, 1497._]

The earliest known edition of _La Danse Macabre_, originally composed in
German, is dated at Paris, 1484, but before the completion of the
century there were seven or eight other reprints, some with alterations
and others with additions. It was a most popular work, issued at least
eight or ten times during the sixteenth century, and still exciting
interest.[44] At p. 39 may be seen copies of some of the devices as used
by Verard.

The chief Emblem deviser and writer towards the end of the century was
Sebastian Brandt, born at Strasburg in 1458, and after a life of great
usefulness and honour dying at Bâle in 1520. The publication in German
Iambic verse of his “~Narren Schyff~,” Bâle, Nuremberg,
Rüttlingen, and Augsburg, A.D. 1494, forms quite an epoch in Emblem-book
literature. Previous to A.D. 1500, _Locher_, crowned poet laureate by
the Emperor Maximilian I., translated the German into Latin verse, with
the title “~Stultifera Nauis~” (see Plate IX.); _Riviere_ of
Poitiers, the Latin into French verse, “~La Nef des Folz du
Monde~;” and _Droyn_ of Amiens, into French prose, “~La grãt Nef
des Folz du Monde~.” Early in the next century, 1504, or even in
1500, there was a Flemish version; and in 1509 two English
versions,—_one_ translated out of French, “THE SHYPPE OF FOOLES,” by
Henry Watson, and printed by “Wynkyn de Worde, MCCCCCIX.” (see Dibdin’s
_Tour_, ii. p. 103); _the other_,—“STULTIFERA NAUIS,” or “~The Shyp
of Folys of the Worlde~;” “Inprentyd in the Cyte of London, by
Richard Pynson, M.D.IX.” (Dibdin’s _Typ. Ant._ ii. p. 431.) This latter
was “_translated out of Latin, French, and Duch into Englishe_, by
Alexander Barclay, _Priest_;” and reprinted in 1570, during
Shakespeare’s childhood by the “Printer to the Queenes Maiestie.” At the
same time, 1570, another work by Barclay was published, which, although
without devices, partakes of an allegorical or even of an emblematical
character; it is _The Mirrour of good Maners_; “conteining the foure
Cardinal Vertues.”

Dibdin, in his _Bibliographical Antiquarian_, iii. p. 101, mentions “a
pretty little volume—‘as fresh as a daisy,’ the _Hortulus Rosarum de
Valle Lachrymarum_, ‘A little Garden of Roses from the Valley of Tears’
(to which a Latin ode by S. Brandt is prefixed), printed by J. de Olpe
in 1499,”—but he gives no intimation of its character; conjecturing from
its title and from the woodcuts with which it is adorned, it will
probably on further inquiry be found to bear an emblematical meaning.

Dibdin also, in the same work, iii. p. 294, names “a German version of
the ‘HORTULUS ANIMÆ’ of S. Brant,” in manuscript; “undoubtedly,” he
says, “among the loveliest books in the Imperial Library.” The Latin
edition was printed at Strasburg in 1498, and is ornamented with figures
on wood; many of these are mere pictures, without any symbolical
meaning,—but it often is the case that the illuminated manuscripts,
especially if devotional, and the early printed books of every kind that
have pictorial illustrations in them, present various examples of
symbolical and emblematical devices.

The last works we shall name of the period antecedent to A.D. 1501, are
due to the industry and skill of John Sicile, herald at arms to Alphonso
King of Aragon, who died in 1458. Sicile, it seems, prepared two
manuscripts, _one_ the Blazonry of Arms,—the _other_, the Blazonry of
Colours. Of the former there was an edition printed at Paris in 1495,
_Le_ BLASON _de toutes Armes et Ecutz_, &c.—and of the latter at Lyons
early in the sixteenth century, _Le Blason des Couleurs en Armes,
Liurees et deuises_. Within an hundred years, ending with 1595, above
sixteen editions of the two works were issued.

Several other authors there are belonging to the period of which we
treat,—but enough have been named to show to what an extent Emblem
devices and Emblem-books had been adopted, and with what an impetus the
invention of moveable types and greater skill in engraving had acted to
multiply the departments of the Emblem Literature. It was an impetus
which gathered new strength in its course, and which, previous to
Shakespeare’s youth and maturity, had made an entrance into almost every
European nation. Already in 1500, from Sweden to Italy and from Poland
to Spain, the touch was felt which was to awaken nearly every city to
the west of Constantinople, to share in the supposed honours of adding
to the number of Emblem volumes.

[Illustration: _Picta Poesis, 1552._]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION III.
_OTHER EMBLEM WORKS AND EDITIONS BETWEEN A.D. 1500 AND 1564._

LABORIOUS in some degree is the enterprise which the title of this
Section will indicate before it shall be ended. Perchance we shall have
no myths to perplex us, but the demands of sober history are often more
inexorable than those flexible boundaries within which the imagination
may disport amid facts and fictions.

Better, as I trust, to set this period of _sixty-three_ years before the
mind, it may be well to take it in three divisions: 1st, the twenty-one
years before Alciatus appeared, to conquer for himself a kingdom, and to
reign king of Emblematists for about a century and a half; 2nd, the
twenty-one years from the appearance of the first edition of Alciat’s
_Emblems_ in 1522 at Milan, until Hans Holbein the younger had
introduced the _Images and Epigrams of Death_, and La Perriere and
Corrozet, the one his _Theatre of good Contrivances in one hundred
Emblems_, and the other his _Hecatomgraphie_, or descriptions of one
hundred figures; 3rd, the twenty-one years up to Shakespeare’s birth,
distinguished towards its close chiefly by the Italian writers on
_Imprese_, Paolo Giovio, Vincenzo Cartari, Girolamo Ruscelli, and
Gabriel Symeoni.

~Stulte̦ gustationis scapha.~

[Illustration: _Badius_, 1502.]

I.—_A Fool-freighted Ship_ was the title of almost the last book of the
fifteenth century,—by a similar title is the Emblem-book called which
was launched at the beginning of the sixteenth century; it is,
“~Jodoci Badii ascē~sii Stultifere̦ nauicule̦ seu scaphe̦
Fatuarum mulierum: circa sensus quinq̃ exteriores fraude
nauigantium,”—_The Fool-freighted little ships of Josse Badius
ascensius, or the skiffs of Silly women in delusion sailing about the
five outward senses_,—“printed by honest John Prusz, a citizen of
Strasburg, in the year of Salvation M.CCCCC.II.” There was an earlier
edition in 1500,—but almost exactly the same. From that before us we
give a specimen of the work, _The Skiff of Foolish Tasting_. A discourse
follows, with quotations from Aulus Gellius, Saint Jerome, Virgil,
Ezekiel, Epicurus, Seneca, Horace, and Juvenal; and the discourse is
crowned by twenty-four lines of Latin elegiacs, entitled “~Celeusma
Gustationis fatue̦~,”—_The Oarsman’s cry for silly Tasting_,—thus
exhorting—

“Slothful chieftains of the gullet!
Offspring of Sardanapálus!
In sweet sleep no longer lull it,—
Rouse ye, lest good cheer should fail us.
Gentle winds to pleasures calling
Waft to regions soft and slow;
On a thousand dishes falling,
How our palates burn and glow!
Suppers of Lucillus name not,
Ancient faith! nor plate of veal;
Ancient faith to luncheon came not
Crowned with flowers that age conceal.
Let none boast of pontiff’s dishes,—
Nor Mars’ priests their suppers spread;
Alban banquets bless our wishes,—
Cæsar’s garlands deck our head.
Now the dish of Æsop yielding,
Apicius all his luxuries pours;
And Ptolomies the sceptres wielding
Richest viands give in showers.”

And so on, until in the concluding stanza Badius declares—

“If great Jove himself invited
At our feasting takes his seat,
Jove would say, ‘I am delighted,
Not in heaven have I such meat.’
Therefore, stupids! what of summer
Enters now our pinnace gay,—
Onward in three hours ’twill bear us
Where kingdoms blessed bid us stay.”[45]

The same work was published in another form, “La nef des folles, selon
les cinq sens de nature, composé selon levangile de monseigneur saint
Mathieu, des cinq vierges qui ne prindrent point duylle avec eulx pour
mectre en leurs lampes:” Paris 4to, about 1501.

Of Badius himself, born in 1462 and dying in 1535, it is to be said that
he was a man of very considerable learning, professor of “belles
lettres” at Lyons from 1491 to 1511, when he was tempted to settle in
Paris. There he established the famous Ascensian Printing Press,—and
like Plantin of Antwerp, gave his three daughters in marriage to three
very celebrated printers: Michel Vascosan, Robert Etienne, and Jean de
Poigny. He was the author of several works besides those that have been
mentioned. (_Biog. Univ._ vol. iii. p. 201.)

Symphorien Champier, Doctor in Theology and Medicine, a native of Lyons,
who was physician to Anthony Duke of Lorraine when he accompanied Louis
XII. to the Italian war, graduated at Pavia in 1515, and, after laying
the foundations of the Lyons College of Physicians, and enjoying the
highest honours of his native city, died about 1540. (Aikin’s _Biog._
ii. 579.) His medical and other works are of little repute, but among
them are two or three which may be regarded as imitations of
Emblem-books. We will just name,—Balsat’s work with Champier’s
additions, _La Nef des Princes et des Batailles de Noblesse, &c._
(Lyons, 4to goth. with woodcuts, A.D. 1502.); also, _La Nef des Dames
vertueuses cōposee par Maistre Simphoriē Champier, &c._ (Lyons, 4to
goth. with woodcuts, A.D. 1503.)

“Bible figures,” too, again have a claim to notice. A very fine copy of
“~Les figures du vieil Testament, & du nouuel~,” which belonged
to the Rev. T. Corser, Rector of Stand, near Manchester, supplies the
opportunity of noticing that it is decidedly an Emblem work. It is a
folio, of 100 leaves, containing forty-one plates, of which one is
introductory, and forty are on Scriptural subjects, unarranged in order
either of time or place. The work was published in Paris in 1503 by
Anthoine Verard, and is certainly, as Brunet declares, ii. c. 1254, “une
imitation de l’ouvrage connu sous le nom de _Biblia Pauperum_.” There
are forty sets of figures in triptychs, the wood engravings being very
bold and good. Each is preceded or followed by a French stanza of eight
lines, declaring the subject; and has appended two or three pages of
Exposition, also in French. The Device pages, each in three
compartments, are in Latin, and may thus be described. At the top to the
left hand, a quotation from the Vulgate appropriate to the pictorial
representation beneath it; in the centre two niches, of which David
always occupies one, and some writer of the Old Testament the other, a
scroll issuing from each niche. The middle compartment is filled by a
triptych, the centre subject from the New Testament, the right and left
from the Old. At the bottom are Latin verses to the right and left, with
two niches in the centre occupied by biblical writers. The Latin verses
are rhyming couplets, as on fol. a. iiij, beneath Moses at the burning
bush, “~Lucet et ignescit, sed non rubus igne calescit~,”—_It
shines and flames, but the bush is not heated by the fire_. In triptych,
on p. i. _rev._ are, Enoch’s Translation, Christ’s Ascension, and the
Translation of Elijah.

The Aldine press at Venice, A.D. 1505, gave the world the first printed
edition of the “HIEROGLYPHICA” of Horapollo. It was in folio, having in
the same volume the Fables of Æsop, of Gabrias, &c. See Leemans’
_Horapollo_, pp. xxix-xxxv. A Latin version by Bernard Trebatius was
published at Augsburg in 1515, at Bale in 1518, and at Paris in 1521;
and another Latin version by Phil. Phasianinus, at Bologna in 1517.
Previous to Shakespeare’s birth there were translations into French in
1543, into Italian in 1548, and into German in 1554,—and down to 1616
sixteen other editions may readily be counted up.

John Haller, who had introduced printing into Cracow in 1500, published
in 1507 the first attempt to teach logic by means of a game of cards; it
was in Murner’s quarto entitled, “CHARTILUDIUM logice̦ seu Logica
poetica vel memorativa cum jocundo Pictasmatis Exercimento,”—_A
Card-game of Logic, or Logic poetical or memorial, with the pleasant
Exercise of pictured Representation_. It is a curious and ingenious
work, and reprints of it appeared at Strasburg in 1509 and 1518; at
Paris, by Balesdens, in 1629; and again in 1650, 4to, by Peter Guischet.
As an imitation of Brandt’s _Ship of Fools_, so far as it relates to the
follies and caprices of mankind, mention should also be made of Murner’s
“~Narren Beschwo^erung~,”—_Exorcism of Fools_,—Strasburg, 4to,
1512 and 1518; which certainly at Francfort, in 1620, gave origin to
Flitner’s “NEBVLO NEBVLONVM,”—or, _Rascal of Rascals_.

“~Speculū Paciētierum~ theologycis Consolationibus Fratris
Ioannis de Tambaco,”—_The Mirror of Patience with the theological
Consolations of Brother John Tambaco_,—Nuremberg, MCCCCCIX., 4to, is a
work of much curiousness. On the reverse of the title is an Emblematical
device of Job, Job’s wife, and the Devil, followed by exhortations to
patience; and on the reverse of the introduction to the second part,
also an Emblematical device,—the Queen of Consolation, with her four
maidens by her side, and two men kneeling before her. The chapters on
consolation are generally in the form of _sermonettes_, in which the
maidens, three or four, or even a dozen, expatiate on different subjects
proper for reproof, exhortation, and comfort. The devices in this volume
are understood to be from the pencil of Albert Durer.

This same year, 1509, witnessed two English translations, or
paraphrases, of Brandt’s “~Narren Schif~,”—the one _The Shyppe of
Fooles_, taken from the French by Henry Watson, and printed by De
Worde;—the other rendered out of Latin, German, and French, _The Ship of
Fooles_, by Alexander Barclay, and printed by Pinson. Of Watson little,
if anything, is known, but Barclay is regarded as one of the improvers
of the English tongue, and to him it is chiefly owing that a true
Emblem-book was made popular in England.

Of the “~Dyalogus Creaturarum~,” written in the fourteenth
century by Nicolas Pergaminus, and printed by Gerard Leeu, at Gouda, in
1480, an English version appeared about 1520,—“The dialogue of Creatures
moralyzed, of late translated out of Latyn in to our English tonge.”

The famous preacher and the founder of the first public school in
Strasburg was John Geyler, born in 1445. He was highly esteemed by the
Emperor Maximilian, and after a ministry of about thirty years, died
in 1510. Two Emblem-books were left by him, both published in 1511 by
James Other;—the one “~Navicula sive Speculũ Fatuorum~,”—_The
little Ship or Mirror of Fools_; the other, “~Navicula
Penitentie~,”—_The little Ship of Penitence_. To the first there
are 110 emblems and 112 devices, each having a discourse delivered on
one of the Sabbaths or festivals of the Catholic Church—the text
always being, _Stultorum infinitus est_,—“Infinite is the number of
fools.” The second, not strictly an Emblem-book, is devoted “to the
praise of God and the salvation of souls in Strasburg,” and consists
really of a series of sermons for Lent and other seasons of the year,
but all having the same text, _Ecce ascendimus Hierosolimam_,—“Behold
we go up to Jerusalem.” There were several reprints of both the works,
and two German translations; and the edition of 1520, folio, with wood
engravings, is remarkable for being the first book to which was
granted the “Imperial privilege.” It is said that the rhymes of
Brandt’s _Ship of Fools_ which Geyler had translated into Latin in
1498, not unfrequently served him for texts and quotations for his
sermons. Alas! we have no such lively preachers in these sleepy days
of perfect propriety of phrase and person. Our prophets, in putting
away “locusts and wild honey,” too often forget to cry, “Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Next, however, to the famous preacher, we name a notorious prophet, the
Abbot Joachim, who died between the years 1201 and 1202, but whose
works, if they really were his, did not appear in print, until the folio
edition was issued about 1475,—_Revelations concerning the State of the
chief Pontiffs_. An Italian version, “PROPHETIA dello Abbate Joachimo
circa li Pontefici & Re,” appeared in 1515; and another Latin edition,
with wood engravings, by Marc-Antoine Raimondi, in 1516.[46] Many tales
are related of the Abbot and of his followers; suffice it to say, that
they maintained the Gospel of Christ would be abolished A.D. 1260; and
thenceforward Joachim’s “true and everlasting Gospel” was to be
prevalent in the world.

According to the Blandford _Catalogue_, p. 6, we should here insert P.
Dupont’s _Satyriques Grotesques_ (Desseins Orig.), 8vo, Paris, 1513; but
it may be passed over with the simplest notice.

If we judge from the wonderfully beautiful copy on finest vellum in
the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow, the next Emblem-book surpasses all
others we have named; it is the “~Tewrdannckh~”—or,
_Dear-thought_,—usually attributed to Melchior Pfintzing, a German
poet, born at Nuremberg in 1481, and who at one time was secretary to
the Emperor Maximilian. The poem is allegorical and chivalric, and
adorned with 118 plates, some of which are considered the workmanship
of Albert Durer.[47]

The _Tewrdanck_ was intended to set forth the dangers and love
adventures of the emperor himself on occasion of his marriage to the
great heiress of that day, Mary of Burgundy. There are some who believe
that Maximilian was the author, or at least that he sketched out the
plan which Pfintzing executed. As, however, the espousals took place in
1479, before the poet was born, and Mary had early lost her life from a
fall,—the probability is that the emperor supplied some of the incidents
and suggestions, and that his secretary completed the work. The splendid
volume was dedicated to Charles V. in 1517, and published the same year,
a noble monument of typographic art.

Of a later work known under the name of “~Turnierbuch~,”—_The
Tournament-book_,—by George Rüxner, namely, _Beginning, Source, and
Progress of Tournaments in the German nation_ (Siemern, S. Rodler, 1530,
folio, pp. 402), Brunet informs us (_Manuel_, vol. iv. c. 1471), “There
are found for the most part in this edition printed at the castle of
Simmern” (about twenty-five miles south of Coblentz) “in 1530, the
characters already employed in the two editions of the _Tewrdannckh_ of
1517 and 1519; there may also be remarked numerous engravings on wood of
the same kind as those of the romance in verse we have just cited.” The
edition of 1532 “printed at the same castle,” is not in the same
characters as that of 1530.

CEBES, the Theban, the disciple of Socrates, though mentioned at pp. 12,
13, must again be introduced, for an edition of his little work in Latin
had appeared at Boulogne in 1497, and at Venice in 1500; also at
Francfort, “by the honest men Lamperter and Murrer,” in 1507, with the
letter of John Æsticampianus; the Greek was printed by Aldus in 1503,
and several other editions followed up to the end of the century;—indeed
there were translations into Arabic, French, Italian, German, and
English.[48]

_Plate 1^b_

[Illustration: _Tableau of Human Life from Cebes. B.C. 390._]

II.—ANDREW ALCIAT, the celebrated jurisconsult, remarkable, as some
testify, for serious defects, as for his surpassing knowledge and power
of mind, is characterized by Erasmus as “the orator best skilled in
law,” and “the lawyer most eloquent of speech;”—of his composition there
was published in 1522, at Milan, an _Emblematum Libellus_, or “Little
Book of Emblems.”[49] It established, if it did not introduce, a new
style for Emblem Literature, the classical in the place of the simply
grotesque and humorous, or of the heraldic and mythic. It is by no means
certain that the change should be named an unmixed gain. Stately and
artificial, the school of Alciat and his followers indicates at every
stanza its full acquaintance with mythologies Greek and Roman, but it is
deficient in the easy expression which distinguishes the poet of nature
above him whom learning chiefly guides: it seldom betrays either
enthusiasm of genius or depth of imaginative power.

Nevertheless the style chimed in with the taste of the age, and the
little book,—at least that edition of it which is the earliest we have
seen, Augsburg, A.D. 1531,[50] contained in eighty-eight pages, small
8vo, with ninety-seven Emblems and as many woodcuts,—won its way from
being a tiny volume of 11.5 square inches of letterpress on each of
eighty-eight pages, until with notes and comments it was comprised only
in a large 4to of 1004 pages with thirty-seven square inches of
letter-press on each page. Thus the little one that had in it only 1012
square inches of text and picture became a mountain, a monument in
Alciat’s honour, numbering up 37,128 square inches of text, picture, and
comment. The _little_ book of Augsburg, 1531, may be read and digested,
but only an immortal patience could labour through the entire of the
_great_ book of Padua, 1621. In that interval of ninety years, however,
edition after edition of the favourite emblematist appeared; with
translations into French 1536, into German 1542, into Spanish and
Italian in 1549, and, if we may credit Ames’ _Antiquities of Printing_,
Herbert’s edition, p. 1570, into English in 1551. The total number of
the editions during that period was certainly not less than 130, of
seventy of which a pretty close examination has been made by the writer
of this sketch. The list of editions, as far as completed, numbers up
about 150, and manifests a persistence in popularity that has seldom
been attained.

The earliest French translator was John Lefevre, an ecclesiastic, born
at Dijon in 1493,—_Les Emblemes de Maistre Andre Alciat_: Paris, 1536.
He was secretary to Cardinal Givry, whose protection he enjoyed, and
died in 1565. Bartholomew Aneau, himself an emblematist, was the next
translator into French, 1549; and a third, Claude Mignault, appeared in
1583. Wolfgang Hunger, a Bavarian, in 1542,[51] and Jeremiah Held of
Nördlingen, were the German translators; Bernardino Daza Pinciano, in
1549, _Los Emblemas de Alciato_, was the Spanish; and Giovanni Marquale,
in 1547, the Italian,—_Diverse Imprese_.

The notes and comments upon Alciat’s Emblems manifest great research and
very extensive learning. Sebastian Stockhamer supplied _commentariola_,
short comments, to the Lyons edition of 1556. Francis Sanctius, or
Sanchez, one of the restorers of literature in Spain, born in 1523, also
added _commentaria_ to the Lyons edition of 1573. Above all we must name
Claude Mignault, whose praise is that “to a varied learning he joined a
rare integrity.” He was born near Dijon about 1536, and died in 1606.
His comments in full appeared in Plantin’s[52] Antwerp edition, 8vo, of
1573, and may be appealed to in proof of much patient research and
extensive erudition. Lorenzo Pignoria, born at Padua in 1571, and
celebrated for his study of Egyptian antiquities, also compiled notes on
Alciat’s Emblems in MDCXIIX.[53] The results of the labours of the
three, Sanchez, Mignault, and Pignorius, were collected in the Padua
editions of 1621 and 1661. It is scarcely possible that so many editions
should have issued from the press, and so much learning have been
bestowed, without the knowledge of Alciat’s Emblems having penetrated
every nook and corner of the literary world.

With a glance only at the “PROGNOSTICATIO,” of Theophrastus Paracelsus,
the alchemist and enthusiast, written in 1536, and expressed in
thirty-two copperplates, we pass at once to the _Dance of Death_, by
Hans Holbein, which Bewick, 1789, and Douce, 1833, in London, and
Schlotthauer and Fortoul, 1832, in Munich and Paris, have made familiar
to English, German, and French readers. Of Holbein himself, it is
sufficient here to say that he was born at Bâle in 1495, and died in
London in 1543.

Mr. Corser’s copy of the first edition of the _Dance of Death_, and
which was the gift of Francis Douce, Esq., to Edward Vernon Utterson,
supplies the following title, “LES SIMULACHRES & HISTORIEES FACES DE LA
MORT, avtant elegammēt pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées: A
Lyon, soubz l’escu de Coloigne, M.D.XXXVIII.” The volume is a small
quarto of 104 pages, unnumbered, dedicated to Madame Johanna de
Touszele, the Reverend Abbess of the convent of Saint Peter at Lyons.
There are forty-one emblems, each headed by a text of scripture from the
Latin version; the devices follow, with a French stanza of four lines to
each; and there are sundry Dissertations by Jean de Vauzelles, an
eminent divine and scholar of the same city. But who can speak of the
beauty of the work? The designs by Holbein are many of them wonderfully
conceived,—the engravings by Hans Lützenberge, or Leutzelburger, as
admirably executed.[54]

Rapidly was the work transferred into Latin and Italian, and before the
end of the century at least fifteen editions had issued from the presses
of Lyons, Bâle, and Cologne.

Scarcely less celebrated are Holbein’s _Historical Figures of the Old
Testament_, which Sibald Beham’s had preceded in Francfort by only two
years. Beham’s whole series of Bible Figures are contained in 348
prints, and were published between 1536 and 1540. Dibdin’s _Decameron_,
vol. i. pp. 176, 177, will supply a full account of Holbein’s
“Historiarum Veteris Instrumenti icones ad vivum expressæ una cum brevi,
sed quoad fieri potuit, dilucida earundem expositione:” Lyons, small
4to, 1538. The edition of Frellonius, Lyons, 1547, is a very close
reprint of the second edition, and from this it appears that the work is
contained in fifty-two leaves, unnumbered, and that there are
ninety-four devices, which are admirable specimens of wood-engraving.
The first four are from the _Dance of Death_, but the others appropriate
to the subjects, each being accompanied by a French stanza of four
lines.

A Spanish translation was issued in 1543; and in 1549, at Lyons, an
English version, “The Images of the Old Testament, lately expressed, set
forthe in Ynglishe and Frenche, vuith a playn and brief exposition.” All
the editions of the century were about twelve.

Hans Brosamer, of Fulda, laboured in the same mine, and between
1551 and 1553, copying chiefly from Holbein and Albert Durer,
produced at Francfort his “~Biblische Historien kunstlich
fürgemalet~,”—_Bible Histories artistically pictured_ (3 vols.
in 1).

We will, though somewhat earlier than the exact date, continue the
subject of Bible-Figure Emblem-books by alluding to the _Quadrins
historiques de la Bible_,—“Historic Picture-frames of the Bible,”—for
the most part engraved by “Le Petit Bernard,” _alias_ Solomon Bernard,
who was born at Lyons in 1512. Of these works in French, English,
Spanish, Italian, Latin, Flemish, and German, there were twenty-two
editions printed between 1553 and 1583. Their general nature may be
known from the fact that to each Scripture subject there is a device, in
design and execution equally good, and that it is followed or
accompanied by a Latin, Italian, &c. stanza, as the case may be. In the
Italian version, Lyons, 1554, the Old Testament is illustrated by 222
engravings, and the New by ninety-five.

The first of the series appears to be _Quadrins historiques du Genèse_,
Lyons, 1553; followed in the same year by _Quadrins historiques de
l’Exode_. There is also of the same date (see Brunet, iv. c. 996), “The
true and lyuely historyke Pvrtreatures of the woll Bible (with the
arguments of eache figure, translated into english metre by Peter
Derendel): Lyons; by Jean of Tournes.”

To conclude, there were _Figures of the Bible_, illustrated by French
stanzas, and also by Italian and by German; published at Lyons and at
Venice between 1564 and 1582. (See Brunet’s _Manuel_, ii. c. 1255.) Also
Jost Amman, at Francfort, in 1564; and Virgil Solis, from 1560 to 1568,
contributed to German works of the same character.

Two names of note among emblematists crown the years 1539 and 1540, both
in Paris: they are William de la Perrière, and Giles Corrozet; of the
former we know little more than that he was a native of Toulouse, and
dedicated his chief work to “Margaret of France, Queen of Navarre, the
only sister of the very Christian King of France;” and of the latter,
that, born in Paris in 1510, and dying there in 1568, he was a
successful printer and bookseller, and distinguished (see Brunet’s
_Manuel_, ii. cc. 299–308) for a large number of works on History,
Antiquities, and kindred subjects.

La Perrière’s chief Emblem-work is _Le Theatre des bons Engins, auquel
sont contenus cent Emblemes_: Paris, 8vo, 1539. There are 110 leaves and
really 101 emblems, each device having a pretty border. His other
Emblem-works are—_The Hundred Thoughts of Love_, 1543, with woodcuts to
each page; _Thoughts on the Four Worlds_, “namely, the divine, the
angelic, the heavenly, and the sensible,” Lyons, 1552; and “LA
MOROSOPHIE,”—_The Wisdom of Folly_,—containing a hundred moral emblems,
illustrated by a hundred stanzas of four lines, both in Latin and in
French.

Corrozet’s “HECATOMGRAPHIE,” Paris, 1540, is a description of a hundred
figures and histories, and contains Apophthegms, Proverbs, Sentences,
and Sayings, as well ancient as modern. Each page of the 100 emblems is
surrounded by a beautiful border, the devices are neat woodcuts, having
the same borders with La Perrière’s _Theatre of good Contrivances_.
There is also to each a page of explanatory French verses.

It requires a stricter inquiry than I have yet been able to make in
order to determine if Corrozet’s _Blasons domestiques_; _Blason du Moys
de May_; and _Tapisserie de l’Eglise chrestienne & catholique_, bear a
decided emblematical character; the titles have a taste of emblematism,
but are by no means decisive of the fact.

III.—Maurice Sceve’s _Delie, Object de plus haulte Vertu_, Lyons, 1544,
with woodcuts, and 458 ten-lined stanzas on love, is included in the
Blandford _Catalogue_; and in the Keir Collection are both _The very
admirable, very magnificient and triumphant Entry of Prince Philip of
Spain into Antwerp in 1549_,[55] by Grapheus, _alias_ Scribonius;
edition 1550: and Gueroult’s _Premier Livre des Emblemes_; Lyons, 1550.
The same year, 1550, at Augsburg, has marked against it
“~Geschlechtes Buch~,”—_Pedigree-book_,—which recurs in 1580.

Claude Paradin, the canon of Beaujeu, a small town on the Ardiere, in
the department of the Rhone, published the first edition of his simple
but very interesting _Devises heroiques_, with 180 woodcuts, at Lyons in
1557. It was afterwards enlarged by gatherings from Gabriel Symeoni and
other writers; but, either under its own name or that of _Symbola
heroica_ (edition 1567) was very popular, and before 1600 was printed at
Lyons, Antwerp, Douay, and Leyden, not fewer than twelve times. The
English translation, with which it is generally admitted that
Shakespeare was acquainted, was printed in London, in 12mo, in 1591, and
bears the title, _The Heroicall Devises of M. Clavdivs Paradin, Canon of
Beauieu_, “Whereunto are added the Lord Gabriel Symeons and others.
Translated out of Latin into English by P.S.”

To another Paradin are assigned _Quadrins historiques de la Bible_,
published at Lyons by Jean de Tournes, 1555; and of which the same
publisher issued Spanish, English, Italian, German, and Flemish
versions.

The rich Emblem Collection at Keir furnishes the first edition of each
of Doni’s three Emblem-works, in 4to, printed by Antonio Francesco
Marcolini at Venice in 1552–53; they are: 1. “I MONDI,”—_i.e._, _The
Worlds, celestial, terrestrial, and infernal_,—2 parts in 1, with
woodcuts. 2. “I MARMI,”—_The Marbles_,—4 parts in 1, a collection of
pleasant little tales and interesting notices, with woodcuts by the
printer; who also, according to Bryan, was an engraver of “considerable
merit.” 3. “LA MORAL FILOSOFIA,”—_Moral Philosophy drawn from the
ancient Writers_,—2 parts in 1, with woodcuts. In it are abundant
extracts from the ancient fabulists, as Lokman and Bidpai, and a variety
of little narrative tales and allegories.

Of an English translation, two editions appeared in London in 1570 and
1601, during Shakespeare’s lifetime; namely, “~The Morall
Philosophie~ of Doni, englished out of italien by sir Th.
North,”[56] 4to, with engravings on wood.

Under the two titles of “PICTA POESIS,” and “LIMAGINATION POETIQUE,”
Bartholomew Aneau, or Anulus, published his “exquisite little gem,” as
Mr. Atkinson, a former owner of the copy which is now before me,
describes the work. It appeared at Lyons in 1552, and contains 106
emblems, the stanzas to which, in the Latin edition, are occasionally in
Greek, but in the French edition, “vers François des Latins et Grecz,
par l’auteur mesme d’iceux.”

Achille Bocchi, a celebrated Italian scholar, the founder, in 1546, of
the Academy of Bologna, Virgil Solis, of Nuremberg, an artist of
considerable repute, Pierre Cousteau, or Costalius, of Lyons, and Paolo
Giovio, an accomplished writer, Bishop of Nocera, give name to four of
the Emblem-books which were issued in the year 1555. That of Bocchius is
entitled “SYMBOLICARVM QVAESTIONVM, LIBRI QVINQVE,” Bononiæ, 1555, 4to;
and numbers up 146, or, more correctly, 150 emblems in 340 pages: the
devices are the work of Giulio Bonasone, from copper-plates of great
excellence. In 1556, _Bononiæ_ Sambigucius put forth _In Hermathenam
Bocchiam Interpretatio_, which is simply a comment on the 102nd emblem
of Bocchius. Virgil Solis published in 4to, at Nuremberg, the same year,
“LIBELLUS Sartorum, seu Signorum publicorum,”—_A little Book of
Cobblers, or of public Signs_. Cousteau’s “PEGMA,”[57] which some say
appeared first in 1552, is, as the name denotes, a _Structure_ of
emblems, ninety-five in number, with _philosophical narratives_,—each
page being surrounded by a pretty border. And Giovio’s “DIALOGO dell’
Imprese Militari et Amore,”—_Dialogue of Emblems of War and of Love_;
or, as it is sometimes named, “RAGIONAMENTO, _Discourse concerning the
words and devices of arms and of love, which are commonly named
Emblems_,”—is probably the first regular treatise on the subject which
had yet appeared, and which attained high popularity.

Its estimation in England is shown by the translation which was issued
in London in 1585, entitled, “THE Worthy tract of Paulus Iouius,
contayning a Discourse of rare inuentions, both Militarie and Amorous,
_called Imprese. Whereunto is added_ a Pre_face_ _contay_-ning the Arte
of composing them, with _many other notable deuises_. _By Samuell
Daniell late Student_ in Oxenforde.”

Intimately connected with Giovio’s little work, indeed often
constituting parts of the same volume, were Ruscelli’s “DISCORSO” on the
same subject, Venice, 1556; and Domenichi’s “RAGIONAMENTO,” also at
Venice, in 1556. From the testimony of Sir Egerton Brydges (_Res Lit._),
“Ruscelli was one of the first literati of his time, and was held in
esteem by princes and all ranks of people.”

Very frequently, too, in combination with Giovio’s Dialogue on Emblems,
are to be found Ruscelli’s “IMPRESE ILLVSTRI,” Venice, 1566; or
Symeoni’s “IMPRESE HEROICHE ET MORALI,” Lyons, 1559; and “SENTENTIOSE
IMPRESE,” Lyons, 1562.

Roville’s Lyons edition, of 1574, thus unites in one title-page Giovio,
Symeoni, and Domenichi, “DIALOGO DELLIMPRESE MILITARI ET AMOROSE, De
Monsignor Giouio Vescouo di Nocera _Et del S. Gabriel Symeoni
Fiorentino_, Con vn ragionamento di M. Lodouico Domenichi, nel medesimo
soggetto.”

Taking together all the editions in Italian, French, and Spanish, of
these four authors, single or combined, which I have had the opportunity
of examining, there are no less than _twenty-two_ between 1555 and 1585,
besides five or six other editions named by Brunet in his _Manuel du
Libraire_. Roville’s French edition, 4to, Lyons, 1561, is by Vasquin
Philieul, “Dialogve des Devises d’Armes et d’Amovrs dv S. Pavlo Iovio,
_Auec vn Discours de M. Loys Dominique_—et _les Deuises Heroiques et
Morales du Seigneur Gabriel Symeon_.”

At this epoch we enter upon ground which has been skilfully upturned and
cultivated by Claude Francis Menestrier, born at Lyons in 1631, and
“distinguished by his various works on heraldry, decorations, public
ceremonials, &c.” (Aikin’s _Gen. Biog._ vii. p. 41.) In his “PHILOSOPHIA
IMAGINUM,”—_Philosophy of Images_,—an octavo volume of 860 pages,
published at Amsterdam, 1695, he gives, in ninety-four pages, a
“JUDICIUM,” _i.e._, _a judgment respecting all authors who have written
on Symbolic Art_; and of those Authors whom we have named, or may be
about to name, within the Period to which our Sketch extends, he
mentions that he has examined the works of

A.D.
1555.[58] _Paulus Jovius_, p. 1.
1556. _Ludovicus Dominicus_, p. 3.
” _Hieronymus Ruscellius_, p. 4.
1561. _Alphonsus Ulloa_, ibid.
1562. _Scipio Amiratus_, p. 5.
1571. _Alexander Farra_, p. 6.
” _Bartholoæmus Taëgius_, p. 7.
1574. _Lucas Contile_, p. 9.
1577. _Johannes Andreas Palatius_, p. 10.
1578. _Scipio Bergalius_, p. 12.
1580. _Franciscus Caburaccius_, p. 12.
1588. _Abrahamus Fransius_, p. 15.
1591. _Julius Cæsar Capacius_, ibid.
” _D. Albertus Bernardetti_, p. 17.
1594. _Torquatus Tassus_, p. 14.
1600. _Jacobus Sassus_, p. 18.
1601. _Andreas Chioccus_, ibid.
1612. _Hercules Tassus_, p. 19.
” _P. Horatius Montalde_, p. 23.
” _Johannes Baptista Personé_, ib.
1620. _Franciscus d’Amboise_, ibid.

It may also be gathered from the “JUDICIUM” that Menestrier had read
with care what had been written on Emblems by the following authors:—

A.D.
1551. _Gabriel Simeoni_, p. 63.
1557. _Claudius Paradinus_, p. 68.
1562. _Mauritius Sevus_, p. 55.
1565. _J. Baptista Pittonius_, p. 70.
1573. _Claudius Minos_, p. 54.
1588. _Bernardinus Percivalle_, p. 64.
” _Principius Fabricius_, p. 76.
1600. _Johannes Pinedi,_ p. 60.
1609. _Jacobus Le Vasseur_, p. 91.
1613. _J. Franciscus de Villava_, p. 55.

Excluding the editions before enumerated, the books of emblems which I
have noted from various sources as assigned to the authors in the above
lists from Menestrier, amount to from _twenty-five_ to _thirty_, with
the titles of which there is no occasion to trouble the reader.

Returning from this digression, Vincenzo Cartari should next be named in
order of time. At Venice, in 1556, appeared his “IMAGINI DEI _Dei degli
Antichi_,”—_Images of the Gods of the Ancients_,—4to, of above 500
pages. It contains an account of the Idols, Rites, Ceremonies, and other
things appertaining to the old Religions. It was a work often reprinted,
and in 1581 translated into French by Antoine du Verdier, the same who,
in 1585, gave in folio a Catalogue of all who have written or translated
into French up to that time.

A folio of 1100 pages, which within the period of our sketch
was reprinted four times, issued from Bâle in 1556; it is,
“HIEROGLYPHICA,”—_Hieroglyphics_, or, _Commentaries on the Sacred
Literature of the Egyptians_,—by John Pierius Valerian, a man of
letters, born in extreme poverty at Belluno in 1477, and untaught the
very elements of learning until he was fifteen. (Aikin’s _Gen. Biog._
ix. 537.) He died in 1558. As an exposition of the Egyptian
hieroglyphics, his very learned work is little esteemed; but it contains
emblems innumerable, comprised in fifty-eight books, each book dedicated
to a person of note, and treating one class of objects. The
devices—small woodcuts—amount to 365.

Etienne Jodelle, a poet, equally versatile whether in Latin or in
French, was skilled in the ancient languages, and acquainted with the
arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture, as well as dexterous in
the use of arms. He published, in 1558, a thin quarto “RECUEIL,” or
_Collection_ of the inscriptions, figures, devices, and masks ordained
in Paris at the Hôtel de Ville. The same year, and again in 1569 and
1573, appeared the large folio volume, in five parts, “AUSTRIACIS GENTIS
IMAGINES,”—_Portraits of the Austrian family_,—full lengths, engraved by
Gaspar ab Avibus, of Padua. At the foot of each portrait are a
four-lined stanza, a brief biographical notice, and some emblematical
figure. Of similar character, though much inferior as a work of art, is
Jean Nestor’s HISTOIRE _des Hommes illustres de la Maison de Medici_; a
quarto of about 240 leaves, printed at Paris in 1564. (See the Keir
_Catalogue_, p. 143.) It contains “twelve woodcuts of the emblems of the
different members of the House of Medici.”

Hoffer’s “ICONES CATECHESEOS,” or _Pictures of instruction_, and of
virtues and vices, illustrated by verses, and also by seventy-eight
figures or woodcuts, was printed at Wittenberg in 1560. The next year,
1561—if not in 1556 (see Brunet’s _Manuel_, vol. ii. cc. 930, 931)—John
Duvet, one of the earliest engravers on copper in France, at Lyons,
published in twenty-four plates, folio, his chief work, “LAPOCALYPSE
FIGUREE;” and in 1562, at Naples, the Historian of Florence, Scipione
Ammirato, gave to the world “IL ROTA OVERO DELL’ IMPRESE,” or, _Dialogue
of the Sig. Scipione Ammirato_, in which he discourses of many emblems
of divers excellent authors, and of some rules and admonitions
concerning this subject written to the Sig. Vincenzo Carrafa.

Were it less a subject of debate between Dutch and German critics as to
the exact character of the “SPELEN VAN SINNE,”[59] which were published
by the Chambers of Rhetoric at Ghent in 1539, and by those of Antwerp in
1561 and 1562 (see Brunet’s _Manuel_, vol. v. c. 484), we should claim
these works for our Emblem domain. But whether claimed or not, the
exhibitions and amusements of the Chambers of Rhetoric, especially at
their great gatherings in the chief cities of the Netherlands, were
often very lively representations by action and accessory devices of
dramatic thought and sentiment, from “King Herod and his Deeds,”
“enacted in the Cathedral of Utrecht in 1418,” to what Motley, in his
_Dutch Republic_, vol. i. p. 80, terms the “magnificent processions,
brilliant costumes, living pictures, charades, and other animated,
glittering groups,”—“trials of dramatic and poetic skill, all arranged
under the superintendence of the particular association which in the
preceding year had borne away the prize.”

“The Rhetorical Chambers existed in the most obscure villages” (Motley,
i. p. 79); and had regular constitutions, being presided over by
officers with high-sounding titles, as kings, princes, captains, and
archdeacons,—and each having “its peculiar title or blazon, as the Lily,
the Marigold, or the Violet, with an appropriate motto.” After 1493 they
were “incorporated under the general supervision of an upper or
mother-society of Rhetoric, consisting of fifteen members, and called by
the title of ‘Jesus with the balsam flower.’”

As I have been informed by Mr. Hessells, Siegenbeek, in his
_Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Letterkunde_, says,—“Besides the
ordinary meetings of the Chambers, certain poetical feasts were in vogue
among the Rhetor-gevers, whereby one or other subject, to be responded
to in burdens or short songs (_liedekens_), according to the contents of
the card, was announced, with the promise of prizes to those who would
best answer the proposed question. But the so-called _Entries_ deserve
for their magnificence, and the diversity of poetical productions which
they give rise to, especially our attention.

“It happened from time to time that one or other of the most important
Chambers sent a card in rhyme to the other Chambers of the same
province, whereby they were invited to be at a given time in the town
where the senders of the card were established, for the sake of the
celebration of a poetical feast. This card contained further everything
by which it was desired that the Chambers, which were to make their
appearance, should illustrate this feast, viz., the performance of an
allegorical play (_zinnespel_) in response to some given question;[60]
the preparation of _esbatementez_ (drawings), _facéties_ (jests),
prologues; the execution of splendid entries and processions; the
exhibitions of beautifully painted coats of arms, &c. These entries were
of two kinds, _landiuweelen_, and _haagspelen_>;—the _landjewels_ were
the most splendid, and were performed in towns; the _hedge-plays_
belonged properly to villages, though sometimes in towns these followed
the performance of a landjewel.” Originally, _landjewel_ meant a prize
of honour of the land; called also _landprys_ (land-prize).

Such were the periodic jubilees of a neighbouring people, their
“land-jewels,” as they were termed, when the birthtime of our greatest
English dramatist arrived. And as we mark the wide and increasing
streams of the Emblem Literature flowing over every European land, and
how the common tongue of Rome gave one language to all Christendom, can
we deem it probable that any man of genius, of discernment, and of only
the usual attainments of his compeers, would live by the side of these
streams and never dip his finger into the waters, nor wet even the soles
of his feet where the babbling emblems flowed?

Some there have been to maintain that Shakespeare had visited the
Netherlands, or even resided there; and it is consequently within the
limits of no unreasonable conjecture that he had seen the _landjewels_
distributed, and at the sight felt himself inspirited to win a nobler
fame.

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION IV.
_EMBLEM WORKS AND EDITIONS BETWEEN A.D. 1564 AND A.D. 1616._

IN the year at which this Section begins, Shakespeare was born, and for
a whole century the Emblem tide never ebbed. There was an uninterrupted
succession of new writers and of new editions. Many eminent names have
appeared in the past, and names as eminent will adorn the future.

The fifty years which remain to the period comprised within the limits
of this Sketch of Emblem Literature we divide into two portions of
twenty-five years each: 1st, up to 1590, when Shakespeare had fairly
entered on his dramatic career; and 2nd, from 1590 to 1615, when,
according to Steevens (edition 1785, vol. i. p. 354), his labours had
ended with _The Twelfth Night, or, What You Will_. As far as actual
correspondences between Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers demand, our
Sketch might finish with 1610, or even earlier: for some time will of
necessity intervene, after a work has been issued, before it will modify
the thoughts of others, or enter into the phrases which they employ.
However, there is nothing very incongruous in making this Sketch and the
last of Shakespeare’s dramas terminate with the same date.

I.—In 1564, at Rome, in 4to, the distinguished Latinist, Gabriel
Faerno’s Fables were first printed, 100 in number;—it was three years
after his death. The plates are from designs which Titian is said to
have drawn. Our English Whitney adopts several of Faerno’s Fables among
his Emblems, and on this authority we class them with books of Emblems.
From time to time, as late as to 1796, new editions and translations of
the Fables have been issued. A copy in the Free Library, Manchester,
“Romæ Vincentius Luchinus, 1565,” bears the title, _Fabvlae Centvm ex
antiqvis avctoribvs delectae, et a Gabriele Faerno, Cremonensi
carminibvs explicatae_.

Virgil Solis, a native of Nuremberg, where he was born in 1514, and
where he died in 1570; and Jost Amman, who was born at Zurich in 1539,
but passed his life at Nuremberg, and died there in 1591, were both
artists of high repute, and contributed to the illustration of
Emblem-works. The former, between 1560 and 1568, produced 125 _New
Figures for the New Testament_, and _An Artistic little Book of
Animals_; and the latter, from 1564 to 1586, contributed very largely to
books of _Biblical Figures_, of “Animals,” of “Genealogies,” of
“Heraldry,” and of the _Habits_ and _Costumes_ of All Ranks of the
_Clergy of the Roman Church_, and of _Women_ of every “Condition,
profession, _and age_,” throughout the nations of Europe.

From the press of Christopher Plantin, of Antwerp, there issued nearly
fifty editions of Emblem-books between 1564 and 1590. Of these, one of
the earliest was, “EMBLEMATA CVM ALIQVOT NVMMIS ANTIQVIS,”—_Emblems with
some ancient Coins_,—4to, 1564, by the Hungarian, John Sambucus, born at
Tornau in 1531. A French version, _Les Emblemes de Jehan Sambucus_,
issued from the same press in 1567. Among Emblematists, none bears a
fairer name as “physician, antiquary, and poet.” According to De Bry’s
_Icones_, pt. iii., ed. 1598, pp. 76–83, he obtained the patronage of
two emperors, Maximilian II. and Rudolph II., under whom he held the
offices of counsellor of state and historian of the empire. To him also
belonged the rare honour of having his work commented on by one of the
great heroes of Christendom, Don John of Austria, in 1572.

_Les Songes drolatiqves de Pantagrvel_, by Rabelais, appeared at Paris
in 1565, but its emblematical character has been doubted. Not so,
however, the ten editions of the “EMBLEMATA” of _Hadrian Junius_, a
celebrated Dutch physician, of which the first edition appeared in 1565,
and justly claims to be “the most elegant which the presses of Plantin
had produced at this period.”

We may now begin to chronicle a considerable number of works and
editions of Emblems by ITALIAN writers, which, to avoid prolixity and
yet to point out, we present in a tabulated form, giving only the
earliest editions:—

Pittoni’s _Imprese di diversi sm.fol. Venice 1566
principi, duchi, &c._ _k._[61]

Troiano’s _Discorsi delli triomfi, 4to Monica 1568
giostre, &c._ _k._

Rime _Rime de gli Academici 4to Brescia 1568
occvlti, &c._ _k._

Farra’s _Settenario dell’ humana ... ... 1571
riduttione_ _v._

Dolce’s _Le prime imprese del 4to Venice 1572
conte Orlando_ _v._

” _Dialogo_ 8vo Venice 1575
_k._

Contile’s _Ragionamento—sopra la Fol. Pavia 1574
proprieta delle Imprese, _k._
&c._

Fiorino’s _Opera nuova, &c._ 4to Lyons 1577
_k._

Palazza’s _I Discorsi—Imprese, &c._ 8vo Bologna 1577
_k._

Caburacci’s _Trattato,—dove si 4to Bologna 1580
dimostra il vero e novo _k._
modo di fare le
Imprese._

Guazzo’s _Dialoghi piacevoli_ 4to Venice 1585
_k._

Camilli’s _Imprese—co i discorsi, et 4to Venice 1586
con le figure_ _k._

Cimolotti’s _Il superbi_ 4to Pavia 1587
_k._

Fabrici’s _Delle allusioni, imprese 4to Roma 1588
& emblemi sopra la vita, _k._
&c., di Gregorio XIII._

Rinaldi’s _Il mostruosissimo_ 8vo Ferrara 1588
_k._

Porro’s _Il primo libro_ 4to Milano 1589
_k._

Pezzi’s _La Vigna del 4to Venetia 1589
Signore—Sacramenti, _t._
Paradiso, Limbo, &c._

Bargagli’s _Dell’ Imprese_ 4to Venetia 1589
_v._

So, briefly, in the order of time, may we name several of the French,
Latin, and German Emblem-writers of this period, together with the
Spanish and English:—

FRENCH.

Grevin’s _Emblemes d’Adrian La 16mo Anvers 1568
Jeune_ _v._

Vander _Theatre ... les 8vo Londres 1568
Noot’s inconueniens et miseres _v._
qui suiuent les mondains
et vicieux, &c._

De _Emblêmes ou devises 4to Lyon 1571
Montenay’s chrestiennes_ _k._

Chartier’s _Les Blasons de vertu par 4to Aureliæ 1574
vertu_ _v._

Droyn’s[62] _La Grand nef des fols du fol. à Lyon 1579
monde_ _c._

Goulart’s _Les Vrais Pourtraits des 4to Genue 1581
Hommes illustres._ _k._

Verdier’s _Les images des anciens 4to Lyon 1581
dieux (par V. Cartari)._ _v._

Anjou _La joyeuse et magnif. fol. à Anvers 1582
entrée de Mons. _k._
Françoys, duc de
Brabant, Anjou, &c., en
ville d’Anvers._

L’Anglois _Discours des hierog. 4to Paris 1583
égyptiens, emblêmes, _k._
&c._

Messin _Emblêmes latins de J.J. 4to Metis 1588
Boissard, avec _c._
l’interpretation
françoise_.

Of these works, Vander Noot’s was translated into English, says Brunet,
(v. c. 1072,) by Henry Bynneman, 1569, and is remarkable for containing
(see _Ath. Cantab._ ii. p. 258) certain poems, termed sonnets, and
epigrams, which Spenser wrote before his sixteenth year. Mademoiselle
Georgette de Montenay was a French lady of noble birth, and dedicated
her 100 Emblems “to the very illustrious and virtuous Princesse, Madame
Jane D’Albret, Queen of Navarre.” Chartier, a painter and engraver,
flourished about 1574; L’Anglois is not mentioned in the _Hieroglyphics_
of Dr. Leemans, nor do I find any notice of Messin.

LATIN.

Schopperus Πανοπλία, _omnium 8vo Francof 1568
illiberalium _v._
mechanicarum, &c._

” _De omnibus illiberalibus 8vo Francof 1574
sive mechanicis _t._
artibus._

Arias _Humanæ salutis monumenta, 4to Antverpiæ 1572
Montanus &c._ _k._

Sanctius _Commentaria in A. Alciati 8vo Lugduni 1573
Emblemata._ _k._

Furmerus _De rerum usu et abusu_ 4to Antverpiæ 1575
_t._

Lonicer, Ph. _Insignia sacræ Cæsareæ, 4to Francof 1579
maj. &c._ _k._

Estienne, _Anthologia gnomica_ 8vo Francof 1579
Henri _k._

Freitag _Mythologia ethica_ 4to Antverpiæ 1579
_t._

Microcosm Μικροκοσμος, _parvus 4to ... 1579
mundus, &c._ _v._

ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΣ _Parvus Mundus_ 4to Antverpiæ 1592
_k._

Beza _Icones—accedunt 4to Genevæ 1581
emblemata_ _c._

Hesius, G. _Emblemata sacra_ 4to Francof 1581
_v._

Reusner _Emblemata—partim ethica 4to Francof 1581
et physica, &c._ _k._

” _Aureolorum Emblem. liber 8vo Argentor 1591
singularis._ _t._

Lonicer, _Venatus et Aucupium 4to Francof 1582
J.A. Iconibus artif._ _c._

Moherman _Apologi Creaturarum_ 4to Antverpiæ 1584
_t._

Emblemata _Emblemata Evangelica ad fol. ... 1585
XII. signa, &c._ _k._

Bol. _Emblemata Evang. ad. XII. 4to Francof 1585
Signa cœlestia._ _v._

Hortinus _Icones operum, &c._ 4to Romæ 1585
_k._

Modius _Liber—ordinis 8vo Francof 1585
Ecclesiastici origo, _t._
&c._

” _Pandectæ triumphales, fol. Francof 1586
&c._ _k._

Fraunce _Insignium, Armorum, 4to Londini 1588
Emblematum, Hierogl., _t._
&c._

Zuingerus _Icones aliquot clarorum 8vo Basileæ 1589
Virorum, &c._ _t._

Cælius _Emblemata Sacra_ 8vo Romæ 1589
(S.S.) _v._

Hortinus _Emblemata Sacra_ 4to Trajecti 1589
_v._

Camerarius _Symbolorum et Emblematum, 4to Norimberg 1590
&c._ _k._

Arias Montanus, born in Estremadura in 1527, was one of the very eminent
scholars of Spain; Furmerus, a Frieslander, flourished during the latter
half of the sixteenth century, and his work was translated into Dutch by
Coörnhert in 1585; Henri Estienne, one of the celebrated printers of
that name, was born in Paris in 1528, and died at Lyons in 1598; a list
of his works, many of them of high scholarship, occupies eight pages in
Brunet’s _Manuel du Libraire_. The name of Beza is of similar
renown;—both Etienne and he had to seek safety from persecution; and
when Etienne’s effigy was being burnt, he pleasantly said “that he had
never felt so cold as on the day when he was burning.” Laurence
Haechtanus was the author of the _Parvus Mundus_, 1579, which Gerardt de
Jode _den liefhebbers der consten_, the lover of art, has so admirably
adorned. Nicolas Reusner was a man of extensive learning, to whom the
emperor Rudolph II. decreed the poetic crown. Francis Modius was a
Fleming, a learned jurisconsult and Latinist, who died at Aire in
Artois, in 1597, at the age of sixty-one; Theodore Zuinger was a
celebrated physician of Bâle; and Joachim Camerarius, born at Nuremberg
in 1534, also a celebrated physician, one of the first to form a
botanical garden, “attained high reputation in his profession, and was
consulted for princes and persons of rank throughout Germany.”

An edition of a work reputed to be emblematic belongs to this period—to
1587; it is the _Physiologist_, by S. Epiphanius, to whom allusion has
been made at p. 28.

GERMAN.

Stimmer _Neue Kunstliche Figuren 4to Besel 1576
Biblischen, &c._ _t._

Feyrabend _Stam und Wapenbuch_ 4to Franckfurt 1579
_k._

Schrot _Wappenbuch_ 8vo Munich 1581
_k._

Lonicer, J. _Stand und Orden der 4to Francfurt 1585
A. heiligen Römischen _v._
Catholischen Kirchen._

Clamorinus _Thurnier-buch_ 4to Dresden 1590
_k._

Tobias Stimmer was an artist, born at Schaffhausen in 1544, and in
conjunction with his younger brother, John Christopher Stimmer, executed
part of the woodcuts in the Bible of Basle, 1576 and 1586. The younger
brother also prepared the prints for a set of Emblems, _Icones Affabræ_,
published at Strasburg in 1591. Sigismund Feyrabend is a name of great
note as a designer, engraver on wood, and bookseller, at Francfort,
towards the end of the sixteenth century. Who Martin Schrot was, does
not appear from the _Biographie Universelle_; and Clamorinus may
probably be regarded as only the editor of a republication of Rüxner’s
_Book of Tournaments_ that was printed in 1530.

DUTCH OR FLEMISH.

Van Ghelen Flemish translation, ... Anvers 1584
_Navis stultorum._ _v._

Coörnhert _Recht Ghebruyck ende 4to Leyden 1585
Misbruyck van tydlycke _v._
Have._

SPANISH.

Manuel _El conde Lucanor_ 4to Sevilla 1575
(apologues & fables). _v._

Boria _Emprese Morales_ 4to Praga 1581
_k._

Guzman _Triumphas morales_ 8vo Medina 1587
(nueuamente corregidos). _t._

Horozco _Emblemas Morales_ 8vo Segovia 1589
_t._

Don Juan Manuel was a descendant of the famous Alphonso V. His work
consists of forty-nine little tales, with a moral in verse to each. It
is regarded, says the _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxvi. p. 541, “as the finest
monument of Spanish literature in the sixteenth century.” There are
earlier editions of Francisco de Guzman’s _Moral Triumphs_, as at
Antwerp in 1557, but the edition above named claims to be more perfect
than the others. Horozco y Covaruvias was a native of Toledo, and died
in 1608; one of his offices was that of Bishop of Girgenti in Sicily. In
1601 he translated his Emblems into Latin, and printed it under the
title of _Symbolæ Sacræ_.

ENGLISH.

Bynneman’s _Translation of Vander 8vo London 1569
Noot’s Theatre._ _v._

North _The Morall Philosophie of 4to London 1570
Doni_ _v._

Daniell _The worthy tract of 8vo London 1585
Paulus Jovius, &c._ _k._

Whitney _A Choice of Emblemes, 4to Leyden 1586
&c._ _k._

Henry Bynneman, whose name is placed before the version of Vander Noot’s
_Theatre_, is not known with any certainty to have been the translator.
He was a celebrated printer in London from about 1566 to 1583. Sir
Thomas North, to whose translation of Plutarch, Shakespeare was largely
indebted, was probably an ancestor of the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal
under Charles II. Samuel Daniell enjoyed considerable reputation as a
poet, and on Spenser’s death in 1598, was appointed poet-laureate to the
Queen. Of Whitney it is known that he was a scholar of Oxford and of
Cambridge, and that his name appears on the roll of the university of
Leyden. He was a native of Cheshire, and died there in 1601. It may be
added that an edition of Barclay’s _Ship of Fooles_ was in 1570
“Imprinted at London in Paules Churchyarde by John Cawood Printer to the
Queenes Maiestie.”

Thus, in the period between Shakespeare’s birth and his full entry on
his dramatic career, we have named above sixty persons, many of great
eminence, who amused their leisure, or indulged their taste, by
composing books of Emblems; had we named also the editions of the same
authors, within these twenty-five years, they would have amounted to
156, exclusive of many reprints from other authors who wrote Emblems
between A.D. 1500 and A.D. 1564.

II.—Shakespeare’s Dramatic Career comprises another period of
twenty-five years,—from 1590 to 1615. From the necessity of the case,
indeed, few, if any of the Emblem writers and compilers towards the end
of the time could be known to him, and any correspondence between them
in thoughts or expressions must have been purely accidental. For the
completion of our Sketch, however, we proceed to the end of the period
we had marked out. And to save space, and, we hope, to avoid
tediousness, we will continue the tabulated form adopted in the last
Section.

ITALIAN.

Bernardetti _Giornata prima dell’ ... ... about
Imprese_ 1592
_v._

Capaccio _Delle Imprese trattato, 4to Napoli 1594
in tre libri diviso._ _k._

Tasso _Discorsi del Poeme_ 4to Napoli 1594
_k._

Porri _Vaso di verita ... dell’ 4to Venetia 1597
antichristo_ _v._

Dalla Torre _Dialogo_ 4to Trivegi 1598
_k._

Caputi _La Pompa_ 4to Napoli 1599
_k._

Zoppio _La Montagna_ 4to Bologna 1600
_k._

Belloni _Discorso_ 4to Padova 1601
_k._

Chiocci _Delle imprese, e del vero ... ... 1601
modo di formarle._ _v._

Pittoni _Imprese di diversi fol. Venezia 1602
principi, &c._ _v._
(reprint).

Ripa _Iconologia, &c., 4to Roma 1603
Concetti, Emblemi, ed _k._
Imprese._

” ” ” ” 4to Siena 1613
_t._

Vænius _Amorum Emblemata_, in obl. Antverp 1608
Latin, English, and 4to _k.t._
Italian.

Glissenti _Discorsi morali ... 4to Venetia 1609
contra il dispiacer del _v._
morire, &c._

Giulio Cesare Capaccio, besides his Neapolitan History, and one or two
other works, is also the author of _Il Principe_, Venetia, 1620, a
treatise on the Emblems of Alciatus, with more than 200 political and
moral notices. Torquato Tasso is a name that needs no praise here. Of
Alessio Porri I have found no other mention; and I may say the same of
Gio. Dalla Torre, of Ottavio Caputi, and of Gio. Belloni. Melchior
Zoppio, born in 1544 at Bologna (_Biog. Univ._ vol. lii. p. 430), was
one of the founders of the Academia di Gelati, in his native town.
Battisti Pittoni was a painter and engraver, who flourished between 1561
and 1585. The extensive work of Cesare Ripa of Perugia, which has passed
through about twenty editions in Italian, Latin, Dutch, Spanish, German,
and English, is alphabetically arranged, and treats of nearly 800
different subjects, with about 200 devices. Otho van Veen, or Vænius,
belongs to Holland, not to Italy,—and his name appears here simply
because his _Emblems of Love_ were translated into Italian. Fabio
Glissenti in 1609 introduced into his work (Brunet, iii. c. 256, 7)
twenty-four of the plates out of the forty-one which adorned an Italian
edition of the _Images of Death_ in 1545.

FRENCH.

Desprez _Théatre des animaux ... 4to Paris 1595
actions de la vie _v._
humaine._

Boissart _Mascarades recueillies_, 4to ... 1597
Geyn (J. de) Opera. _v._

Emblesmes _Emblesmes sus les 12mo Mildelbourg 1605
Actions—du Segnor _k._
Espagnol._

Hymnes _Hymnes des vertus ... par 8vo Lyon 1605
belles et délicates _v._
figures._

Vænius _Amorum Emblemata_ 4to Antverpiæ 1608
(Latin,Italian, and _v._
French).

Vasseur _Les Devises des Empereurs 8vo Paris 1608
Romains, &c._ _t._

” _Les Devises des Rois de ... Paris 1609
France._ _v._

Valence _Emblesmes sur les 8vo ... 1608
Actions—du Segnor _k._
Espagnol._

Rollenhagen _Les Emblemes ... mis en 4to Coloniæ 1611
vers françois._ _v._

Dinet _Les cinq Livres des 4to Paris 1614
Hiéroglyphiques._ _v._

De Bry _Pourtraict de la 4to Francfort 1614
Cosmographie morale._ _v._

Robert Boissart, a French engraver (Bryan, p. 90) flourished about 1590,
and is said to have resided some time in England. Of Vænius, so well
known, there is no occasion to speak here. Jacques de Vasseur was
archdeacon of Noyon, celebrated as the birth-place of Calvin, and in
1608 also published another work in French verse, _Antithises, ov
Contrepointes du Ciel & de la Terre_. Desprez and Valence are unknown
save by their books of Emblems. Pierre Dinet is very briefly named in
_Biog. Univ._ vol. ii. p. 371; and Rollenhagen and De Bry will be
mentioned presently.

LATIN.

Callia _Emblemata sacra, e libris 32mo Heidelbergæ 1591
Mosis excerpta._ _k._

Borcht _P. Ovidii Nasonis obl. 16mo 1591
Metamorphoses._ Antverpiæ _t._

Stimmer _Icones Affabræ_ ... Strasburg 1591
_v._

Mercerius _Emblemata_ 4to Bourges 1592
_t._

De Bry _Emblemata nobilitate et obl. Francof 1592
vulgo scitu digna._ 4to _v._

” _Emblemata secularia_ 4to ” 1593
_v._

Freitag _Viridiarium Moralis Phil. 4to Coloniæ 1594
per fabulas, &c._ _k._

Taurellius _Emblema physico-ethica, 8vo Norimbergæ 1595
&c._ _k._

Boissard _Theatrum vitæ Humanæ_ 4to Metz 1596
_t._

Franceschino _Hori Apollinis selecta 16mo Romæ 1597
hieroglyphica._ _v._

Le Bey de _Emb. a J. Boissard 4to Francof 1596
Batilly. delineata, &c._ _t. k._

Altorfinæ _Emb. anniversaria 4to Norimbergæ 1597
Academiæ Altorfinæ._ _k.c.t._

David _Virtutis spectaculum_ 4to Francof 1597
_v._

” _Veridicus christianus_ 4to Antverpiæ 1601
_t. k._

David _Occasio arrepta, 4to Antverpiæ 1605
neglecta, &c._ _c. t._

” _Pancarpium Marianum_ 8vo ” 1607
_t._

” _Messis myrrhæ et 8vo ” 1607
aromatum, &c._ _v._

” _Paradisus sponsi et 8vo ” 1607
sponsæ, &c._ _k._

” _Dvodecim Specvla, &c._ 8vo ” 1610
_t. k._

Sadeler, Æg. _Symbola Divina et Humana fol. Prague 1600
Pontif. Imper., &c._ _k._

” _Symb. Div. et. Hum., fol. Francof 1601, 2,
&c.;Isagoge Jac. 3 _k._
Typotii._

Passæus _Metamorphoseωn obl.4to ... 1602
Ouidianarum typi, &c._ _t._

Epidigma _Emblematum Philomilæ 4to ... 1603
Thiloniæ Epidigma._ _v._

Vænius _Horatii Emblemata, 4to Antuerp 1607
imaginibus_ (ciii.) _in _k._
æs incisis._

” _Amorvm Emblemata, Figvris 4to Antuerpiæ 1608
æneis incisa._ _t. k._

” _Amoris Divini Emblemata_ 4to Antuerpiæ 1615
_t._

Pignorius _Vetustissimæ tabulæ æneæ 4to Venetia 1605
sacris Ægyptiorum _v._
simulacris cœlatæ
explicatio._

” _Characteres Ægyptii ... 4to Francofurti 1608
per Jo. Th. et Jo. Isr. _v._
de Bry._

Sadeler, Æg. _Theatrum morum. Artliche 4to Pragæ 1608
gespräch der Thier met
wahren Historien, &c._

Broecmer _Emblemata moralia et 4to Arnhemi 1609
œconomica._ _t._

Aleander _Explicatio antiquæ Fabulæ 4to Romæ 1611
marmoreæ Solis effigie, _k._
symbolisque exsculptæ,
&c._

Rollenhagen _Nvclevs Emblematum 4to Coloniæ 1611–13
selectissimorum._ _c. t._

” ” ” ” 4to Arnhemi 1615
_k._

Hillaire _Specvlvm 4to Traject. 1613
Heroicvm—Homeri—Iliados._ Bat. _c._

À Bruck _Emblemata moralia et 4to Argentinæ 1615
bellica_ _v._

Peter Vander Borcht, born at Brussels about A.D. 1540, engraved numerous
works, and among them 178 prints for this edition of Ovid. The Stimmers
have been mentioned before, p. 90. Jean Mercier, born at Uzès in
Languedoc, wrote the Latin version of the _Hieroglyphics_ of Horapollo,
Paris, 1548,—but probably it was his son Josias whose Emblems are
mentioned under the year 1592, and who dates them from Bruges. Theodore
De Bry, born at Liege in 1528 (Bryan, p. 119), carried on the business
of an engraver and bookseller in Francfort, where he died in 1598. He
was greatly assisted by his sons John Theodore and John Israel. _The
Procession of the Knights of the Garter in 1566_, and that at the
_Funeral of Sir Philip Sidney_, are his workmanship. Nicolas Taurellius
was a student, and afterwards professor of Physic and Medicine in the
University of Altorf in Franconia. An oration of his appears in the
_Emblemata Anniversaria_ of that institution. He was named “the German
Philosopher.” Denis le Bey de Batilly appears to have been royal
president of the Consistory of Metz. John David, born at Courtray in
Flanders, in 1546, entered the Society of the Jesuits, and was rector of
the colleges of Courtray, Brussels, and Ghent; he died in 1613. Ægidius
Sadeler, known as the Phœnix of engravers, was a native of Antwerp, born
in 1570, the nephew and disciple of the two eminent engravers John and
Raphael Sadeler. He enjoyed a pension from three successive emperors,
Rodolphus II., Matthias, and Ferdinand II. Of Crispin de Passe, born at
Utrecht about 1560, Bryan (p. 548) says, “He was a man of letters, and
not only industrious to perfect himself in his art, but fond of
promoting it.” His works were numerous, and have examples in the
Emblem-books of his day. Otho van Veen, of a distinguished family, was
born at Leyden in 1556. After a residence of seven years in Italy, he
established himself at Antwerp, and had the rare claim to celebrity that
Rubens became his disciple. In his Emblem-works the designs were by
himself, but the engravings by his brother Gilbert van Veen. (Bryan, p.
853, 4.) Lawrence Pignorius, born at Padua, 1571, and educated at the
Jesuits’ school and the university of that city, gained a high
reputation by several learned works, and especially by those on Egyptian
antiquities. He died of the plague in 1631. The work of Richard Lubbæus
Broecmer, is little more than a reprint of one by Bernard Furmer, in
1575, _On the Use and Abuse of Wealth_. Jerome Aleander, nephew of one
of Luther’s stoutest opponents, the Cardinal Aleander, was of
considerable literary reputation at Rome, being a member of the society
of Humourists, established in that city,—his death was in 1631.
According to Oetlinger’s brief notice, _Bibliog. Biograph. Univ._,
Gabriel Rollenhagen, of Magdeburg, was a German schoolmaster, born in
1542, and dying in 1609; his _Kernel of Emblems_ is well illustrated by
Crispin de Passe. The same “excellent engraver” adorned _The Mirror of
Heroes_, founded on Homer’s _Iliad_ by “le sieur de la Rivière, Isaac
Hillaire.” Both Latin and French verses are appended to the Emblems, and
at their end are curious “Epitaphs on the Heroes who fell in the Trojan
war,” too late, it is to be feared, to afford any gratification to their
immediate friends. To Jacobus à Bruck, surnamed of Angermunde, a town of
Brandenberg, there belongs another Emblem-book, _Emblemata Politica_,
Cologne, 1618. In it are briefly demonstrated the duties which belong to
princes; it is dedicated “to his most merciful Prince and Lord, the
Emperor Matthias I., ‘semper Augusto.’”

GERMAN.

De Bry _Emblemata 4to Francofurti 1596
Secvlaria—rhythmis _v._
Germanicis, &c._

” ” ” ” 4to Oppenhemii 1611
_t._

Boissard _Shawspiel Menschliches 4to Franckf. 1597
Lebens_ _v._

Sadeler _Theatrum morum. Artliche 4to Praga 1608
gespräch der Thier, &c._ _v._

DUTCH OR FLEMISH.

David _Christelücke_ 4to Antuerp 1603
_k._

Vænius _Zinnebeelden der 4to Amstel. 1603
Wereldtsche Liefde._ _v._

À Ganda _Spiegel van de obl. Amsterod. 1606
doorluchtige,&c., 4to _t._
Vrouwen._

” _Emblemata Amatoria Nova_ obl. Lugd. Bat. 1613
4to _k._

Moerman _De Cleyn Werelt ... 4to Amstelred. 1608
metover schoone _k._
Const-platen._

Ieucht _Den nieuwen Ieucht obl. ... 1610
spieghel ... C. de 4to _t._
Passe._

Embl. Amat. _Afbeeldinghen, &c._ obl. Amsterd. 1611
4to _k._

Gulden _Den Gulden Winckel der 4to Amsterdam 1613
Konstliev ende _k._
Nederlanders
Gestoffeert._

Bellerophon _Bellerophon, of Lust tot 4to Amsterdam 1614
Wysheyd._ _k._

Visscher _Sinnepoppen_ (or Emblem 12mo Amsterdam 1614
Play) _van Roemer _k._
Visscher._

De Bry, Sadeler, David, and Vænius have been mentioned in page 96.
Theocritus à Ganda is known for this work, _The Mirror of virtuous
Women_, for which Jost de Hondt executed the fine copper-plates that
accompany it; and also for _Emblemata Amatoria Nova_, published at
Amsterdam in 1608, and at Leyden in 1613. _The Little World_, by Jan
Moerman, is of the same class with _Le Microcosme_, Lyons, 1562, by
Maurice de Sceve; or with “ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΣ,” Antwerp, 1584 and 1594, and
which Sir Wm. Stirling-Maxwell attributes to Henricus Costerius of
Antwerp. _The New Mirror of Youth_, 1610; _The Delineations_, 1611; _The
golden Ship of the Art-loving Netherlander finished_, 1613; and
_Bellerophon, or Pleasure of Wisdom_, 1614; are all anonymous. Roemer
van Visscher, born at Amsterdam in 1547 (_Biog. Univ._ vol. xlix. p.
276), is of high celebrity as a Dutch poet,—with Spiegel and Coörnhert,
he was one of the chief restorers of the Dutch language, and an
immediate predecessor of the two illustrious poets of Holland, Cornelius
van Hooft and Josse du Vondel.

SPANISH.

De Soto _Emblemas Moralizadas_ 8vo Madrid 1599
_t. k._

Vænius _Amorum emblemata._ (Latin 4to Antuerpiæ 1608
and Spanish verses). _v._

” _Amoris divini 4to ” 1615
Emb....hispanicè, &c._ _t._

Orozco _Emblemas Morales_ 4to Madrid 1610
_t. k._

Villava _Empresas Espirituales y 4to Baeça 1613
Morales_ _k._

Hernando de Soto was auditor and comptroller for the King of Spain in
his house of Castile. At the end are stanzas of three verses each, in
Latin and Spanish on alternate pages, “to our Lady the Virgin.” Don
Sebastian de Couarrubias Orozco was chaplain to the King of Spain,
schoolmaster and canon of Cuenca, and adviser of the Holy Office. Both
Soto and Orozco dedicate their works to Don Francisco Gomez de Sandoual,
Duke of Lerma. Juan Francisco de Villava dedicates his first Emblem “to
the Holy and General Inquisition of Spain.” Neither of the three names
occurs in the Biographies to which I have access.

ENGLISH.

P. S. _The Heroicall Devises of 8vo London 1591
M. Clavdivs Paradin._ _c._

Wyrley _The true use of Armorie, 4to London 1592
shewed by historic, and _v._
plainly proved by
example._

Willet _Sacrorvm Emblematvm 4to Cambridge 1598
Centvria vna, &c. A _v._
Century of Sacred
Emblems._

Crosse _Crose his Covert, or a MS. About
Prosopopœicall 1600
Treatise._ _c._

Vænius _Amorum Emblemata_ (Latin, 4to Antverpiæ 1608
English, and Italian). _k. t._

Guillim _A Display of Heraldry_ fol. London 1611
_k._

Peacham _Minerva Britanna, or a 4to London 1612
Garden of Heroical _c. t.
Deuises, &c._ k._

Yates, MS. _The Emblems of Alciatus MS. About
in English verse._ 1610
_t._

William Wyrley’s _True use of Arms_, was reprinted in 1853. In _Censura
Lit._, i. p. 313, Samuel Egerton Brydges gives a pleasing account of the
character of Andrew Willet, whom Fuller ranks among England’s worthies
(vol. i. p. 238). Of John Crosse himself, nothing is known, but his MS.
is certainly not later than Elizabeth’s reign, for the royal arms, at p.
33, are of earlier date than the accession of the Stuarts; and the
allusion to the Belgian dames, pp. 2–6, agrees with her times. The work
contains 120 shields and devices, and was lent me by my very steadfast
friend in Emblem lore, Mr. Corser of Stand. At pp. 10 and 37, it is
said,—

“In Troynovant a famous schoole was founde
By famous Citizens; whilome the grounde
Of noble Boone;”—

and

“To traine vp youth in tongues fewe might compare
With Mulcaster, whose fame shall never fade.”

Now it was in 1561 Richard Mulcaster, of King’s College, Cambridge, and
of Christchurch, Oxford, was appointed head master of Merchant-Taylor’s
School in London, then just founded. (Warton, iii. 282.) Thus it is
shown to be very probable that _Crosse his Covert_ may take date not
later than A.D. 1600. It may be added that at the end of the MS. the
figure of Fortune, or Occasion, on a wheel, is almost a fac-simile from
Whitney’s Device, p. 181, which was itself struck from the block (Emb.
121. p. 438) of Plantin’s edition of Alciatus, MDLXXXI. John Guillim’s
work on _Heraldry_ passed through five editions previous to that of
Capt. John Logan, in 1724; the original folio is one of the
book-treasures at Keir. Henry Peacham, _M^r. of Artes_, as he terms
himself, was a native of Leverton in Holland, in the county of Lincoln,
and a student under “the right worshipfull Mr. D. Laifeild,” in Trinity
College, Cambridge. He has dedicated his work “to the Right High and
Mightie Henrie, Eldest Sonne of our Soveraigne Lord the King.”

Singular it is, that except the MS. which belonged to the late Joseph B.
Yates, of Liverpool, there is not known to exist any translation into
English of the once famous _Emblems of Alciatus_. That MS. (see
_Transact. Liverpool L. and P. Society, Nov. 5, 1849_) “appears to be of
the time of James the First.” The Devices are drawn and coloured, and
have considerable resemblance to those in Rapheleng’s edition of
Alciatus, 1608. As a specimen we add the translation of Emblem XXXIII.
p. 39, “Signa fortium.”

“O Saturn’s birde! what cause doth thee incyte
Upon Aristom’s tombe so highe to sitt?
‘As I all other birds excell in mighte—
So doth Aristom, Lords, in strength and witt.
Let fearful Doves on cowards’ tombs take rest—
We Eagles stoute to stoute men give a crest.’”

How pleasant to feel that this Sketch of Emblem-books and their authors,
previous to and during the times of Shakespeare, has been brought to an
end. “Vina coronant,” _fill a bumper_, “let the sparkling glass go
round.”

The difficulty really has been to compress. The materials collected were
most abundant. From curiously or artistically arranged title pages,—from
various dedications,—from devices admirably designed or of wondrous
oddity,—and from the countless collateral subjects among which the
Emblem writers and their commentators disported themselves, the
temptations were so rich to wander off here and there, that it was
necessary continually to remember that it was a veritable sketch I was
engaged on and not a universal history. I lashed myself therefore to the
mast and sailed through a whole sea of syrens, deaf, though they charmed
ever so sweetly to make me sing with them of emperors and kings, of
popes and cardinals, of the learned and the gay, who appeared to believe
that everyone’s literary salvation depended on the contrivance of a
device and the interpretation of an emblem.

Had I known where to refer my readers for a general view of my subject,
either brief or prolix, I should have spared myself the labour of
compiling one. The results are, that, previous to the year 1616, the
Emblem Literature of Europe could claim for its own at least 200
authors, not including translators, and that above 770 editions of
original texts and of versions had issued from the press.[63]

If Shakespeare knew nothing of so wide-spread a literature it is very
wonderful; and more wondrous far, if knowing, he did not inweave some of
the threads into the very texture of his thoughts.

In this Sketch of Emblem writers, it will be perceived, though their
names are seldom heard of except among the antiquaries of letters, that,
as a class, they were men of deep erudition, of considerable natural
power, and of large attainments. To the literature of their age they
were as much ornaments as to the literature of our modern times are the
works, illustrated or otherwise, with which our hours of leisure are
wont to be both amused and instructed. No one who is ignorant of them
can possess a full idea of the intellectual treasures of the more
cultivated nations of Europe about the period of which the works of
Alciatus and of Giovio are the types. We may be learned in its
controversies, well read in its ecclesiastical and political history,
intimate even with the characters and pursuits of its great statesmen
and sovereigns, and strong as well as enlightened in our admiration of
its painters, statuaries, poets, and other artistic celebrities, but we
are not baptized into its perfect spirit unless we know what
entertainment and refreshing there were for men’s minds when serious
studies were intermitted and the weighty cares and business of life for
a while laid aside.

Take up these Emblem writers as great statesmen and victorious
commanders did; read them as did the recluse in his study and the man of
the world at his recreation; search into them as some did for good
morals suitable to the guidance of their lives, and as others did for
snatches of wit and learning fitted to call forth their merriment; and
see, amid divers conceits and many quaintnesses, and not a few inanities
and vanities, how richly the fancy was indulged, and how freely the play
of genius was allowed; and then will you be better prepared to estimate
the whole literature of the nations of that busy, stirring time, when
authorities were questioned that had reigned unchallenged for centuries,
and men’s minds were awakened to all the advantages of learning, and
their tastes formed for admiring the continually varying charms of the
poet’s song and the artist’s skill.

True; those strange turns of thought, those playings upon mere words,
those fanciful dreamings, those huntings up and down of some unfortunate
idea through all possible and impossible doublings and windings, are not
approved either by a purer taste, or by a better-trained judgment. We
have outgrown the customs of those logo-maniacs, or word-worshippers,
whom old Ralph Cudworth, in his _True Intellectual System of the
Universe_, p. 67, seems to have had in view, when he affirms, “that they
could not make a Rational Discourse of anything, though never so small,
but they must stuff it with their Quiddities, Entities, Essences,
Hæcceities, and the like.”

But at the revival of literature, when the ancient learning was devoured
without being digested, and the modern investigations were not always
controlled by sound discretion,—when the child was as a giant, and the
giant disported himself in fantastic gambols,—we must not wonder that
compositions, both prose and poetic, were perpetrated which receive
unhesitatingly from the higher criticism the sentence of condemnation.
But in condemning let not the folly be committed of despising and
undervaluing. We may devotedly love our more advanced civilization, our
finer sensibilities, and our juster estimate of what true taste for the
beautiful demands, and yet we may accord to our leaders and fathers in
learning and refinement the no unworthy commendation, that, with their
means and in their day, they gave a mighty onward movement to those
literary pursuits and pleasures in which the powers of the fancy
heighten the glow of our joy, and the resources of accurate knowledge
bestow an abiding worth upon our intellectual labours.

[Illustration: _Sambucus, 1564._]

-----

Footnote 35:

See Brunet’s _Manuel du Libraire_, vol. v. col. 476–483, and col. 489;
also vol. iv. col. 1343–46.

Footnote 36:

Sold at the Duchess of Portland’s sale in 1789 to Mr. Edwards for
£215,—and at his sale in 1815 to the Duke of Marlborough for £637
15_s._ See Dibdin’s “_Bibliomania_,” ed. 1811, p. 253; and Timperley’s
_Dictionary of Printers and Printing_, ed. 1839, p. 93.

Footnote 37:

One of the earliest and most curious of the Block-books, _Biblia
Pauperum_, has been reproduced in fac-simile by Mr. J. Ph. Berjeau,
from a copy in the British Museum.

Footnote 38:

Mr. Humphreys reads “Pluviam sicut arida tellus;” but in this, as in
two or three other instances in this pl. 2, and p. 40, a botanical
lens will show that the readings are those which I have given. I
desire here to express to him my obligation for the courteous
permission to make use of pl. 2, p. 40, of his work, for a photolith
(see Plate VI.), to illustrate my remarks.

Footnote 39:

To follow out the subject of the _Biblia Pauperum_, or of Block-books
in general, the Reader may consult Sotheby’s _Principia typographica,
The Block-Books_, &c., 3 vols. 4to, London, 1858; Dibdin’s
_Bibliotheca Spenseriana_, 4 vols. London, 1814, 1815; or Berjeau’s
_Biblia Pauperum_, a fac-simile with an historical introduction, 4to:
Trübner, London, 1859.

Footnote 40:

As in Nourry’s Lyons editions of 1509 and 1511, where the title given
is, “~Destructoriũ vitiorum ex similitudinũ creaturarum exemplorũ
appropriatiõe per modum dialogi~,” &c.; lge. 4to, in the Corser
Library, from which we take—~De Sole et Luna~.

[Illustration: _Lyons ed. 1511._]

Footnote 41:

The Title is “APOLOGI CREATVRARVM;” “Vtilia prudenti, imprudenti
futilia. _G. de Jode excu._ 1584.”

Footnote 42:

An English translation, with wood engravings, appeared about the time
of Shakespeare’s birth, it may be a few years earlier:—_The Tryumphes
of Fraunces Petrarche_, “translated out of Italian into English by
Hẽrye Parker knyght, lorde Morley,” sm. 4to.

Footnote 43:

See Brunet’s _Manuel_, iii. c. 85, and i. c. 1860; _Biog.
Universelle_, “Zainer;” Timperley’s _Dictionary of Printers_, p. 197;
and Bryan’s _Dict. of Engravers_, p. 918.

Footnote 44:

Langlois in his _Essai_, pp. 331–340, names thirty-two editions
previous to A.D. 1730.

Footnote 45:

Be lenient, gentle Reader, if you chance to compare the above
translation with the original; for even should you have learned by
heart the two very large 4to volumes of Forcellini’s _Lexicon of all
Latinity_, I believe you will find some nuts you cannot crack in the
Latin verses of Jodocus Badius.

Footnote 46:

For a very good account of Joachim’s supposed works, consult a paper
in _Notes and Queries_, September, 1862, pp. 181–3, by Mr. Jones, the
excellent Librarian of the Chetham Library, Manchester; and for an
account of the man, Aikin’s _General Biography_, v. pp. 478–80.

Footnote 47:

The “~Ehrenpforte~,” or _Triumphal Arch_, about 1515, and the
“~Triumphwagen~,” or _Triumphal Car_, A.D. 1522, both in honour
of Maximilian I., are among the noblest of Durer’s engravings; but the
_Biographie Universelle_, t. 33, p. 582, attributes the engravings in
the “~Tewrdannckh~” to Hans Shaeufflein the younger, who was
born at Nuremberg about 1487; and with this agrees Stanley’s _Dict. of
Engravers_, ed. 1849, p. 705. There are other works by Durer which, it
may be, should be ranked among the Emblematical, as _Apocalypsis cum
Figuris_, Nuremberg, 1498; and _Passio Domini nostri Jesu_, 1509 and
1511. It is, however, now generally agreed that Durer designed, but
did not engrave, on wood. See Stanley, p. 224.

Footnote 48:

Belonging to one of the earlier editions, or else as an Imagination of
the Tablet itself, is a wonderfully curious woodcut, in folio, of
which our Plate 1. _b_ is a smaller fac-simile.

Footnote 49:

The title is rather conjectured than ascertained, for owing, as it is
said, to Alciat’s dissatisfaction with the work, or from some other
cause, he destroyed what copies he could, and not one is now of a
certainty known to exist. For solving the doubt, the Editor of the
Holbein Society of Manchester has just issued a note of inquiry to the
chief libraries of Europe, _Enquête pour découvrir la première Edition
des Emblêmes d’André Alciat, illustre Jurisconsulte Italien_. Milan,
A.D. 1522.

Footnote 50:

A copy was in the possession of the Rev. Thos. Corser, and has passed
through the hands of Dr. Dibdin and Sir Francis Freeling; also another
copy is at Keir, Sir William Stirling Maxwell’s; both in admirable
condition.

Footnote 51:

CLARISSIMI VIRI D. ANDREÆ AL_ciati Emblematum libellus, uigilanter
recognitus, et iã recens per Wolphgangum Hungerum Bauarum, rhythmis
Germanicis uersus._ PARISIIS, _apud Christianum Wechelum, &c., Anno_
M.D.XLII.

Footnote 52:

“OMNIA ANDREÆ ALCIATI V. C. EMBLEMATA. Adiectis commentariis, &c. Per
Clavdivm Minoim Diuionesem. ANTVERPIÆ, Ex officina Christophori
Plantini, Architypographi Regij, M.D.LXXIII.;” also, “Editio tertia
multo locupletior,” M.D.LXXXI.

Footnote 53:

“Emblemata v. Cl. Andreæ Alciati—_notulis extemporarijs Laurentij
Pignorij Patauini. Patauij, apud Pet. Paulum Tozzium_, M.DCXIIX,” sm.
8vo.

Footnote 54:

The Holbein Society of Manchester have just completed, May, 1869, a
Photo-lithographic Reprint of the whole work, with an English
Translation, Notes, &c., by the Editor, Henry Green, M.A.

Footnote 55:

_La tres admirable, &c., entrée du Prince Philipe d’Espaignes—en la
ville d’Anvers, anno 1549._ 4to, Anvers, 1550.

Footnote 56:

North’s translation of Plutarch’s _Lives_, we may remark, was the
great treasury to which Shakespeare often applied in some of his
Historical Dramas; and we may assume that other productions from the
same pen would not be unknown to him.

Footnote 57:

“PETRI COSTALII PEGMA _Cum narrationibus philosophicis_.” 8vo,
LVGDVNI, 1555.

“LE PEGME DE PIERRE COVSTAV auec les Narr. philosophiqves.” 8vo, A
Lyon, M.D.LX.

Footnote 58:

The dates have been added to Menestrier’s list.

Footnote 59:

A friend, Mr. Jan Hendrik Hessells, now of Cambridge, well acquainted
with his native Dutch literature, informs me the “_Spelen van Sinnen_
(Sinnespelen, Zinnespelen) were thus called because allegorical
personifications, _Zinnebeildige personen_ (in old Dutch,
_Sinnekens_), for instance reason, religion, virtue, were introduced.”
They were, in fact, “allegorical plays,” similar to the “Interludes”
of England in former times.

Footnote 60:

As “Wat den mensch aldermeest tot’ conste verwect?”—_What most of all
awakens man to art?_

Footnote 61:

The works to which a _k_ is appended are all in the very choice and
yet most extensive collection of Emblem-books at Keir, made by the
Author of _The Cloister Life of Charles V._, Sir William Stirling
Maxwell, Bart.; _c_, in the Library formed by the Rev. Thomas Corser,
Rector of Stand, near Manchester; _t_, in that of Henry Yates
Thompson, Esq., of Thingwall, near Liverpool. I have had the
opportunity, most kindly given, of examining very many of the
Emblem-works at Keir, and nearly all of those at Stand and Thingwall.
The three collections contained at the time of my examination of them
934, 204, and 248 volumes, in the whole 1386 volumes. Deducting
duplicates, the number of distinct editions in the three libraries is
above 900. Where I have placed a _v_, it denotes that the sources of
information are various, but those sources I possess the means of
verifying. I name these things that it may be seen I have not lightly
nor idly undertaken the sketch which I present in these pages.

Footnote 62:

First printed at Lyons in 1498.

Footnote 63:

Since the above was written I have good reasons for concluding that
the fact is very much understated. I am now employed, as time allows,
in forming an Index to my various notes and references to Emblem
writers and their works: the Index so far made comprises the letters
A, B, C, D (very prolific letters indeed), and they present 330
writers and translators, and above 900 editions.

-----

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER III.
SHAKESPEARE’S ATTAINMENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES
WITH RESPECT TO THE FINE ARTS.

AMONG some warm admirers of Shakespeare it has not been unusual to
depreciate his learning for the purpose of exalting his genius. It is
thought that intuition and inborn power of mind accomplished for him
what others, less favoured by the inspiration of the all-directing
Wisdom, could scarcely effect by their utmost and life-patient labours.
The worlds of nature and of art were spread before him, and out of the
materials, with perfect ease, he fashioned new creations, calling into
existence forms of beauty and grace, and investing them at will with the
rare attributes of poetic fancy.

On the very surface, however, of Shakespeare’s writings, in the subjects
of his dramas and in the structure of their respective plots, though we
may not find a perfectly accurate scholarship, we have ample evidence
that the choicest literature of his native land, and, through
translations at least, the ample stores of Greece and of Italy were open
to his mind. Whether his scenes be the plains of Troy, the river of
Egypt, the walls of Athens, or the capitol of Rome, his learning is
amply sufficient for the occasion; and though the critic may detect
incongruities and errors,[64] they are probably not greater than those
which many a finished scholar falls into when he ventures to describe
the features of countries and cities which he has not actually visited.
The heroes and heroines of pagan mythology and pagan history, the
veritable actors in ancient times of the world’s great drama,—or the
more unreal characters of fairy land, of the weird sisterhood, and of
the wizard fraternity,—these all stand before us instinct with life.[65]
And from the old legends of Venice, of Padua and Verona,—from the
traditionary lore of England, of Denmark, and of Scotland,—or from the
more truth-like delineations of his strictly historical plays, we may of
a certainty gather, that his reading was of wide extent, and that with a
student’s industry he made it subservient to the illustration and
faithfulness of poetic thought.

Trusting, as we may do in a very high degree, to Douce’s _Illustrations
of Shakspeare and of Ancient Manners_ (2 vols., London, 1807), or to the
still more elaborate and erudite work of Dr. Nathan Drake, _Shakspeare
and his Times_ (2 vols., 4to, London, 1817), we need not hesitate at
resting on Mr. Capel Lofft’s conclusion, that Shakespeare possessed “a
very reasonable portion of Latin; he was not wholly ignorant of Greek;
he had a knowledge of French, so as to read it with ease; and I believe
not less of the Italian. He was habitually conversant with the
chronicles of his country. He lived with wise and highly cultivated men,
with Jonson, Essex, and Southampton, in familiar friendship.” (See
Drake, vol. i. pp. 32, 33, _note_.) And again, “It is not easy, with due
attention to his poems, to doubt of his having acquired, when a boy, no
ordinary facility in the _classic_ language of Rome; though his
knowledge of it might be small, comparatively, to the knowledge of that
great and indefatigable scholar, Ben Jonson.”

Dr. Drake and Mr. Capel Lofft differ in opinion, though not very widely,
as to the extent of Shakespeare’s knowledge of Italian literature. The
latter declares, “My impression is, that Shakespeare was not
unacquainted with the most popular authors in _Italian prose_, and that
his ear had listened to the enchanting tones of _Petrarca_, and some
others of their great poets.” And the former affirms, that “From the
evidence which his genius and his works afford, his acquaintance with
the French and Italian languages was not merely confined to the picking
up _a familiar phrase or two_ from the conversation or writings of
others, but that he had actually commenced, and at an early period too,
the study of these languages, though, from his situation, and the
circumstances of his life, he had neither the means, nor the
opportunity, of cultivating them to any considerable extent.” (See
Drake, vol. i. pp. 54, _note_, and 57, 58.)

Now the Emblem-writers of the sixteenth century, and previously, made
use chiefly of the Latin, Italian, and French languages. Of the
Emblem-books in Spanish, German, Flemish, Dutch, and English, only the
last would be available for Shakespeare’s benefit, except for the
suggestions which the engravings and woodcuts might supply. It is then
well for us to understand that his attainments with respect to language
were sufficient to enable him to study this branch of literature, which
before his day, and in his day, was so widely spread through all the
more civilized countries of Europe. He possessed the mental apparatus
which gave him power, should inclination or fortune lead him there, to
cultivate the _viridiaria_, the pleasant blooming gardens of emblem,
device, and symbol.

Even if he had not been able to read the Emblem writers in their
original languages, undoubtedly he would meet with their works in the
society in which he moved and among the learned of his native land. As
we have seen, he was in familiar friendship with the Earl of Essex. To
that nobleman Willet, in 1598, had dedicated his _Sacred Emblems_. Of
men of Devereux’s stamp, several had become acquainted with the Emblem
Literature. To his rival, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, Whitney
devoted the _Choice of Emblemes_, 1586; in 1580, Beza had honoured the
young James of Scotland with the foremost place in his _Portraits of
Illustrious Men_, to which a set of Emblems were appended; Sir Philip
Sidney, during his journey on the continent, 1571–1575, became
acquainted with the works of the Italian emblematist, Ruscelli; and as
early as 1549, it was “to the very illustrious Prince James earl of
Arran in Scotland,” that “Barptolemy Aneau” commended his French version
of Alciat’s classic stanzas.

And were it not a fact, as we can show it to be, that Shakespeare quotes
the very mottoes and describes the very drawings which the Emblem-books
contain, we might, from his highly cultivated taste in other respects,
not unreasonably conclude that he must both have known them and have
used them. His information and exquisite judgment extended to works of
highest art,—to sculpture, painting, and music, as well as to
literature. There is, perhaps, no description of statuary extant so
admirable for its truth and beauty as the lines quoted by Drake, p. 617,
from the _Winter’s Tale_,[66] “where Paulina unveils to Leontes the
supposed statue of Hermione.”

“_Paulina._ As she lived peerless,
So her dead likeness, I do well believe,
Excels whatever yet you look’d upon,
Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it
Lonely, apart. But here it is: prepare
To see the life as lively mock’d as ever
Still sleep mock’d death: behold, and say ’tis well.
[PAULINA _draws a curtain, and discovers_ HERMIONE
_standing like a statue._
I like your silence, it the more shows off
Your wonder: but yet speak; first, you, my liege.
Comes it not something near?
_Leontes._ Her natural posture!
Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed
Thou art Hermione. . . .
O, thus she stood,[67]
Even with such life of majesty, warm life,
As now it coldly stands, when first I woo’d her!
I am ashamed: does not the stone rebuke me
For being more stone than it?
. . . . . .
_Paul._ No longer shall you gaze on’t, lest your fancy
May think anon it moves.
_Leon._ Let be, let be.
Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already—
What was he that did make it? See, my lord,
Would you not deem it breathed? and that those veins
Did verily bear blood?
_Paul._ Masterly done:
The very life seems warm upon her lip.
_Leon._ The fixure of her eye has motion in’t,
As we are mock’d with art. . . .
Still, methinks
There is an air comes from her: what fine chisel
Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,
For I will kiss her.
_Paul._ Good my lord, forbear:
The ruddiness upon her lip is wet;
You’ll mar it if you kiss it; stain your own
With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?
_Leon._ No, not these twenty years.
_Perdita._ So long could I
Stand by, a looker on.”

This exquisite piece of statuary is ascribed by Shakespeare (_Winter’s
Tale_, act v. sc. 2, l. 8, vol. iii. p. 420) to “that rare Italian
master Julio Romano, who, had he himself eternity, and could put breath
into his work, would beguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly is he
her ape: he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione, that they say one
would speak to her, and stand in hope of answer.”

According to Kugler’s “GESCHICHTE DER MALEREI,”—_History of Painting_
(Berlin, 1847, vol. i. p. 641),—Julio Romano was one of the most
renowned of Raphael’s scholars, born about 1492, and dying in 1546.
“Giulio war ein Künstler von rüstigem, lebendig, bewegtem, keckem
Geiste, begabt mit einer Leichtigkeit der Hand, welche den kühnen und
rastlosen Bildern seiner Phantasie überall Leben und Dasein zu geben
wusste.”[68]

His earlier works are to be found at Rome, Genoa, and Dresden. Soon
after Raphael’s death he was employed in Mantua both as an architect and
a painter; and here exist some of his choice productions, as the Hunting
by Diana, the frescoes of the Trojan War, the histories of Psyche, and
other Love-tales of the gods. Pictures by him are scattered over
Europe,—some at Venice, some in the sacristy of St. Peter’s, and in
other places in Rome; some in the Louvre, and some in the different
collections of England,[69] as the Jupiter among the Nymphs and
Corybantes.

Whether any of his works were in England during the reign of Elizabeth,
we cannot affirm positively; but as there were “sixteen by Julio Romano”
in the fine collection of paintings at Whitehall, made, or, rather,
increased by Charles I., of which Henry VIII. had formed the nucleus, it
is very probable there were in England some by that master so early as
the writing of the _Winter’s Tale_, or even before, in which, as we have
seen, he is expressly named. It may therefore be reasonably conjectured
that in the statue of Hermione Shakespeare has accurately described some
figure which he had seen in one of Julio Romano’s paintings.

The same rare appreciation of the beautiful appears in the _Cymbeline_,
act ii. sc. 4, lines 68–74, 81–85, 87–91, vol. ix. pp. 207, 208, where
the poet describes the adornments of Imogen’s chamber:—

“It was hang’d
With tapestry of silk and silver; the story
Proud Cleopatra, when she met her Roman,
And Cydnus swell’d above the banks, or for
The press of boats, or pride: a piece of work
So bravely done, so rich, that it did strive
In workmanship and value. . . . . .
And the chimney-piece
Chaste Dian, bathing:[70] never saw I figures
So likely to report themselves: the cutter
Was as another nature, dumb; outwent her,
Motion and breath left out. . . . . . .
The roof o’ the chamber
With golden cherubins is fretted: her andirons—
I had forgot them—were two winking Cupids
Of silver, each on one foot standing, nicely
Depending on their brands.”

So, in the _Taming of the Shrew_, act ii. sc. 1, lines 338–348, vol.
iii. p. 45, Gremio enumerates the furniture of his house in Padua:—

“First, as you know, my house within the city
Is richly furnished with plate and gold;
Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;
My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;
In ivory coffers I have stuff’d my crowns;
In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,
Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,
Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss’d with pearl,
Valance of Venice gold in needlework,
Pewter and brass and all things that belong
To house or housekeeping.”

And Hamlet, when he contrasts his father and his uncle, act iii. sc. 4,
lines 55–62, vol. viii. p. 111, what a force of artistic skill does he
not display! It is indeed a poet’s description, but it has all the power
and reality of a most finished picture. The very form and features are
presented, as if some limner, a perfect master of his pencil, had
portrayed and coloured them:—

“See what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself,
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal
To give the world assurance of a man.”

In the _Merchant of Venice_, too, act iii. sc. 2, lines 115–128, vol.
ii. p. 328, when Bassanio opens the leaden casket and discovers the
portrait of Portia, who but one endowed with a painter’s inspiration
could speak of it as Shakespeare does!—

“Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demi-god
Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?
Or whether, riding on the balls of mine,
Seem they in motion? Here are sever’d lips,
Parted with sugar breath: so sweet a bar
Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs
The painter plays the spider, and hath woven
A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men,
Faster than gnats in cobwebs; but her eyes,—
How could he see to do them? Having made one,
Methinks it should have power to steal both his
And leave itself unfurnish’d.”

Such power of estimating artistic skill authorises the supposition that
Shakespeare himself had made the painter’s art a subject of more than
accidental study; else whence such expressions as those which in the
_Antony_, act ii. sc. 2, lines 201–209, vol. ix. p. 38, are applied to
Cleopatra?—

“For her own person.
It beggar’d all description: she did lie
In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,
O’er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.”

Or, even when sportively, in _Twelfth Night_, act i. sc. 5, lines
214–230, vol. iii. p. 240, Olivia replies to Viola’s request, “Good
Madam, let me see your face,”—is it not quite in an artist’s or an
amateur’s style that the answer is given? “We will draw the curtain and
show you the picture. Look you, sir, such a one I was this present: is’t
not well done?” [_Unveiling_.

“_Viol._ Excellently done, if God did all.
_Oli._ ’Tis in grain, sir; ’twill endure wind and weather.
_Vio._ ’Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on:
Lady, you are the cruel’st she alive,
If you will lead these graces to the grave
And leave the world no copy.

_Oli._ O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give out divers
schedules of my beauty: it shall be inventoried, and every particle and
utensil labelled to my will: as, item, two lips, indifferent red; item,
two grey eyes, with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so
forth.”

But from certain lines in the _Taming of the Shrew_ (Induction, sc. 2,
lines 47–58), it is evident that Shakespeare had seen either some of the
mythological pictures by Titian, or engravings from them, or from
similar subjects. Born in 1477, and dying in 1576, in his ninety-ninth
year, the great Italian artist was contemporary with a long series of
illustrious men, and his fame and works had shone far beyond their
native sky. Our distant and then but partially civilised England awoke
to a perception of their beauties, and though few—if any—of Titian’s
paintings so early found a domicile in this country, yet pictures were,
we are assured,[71] “a frequent decoration in the rooms of the wealthy.”
Shakespeare even represents the Countess of Auvergne, _1 Henry VI._, act
ii. sc. 3, lines 36, 37, vol. v. p. 33, as saying to Talbot,—

“Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me,
For in my gallery thy picture hangs.”

The formation of a royal gallery, or collection of paintings, had
engaged the care of Henry VIII.; and the British nobility at the time of
his daughter Elizabeth’s reign, “deeply read in classical learning,
familiar with the literature of Italy, and polished by foreign travel,”
“were well qualified to appreciate and cultivate the true principles of
taste.”

Titian, as is well known, “displayed a singular mastery in the
representation of nude womanly forms, and in this the witchery of his
colouring is manifested with fullest power.”[72] Many instances of this
are to be found in his works. Two are presented by the renowned
Venus-figures at Florence, and by the beautiful Danae at Naples. The
Cambridge gallery contains the Venus in whose form the Princess Eboli is
said to have been portrayed, playing the lute, and having Philip of
Spain seated at her side. In the Bridgewater gallery are two
representations of Diana in the bath,—the one having the story of
Actæon, and the other discovering the guilt of Calisto; and in the
National Gallery are a Bacchus and Ariadne, and also a good copy, from
the original at Madrid, of Venus striving to hold back Adonis from the
chase. To these we may add the Arming of Cupid, in the Borghese palace
at Rome, in which he quietly permits Venus to bind his eyes, while
another Cupid whispering leans on her shoulder, and two Graces bring
forward quivers and bows.

It is to such a School of Painting, or to such a master of his art, that
Shakespeare alludes, when, in the Induction scene to the _Taming of the
Shrew_, Christopher Sly is served and waited on as a lord:—

_Sec. Serv._ Dost thou love pictures? we will fetch thee straight
Adonis painted by a running brook.
And Cytherea all in sedges hid,
Which seem to move and wanton with her breath,
Even as the waving sedges play with wind.
_Lord._ We’ll show thee Io as she was a maid,
And how she was beguiled and surprised,
As lively painted as the deed was done.
_Third Serv._ Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.”

Among Shakespeare’s gifts was also the power to appreciate the charms of
melody and song. Their influence he felt, and their effect he most
eloquently describes. He speaks of them with a sweetness, a gentleness,
and force which must have had counterparts in his own nature. As in the
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, act ii. sc. 1, line 148, vol. ii. p. 215,
when Oberon bids Puck to come to her,—

“Thou rememberest
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin’s back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid’s music.”

And again, in the _Merchant of Venice_, act v. sc. 1, lines 2 and 54,
vol. ii. p. 360, how exquisite the description!—

“When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise.”

Lorenzo’s discourse to Jessica is such as only a passion-warmed genius
could conceive and utter:—

“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls.”

And Ferdinand, in the _Tempest_, act i. sc. 2, l. 387, vol. i, p. 20,
after listening to Ariel’s song, “Come unto these yellow sands,” thus
testifies to its power:—

“Where should this music be? i’ th’ air, or th’ earth?
It sounds no more: and sure it waits upon
Some god o’ th’ island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father’s wreck,
This music crept by me upon the waters
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air: thence have I follow’d it,
Or it hath drawn me rather.”

Thus, from his sufficient command over the requisite languages, from his
diligent reading in the literature of his country, translated as well as
original, from his opportunities of frequent converse with the
cultivated minds of his age, and still more from what we have shown him
to have possessed,—accurate taste and both an intelligent and a warm
appreciation of the principles and beauties of Imitative Art,—we
conclude that Shakespeare found it a study congenial to his spirit and
powers, to examine and apply, what was both popular and learned in its
day,—the illustrations, by the graver’s art and the poet’s pen, of the
proverbial wisdom which constitutes almost the essence of the
Emblematical writers of the sixteenth century. To him, as to others,
their works would be sources of interest and amusement; and even in
hours of idleness many a sentiment would be gathered up to be afterwards
almost unconsciously assimilated for the mind’s nurture and growth.

When we maintain that Shakespeare not unfrequently made use of the
Emblem writers, we do not mean to imply that he was generally a direct
copyist from them. This is seldom the case. But a word, a phrase, or an
allusion, sufficiently demonstrates whence particular thoughts have been
derived, and how they have been coloured and clothed. They have been
gathered as flowers in a country-walk are gathered—one from this
hedge-side, another from that, and a third from among the standing corn,
and others from the margin of some murmuring stream; but all have their
natural beauty heightened by the skill with which they are blended so as
to impart gracefulness to the whole. Flora’s gems they may be, but the
enwoven coronal borrows its chief charm from the artistic power and
fitness with which its parts are arranged: break the thread, or cut the
string with which Genius has bound them together, and they fall into
inextricable confusion—a mass of disorder—no longer a pride and a joy:
but let them remain, as a most excellent skill has placed them, and for
ever could we gaze on their loveliness. A matchless beauty has been
achieved, and all the more do we value it, because upon it there is also
stamped eternal youth.

[Illustration: _Symbola, 1679._]

-----

Footnote 64:

We select an instance common to both Holbein and Shakespeare; it is
pointed out by Woltmann, in his _Holbein and his Time_, vol. ii. p.
23, where, speaking of the Holbein painting, _The Death of Lucretia_,
the writer says,—“The costume is here, as ever, that of Holbein’s own
time. The painter reminds us of Shakespeare, who also conceived the
heroes of classic antiquity in the costume of his own days; in the
_Julius Cæsar_ the troops are drawn up by beat of drum, and Coriolanus
comes forth like an English lord: but the historical signification of
the subject nevertheless does in a degree become understood, which the
later poetry, with every instrument of archæological learning,
troubles itself in vain to reach.”

It may be noted that in other instances both Wornum, the English
biographer of Holbein, and Woltmann, the German, compare Holbein and
Shakespeare, or, rather, illustrate the one by the other.

Footnote 65:

As when Cooper, at the tomb of Shakespeare, describes it,—

“The scene then chang’d from this romantic land,
To a bleak waste by bound’ry unconfin’d,
Where three swart sisters of the weird band
Were mutt’ring curses to the troublous wind.”

Footnote 66:

Act v. sc. 3, lines 14–84, Cambridge edition, vol iii. pp. 422–25.

Footnote 67:

The ivory statue changed into a woman, which Ovid describes,
_Metamorphoses_, bk. x. fab. viii. 12–16, is a description of kindred
excellence to that of Shakespeare:

“Sæpe manus operi tentantes admovet, an sit
Corpus, an illud ebur: nec ebur tamen esse fatetur.
Oscula dat, reddique putat; loquiturque, tenetque;
Et credit tactis digitos insidere membris:
Et metuit, pressos veniat ne livor in artus.”

Footnote 68:

“Julio was an artist of vigorous, lively, active, fearless spirit,
gifted with a lightness of hand which knew how to impart life and
being to the bold and restless images of his fancy.” The same volume,
pp. 641–5, continues the account of Romano.

Footnote 69:

“An important one,” says Kugler, “at Lord Northwick’s, in London.”

Footnote 70:

Two of Titian’s large paintings, now in the Bridgewater Gallery,
represent “Diana and her Nymphs bathing.” (See Kugler, vol. ii. p.
44.)

Footnote 71:

See Drake’s _Shakspeare and his Times_, vol. ii. p. 119.

Footnote 72:

See D. Franz Kugler’s _Handbuch der Geschichte der Malerei_, vol. ii.
pp 44–6.

-----

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER IV.
THE KNOWLEDGE OF EMBLEM-BOOKS IN BRITAIN, AND GENERAL INDICATIONS THAT SHAKESPEARE WAS ACQUAINTED WITH THEM.

MONUMENTS, or memorial stones, with emblematical figures and characters
carved upon them, are of ancient date in Britain as elsewhere—probably
antecedent even to Christianity itself. Manuscripts, too, ornamented
with many a symbolical device, carry us back several hundred years.
These we may dismiss from consideration at the present moment, and
simply take up printed books devoted chiefly or entirely to Emblems.

I.—Of printed Emblem-books in the earlier time down to 1598, when
Willet’s _Century of Sacred Emblems_ appeared, though there were several
in the English language, there were only few of pure English origin.
Watson and Barclay, in 1509, gave English versions of Sebastian Brant’s
_Fool-freighted Ship_. Not later than 1536, nor earlier than 1517, _The
Dialogue of Creatures moralysed_ was translated “out of latyn in to our
English tonge.” In 1549, at Lyons, _The Images of the Old Testament,
&c._, were “set forthe in Ynglishe and Frenche;” and in 1553, from the
same city, Peter Derendel gave in English metre _The true and lyvely
historyke Portreatures of the woll Bible_.

_The Workes of Sir Thomas More Knyght, sometyme Lorde Chauncellour of
England_, were published in small folio, London, 1557, and in them at
the beginning (signature C ij_v_—C iiij) are inserted what the author
names “nyne pageauntes,” which, as they existed in his father’s house
about A.D. 1496, were certainly Emblems. To this list Sir Thomas North,
in London, 1570, added _The Morall Philosophie of Doni_, “out of
Italien;” Daniell, in 1585, _The worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius_, which
Whitney, in 1586, followed up by _A Choice of Emblemes_, “Englished and
moralized;” and Paradin’s _Heroicall Devises_ were “Translated out of
Latin into English,” London, 1591.

To vindicate something of an English origin for a few emblems at least,
reference may again be made to the fact that about the year 1495 or 6,
“Mayster Thomas More in his youth deuysed in hys fathers house in
London, a goodly hangyng of fyne paynted clothe, with nyne
pageauntes,[73] and verses ouer of euery of those pageauntes: which
verses expressed and declared, what the ymages in those pageauntes
represented: and also in those pageauntes were paynted, the thynges that
the verses ouer them dyd (in effecte) declare.” In 1592, Wyrley
published at London _The true use of Armories, &c._; soon after appeared
Emblems by Thomas Combe, which, however, are no longer known to be in
existence; and then, in 1598, Andrew Willet’s _Sacrorvm Emblematvm
Centvria vna, &c._,—“A Century of Sacred Emblems.” Guillim, in 1611,
supplied _A Display of Heraldry_; and Peacham, in 1612, _A Garden of
Heroical Devices_. There were, too, in MSS., several Emblem-works in
English, some of which have since been edited and made known.

Yet we must not suppose that the knowledge of Emblem-books in Britain
depended on those only of which an English version had been achieved. To
men of culture, the whole series was open in almost its entire extent.
James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, had resided in France, and in 1555, being
high in the favour of Henry II., “was made captain of his Scotch
life-guards.” A few years before, namely, in 1549, as we have mentioned,
p. 108, Aneau’s French translation of Alciat’s _Emblems_ had been
dedicated to him as, “filz de tres noble Prince Jacque Due de Chastel le
herault, Prince Gouverneur du Royaume d’Escoce.”

Among the rare books in the British Museum is Marquale’s Italian Version
of Alciat’s _Emblems_, printed at Lyons in 1549; a copy of it, a very
lovely book, in the original binding, bears on the back the royal crown,
and at the foot the letters “E. VI. R.,”—_Edwardus Sextus Rex_; and, as
he died in 1553, we thus have evidence at how early a date the work was
known in England. To the young king it would doubtless be a book “for
delight and for ornament.”

Of Holbein’s _Imagines Mortis_, Lyons, 1545, by George Æmylius, Luther’s
brother-in-law, a copy now in the British Museum “was presented to
Prince Edward by Dr. William Bill, accompanied with a Latin dedication,
dated from Cambridge, 19th July, 1546, wherein he recommends the
prince’s attention to the figures in the book, in order to remind him
that all must die to obtain immortality; and enlarges on the necessity
of living well. He concludes with a wish that the Lord will long and
happily preserve his life, and that he may finally reign to all eternity
with his _most Christian father_. Bill was appointed one of the king’s
chaplains in ordinary, 1551, and was made the first Dean of Westminster
in the reign of Elizabeth.”—Douce’s _Holbein_, Bohn’s ed., 1858, pp. 93,
94.

In 1548, Mary of Scotland was sent into France for her education (Rapin,
ed. 1724, vol. vi. p. 30), and here imbibed the taste for, or rather
knowledge of, Emblems, which afterwards she put into practice. To her
son, in his fourteenth year, emblems were introduced by no less an
authority than that of Theodore Beza. A copy indeed of the works of
Alciatus was bound for him when he became King of England,—it is a folio
edition, in six volumes or parts, and is still preserved in the British
Museum; the royal arms are on the cover, front and back, and
fleurs-de-lis in the corners. It was printed at Lyons in 1560, and
possibly the Emblems in vol. vi., leaves 334–354, with their very
beautiful devices, may have been the companions of his boyhood and early
years. By the Emblem-works of Beza and of Alciat probably was laid the
foundation of the king’s love for allegorical representations, which,
under the name of masques, were provided by Jonson for the Court’s
amusement. The king’s weakness in this respect is wittily set forth in
the French epigram soon after his death (Rapin’s _History_, 4to, vol.
vii. p. 259):—

“_Tandis qu’ Elisabeth fut Roi,
L’Anglois fut d’Espagne l’effroi;
Maintenant, dévise & caquette,
Régi par la Reine Jaquette_.”[74]

To English noblemen, in 1608, Otho van Veen, from Antwerp, commends his
_Amorum Emblemata_,—“Emblems of the Loves,”—with 124 excellent devices.
Thus the dedication runs: “To the moste honorable and woerthie brothers,
_William_ Earle of _Pembroke_, and _Philip_ Earle of _Mountgomerie_,
patrons of learning and cheualrie.” In England, therefore, as in
Scotland, there were eminent lovers of the Emblem literature.

But an acquaintance with that literature may be regarded as more spread
abroad and increased when Emblem-books became the sources of
ornamentation for articles of household furniture, and for the
embellishment of country mansions. A remarkable instance is supplied
from _The History of Scotland_, edition London, 1655, “By William
Drummond of Hauthornden.” It is in a letter “_To his worthy Friend_
Master Benjamin Johnson,” dated July 1, 1619, respecting some
needle-work by Mary Queen of Scots, and shows how intimately she was
acquainted with several of the Emblem-books of her day, or had herself
attained the art of making devices. The whole letter, except a few lines
at the beginning, is most interesting to the admirers of Emblems.
Drummond thus writes:—

“I have been curious to find out for you the _Impresaes_ and
Emblemes on a Bed of State[75] wrought and embroidered all with gold and
silk by the late Queen _Mary_, mother to our sacred Sovereign, which
will embellish greatly some pages of your Book, and is worthy your
remembrance; the first is the Loadstone turning towards the pole, the
word her Majesties name turned on an Anagram, _Maria Stuart, sa virtu,
m’attire_, which is not much inferiour to _Veritas armata_. This hath
reference to a Crucifix, before which with all her Royall Ornaments she
is humbled on her knees most liuely, with the word, _undique_; an
_Impresa_ of _Mary_ of _Lorrain_, her Mother, a _Phœnix_ in flames, the
word,[76] _en ma fin git mon commencement_. The _Impressa_ of an
Apple-Tree growing in a Thorn, the word, _Per vincula crescit_. The
_Impressa_ of _Henry_ the second, the _French King_, a _Cressant_, the
word, _Donec totum impleat orbem_. The _Impressa_ of King _Francis_ the
first, a _Salamander_ crowned in the midst of Flames, the word,
_Nutrisco et extinguo_. The _Impressa_ of _Godfrey_ of _Bullogne_, an
arrow passing through three birds, the word, _Dederit ne viam Casusve
Deusve_. That of _Mercurius_ charming _Argos_, with his hundred eyes,
expressed by his _Caduceus_, two _Flutes_, and a Peacock, the word,
_Eloquium tot lumina clausit_. Two Women upon the Wheels of Fortune, the
one holding a Lance, the other a _Cornucopia_; which _Impressa_ seemeth
to glaunce at Queen _Elizabeth_ and herself, the word, _Fortunæ
Comites_. The _Impressa of_ the Cardinal of _Lorrain_ her Uncle, a
_Pyramid_ overgrown with ivy, the vulgar word, _Te stante virebo_; a
Ship with her Mast broken and fallen in the Sea, the word, _Nusquam nisi
rectum_. This is for herself and her Son, a Big _Lyon_ and a young Whelp
beside her, the word, _Unum quidem, sed Leonem_. An embleme of a _Lyon_
taken in a Net, and Hares wantonly passing over him, the word, _Et
lepores devicto insultant Leone_. _Cammomel_ in a garden, the word,
_Fructus calcata dat amplos_. A Palm Tree, the word, _Ponderibus virtus
innata resistit_. A Bird in a _Cage_, and a _Hawk_ flying above, with
the word, _Il mal me preme et me spaventa a Peggio_. A triangle with a
Sun in the middle of a Circle, the word, _Trino non convenit orbis_. A
Porcupine amongst Sea Rocks, the word, _Ne volutetur_. The _Impressa_ of
king Henry the eight, a _Portculles_, the word, _altera securitas_. The
_Impressa_ of the Duke of _Savoy_, the annunciation of the Virgin
_Mary_, the word, _Fortitudo ejus_ Rhodum _tenuit_. He had kept the Isle
of _Rhodes_. Flourishes of Armes, as Helms, Launces, Corslets, Pikes,
Muskets, Canons, the word, _Dabit Deus his quoque finem_. A Tree planted
in a Church-yard environed with dead men’s bones, the word, _Pietas
revocabit ab orco_. Ecclipses of the Sun and the Moon, the word, _Ipsa
sibi lumen quod invidet aufert_, glauncing, as may appear, at Queen
_Elizabeth_. _Brennus_ Ballances, a sword cast in to weigh Gold, the
word, _Quid nisi Victis dolor!_ A Vine tree watred with Wine, which
instead to make it spring and grow, maketh it fade, the word, _Mea sic
mihi prosunt_. A wheel rolled from a Mountain in the Sea, the word,
_Piena di dolor voda de Sperenza_. Which appeareth to be her own, and it
should be, _Precipitio senza speranza_. A heap of Wings and Feathers
dispersed, the word, _Magnatum Vicinitas_. A Trophie upon a Tree, with
Mytres, Crowns, Hats, Masks, Swords, Books, and a Woman with a Vail
about her eyes or muffled, pointing to some about her, with this word,
_Ut casus dederit_. Three crowns, two opposite and another above in the
Sea, the word, _Aliamque moratur_. The Sun in an Ecclipse, the word,
_Medio occidet Die_.”

“I omit the Arms of _Scotland_, _England_, and _France_ severally by
themselves, and all quartered in many places of this Bed. The
workmanship is curiously done, and above all value, and truely it may be
of this Piece said, _Materiam superabat opus_.”[77]

It would be tedious to verify, as might be done in nearly every
instance, the original authors of these twenty-nine _Impreses_ and
Emblems. Several of them are in our own Whitney, several in Paradin’s
_Devises heroiques_, and several in _Dialogve des Devises d’armes et
d’amovrs dv S. Pavlo Jovio, &c._, 4to, A Lyon, 1561.

From the last named author we select as specimens two of the Emblems
with which Queen Mary embellished the bed for her son;—the first is “the
_Impressa_ of King _Francis_ the First,” who, as the _Dialogue_, p. 24,
affirms, “_changea la fierté des deuises de guerre en la douceur &
ioyeuseté amoureuse_,”—“And to signify that he was glowing with the
passions of love,—and so pleasing were they to him, that he had the
boldness to say that he found nourishment in them;—for this reason he
chose the Salamander, which dwelling in the flames is not consumed.”
(See woodcut next page.) The second, p. 25, is “the _Impressa_ of
_Henry_ the second, the _French King_,” the son and successor of Francis
in 1547. (See woodcut, p. 127.)

He had adopted the motto and device when he was Dauphin, and continued
to bear them on his succession to the throne;—in the one case to signify
that he could not show his entire worth until he arrived at the heritage
of the kingdom; and in the other that he must recover for his kingdom
what had been lost to it, and so complete its whole orb.

It may appear almost impossible, even on a “Bed of State,” to work
twenty-nine Emblems and the arms of Scotland, England, and France,
“severally by themselves and all quartered in many places of the
bed,”—but a bed, probably of equal antiquity, was a few years since, if
not now, existing at Hinckley in Leicestershire, on which the same
number “of emblematical devices, and Latin mottoes in capital letters
conspicuously introduced,” had found space and to spare. All these
emblems are, I believe, taken from books of Shakespeare’s time, or
before him; as, “An ostrich with a horseshoe in the beak,” the word,
_Spiritus durissima coquit_; “a cross-bow at full stretch,” the word,
_Ingenio superat vires_. “A hand playing with a serpent,” the word,
_Quis contra nos?_ “The tree of life springing from the cross on an
altar,”[78] the word, _Sola vivit in illo_. (See _Gentleman’s Magazine_,
vol. lxxxi. pt. 2, p. 416, Nov. 1811.)

NVTRISCO·ET·EXTINGVO

[Illustration: _Paolo Jovio, 1561._]

DONEC TOTVM IMPLEAT ORBEN

[Illustration: _Paolo Jovio, 1561._]

Of the use of Emblematical devices in the ornamenting of houses, it will
be sufficient to give the instance recorded in “The History and
Antiquities of Hawsted and Hardwick, in the county of Suffolk, by the
Rev. Sir John Cullum, Bart:” the 2nd edition, royal 4to, London, 1813,
pp. 159–165. This History makes it evident that in the reign of James
I., if not earlier, Emblems were so known and admired as to have been
freely employed in adorning a closet for the last Lady Drury. “They mark
the taste of an age that delighted in quaint wit, and laboured conceits
of a thousand kinds,” says Sir John; nevertheless, there were
_forty-one_ of them in “the painted closet” at Hawsted, and which, at
the time of his writing, were put up in a small apartment at Hardwick.
To all of them, as for King James’s bed, and for the “very antient oak
wooden bedstead, much gilt and ornamented,” at Hinckley, there were a
Latin motto and a device. Some of them we now present to the reader,
adding occasionally to our author’s account a further notice of the
sources whence they were taken:

Emblem 1. _Ut parta labuntur_,—“As procured they are slipping away.” “A
monkey, sitting in a window and scattering money into the streets, is
among the emblems of Gabriel Simeon:” it is also in our own English
Whitney, p. 169, with the word, _Malè parta malè delabuntur_,—“Badly
gotten, badly scattered.”

Emblem 5. _Quò tendis?_—“Whither art thou going?” “A human tongue with
bats’ wings, and a scaly contorted tail, mounting into the air,” “is
among the _Heroical Devises of Paradin_:” leaf 65 of edition Anvers,
1562.

Emblem 8. _Jam satis_,—“Already enough.” “Some trees, leafless, and torn
up by the roots; with a confused landscape. Above, the sun, and a
rainbow;” a note adds, “the most faire and bountiful queen of France
Katherine used the sign of the rainbow for her armes, which is an
infallible sign of peaceable calmeness and tranquillitie.”—Paradin.
Paradin’s words, ed. 1562, leaf 38, are “_Madame Catherine,
treschretienne Reine de France, a pour Deuise l’Arc celeste, ou Arc en
ciel: qui est le vrai signe de clere serenité & tranquilité de Paix_.”

Emblem 20. _Dum transis_, _time_,—“While thou art crossing, fear.” “A
pilgrim traversing the earth: with a staff, and a light coloured hat,
with a cockle shell in it.” In _Hamlet_, act iv. sc. 5, l. 23, vol.
viii. p. 129,—

“How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.”

“Or,” remarks Sir John Cullum, “as he is described in Greene’s _Never
too Late_, 1610;”—

“With _Hat of straw_, like to a swain,
Shelter for the sun and rain,
With scallop-shell before.”

Emblem 24. _Fronte nulla fides_,—“No trustworthiness on the brow.” The
motto with a different device occurs in Whitney’s _Emblems_, p. 100, and
was adopted by him from the Emblems of John Sambucus; edition Antwerp,
1564, p. 177. The device, however, in “the painted closet” was “a man
taking the dimensions of his own forehead with a pair of compasses;” “a
contradiction,” inaptly remarks Sir J. Cullum, “to a fancy of
Aristotle’s that the shape and several other circumstances, relative to
a man’s forehead, are expressive of his temper and inclination.”

POVR CONGNOISTRE
VN HOMME.

FRONS HOMINEM PRAEFERT

[Illustration: _Symeoni, 1561._]

Upon this supposition Symeon,[79] before mentioned, has invented an
Emblem, representing a human head and a hand issuing out of a cloud, and
pointing to it, with this motto, _Frons hominem præfert_,—“The forehead
shows the man.”

Emblem 33. _Speravi et perii_,—“I hoped and perished;”—the device, “A
bird thrusting its head into an oyster partly open.” A very similar
sentiment is rather differently expressed by Whitney, p. 128, by
Freitag, p. 169, and by Alciat, edition Paris, 1602, emb. 94, p. 437,
from whom it was borrowed. Here the device is a mouse invading the
domicile of an oyster, the motto, _Captivus ob gulam_,—“A prisoner
through gluttony;” and the poor little mouse—

“That longe did feede on daintie crommes,
And safelie search’d the cupborde and the shelfe:
At lengthe for chaunge, vnto an Oyster commes,
Where of his deathe, he guiltie was him selfe:
The Oyster gap’d, the Mouse put in his head,
Where he was catch’d, and crush’d till he was dead.”

Now, since so many Emblems from various authors were gathered to adorn a
royal bed,[80] “a very antient oak wooden bed,” and “a lady’s closet,”
in widely distant parts of Britain, the supposition is most reasonable
that the knowledge of them pervaded the cultivated and literary society
of England and Scotland; and that Shakespeare, as a member of such
society, would also be acquainted with them. The facts themselves are
testimonies of a generally diffused judgment and taste, by which
Emblematic devices for ornaments would be understood and appreciated.

And the facts we have mentioned are not solitary. About the period in
question, in various mansions of the two kingdoms, Device and Emblem
were employed for their adorning. In 1619, close upon Shakespeare’s
time, and most likely influenced by his writings, there was set up in
the Ancient Hall of the Leycesters of Lower Tabley, Cheshire, a richly
carved and very curious chimney-piece, which may be briefly described as
emblematizing country pursuits in connection with those of heraldry,
literature, and the drama. In high relief, on one of the upright slabs,
is a Lucrece, as the poet represents the deed, line 1723,—

“Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast
A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheathed.”

On the other slab is a Cleopatra, with the deadly creature in her hand,
though not at the very moment when she addressed the asp;—act. v. sc. 2,
l. 305, vol. ix. p. 151,—

“Peace, peace!
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
That sucks the nurse asleep?”

The cross slab represents the hunting of stag and hare, which with the
hounds have wonderfully human faces. Here might the words of Titus
Andronicus, act. ii. sc. 2, l. 1, vol. vii. p. 456, be applied,—

“The hunt is up, the moon is bright and gray,
The fields are fragrant, and the woods are green;
Uncouple here, and let us make a bay,
And wake the emperor and his lovely bride,
And rouse the prince, and ring a hunter’s peal
That all the court may echo with the noise.”

The heraldic insignia of the Leycesters surmount the whole, but just
below them, in a large medallion, is an undeniable Emblem, similar to
one which in 1624 appeared in Hermann Hugo’s _Pia Desideria_, bk. i.
emb. xv. p. 117; _Defecit in dolore vita mea et anni mei in gemitibus_
(_Psal._ xxx. or rather _Psal._ xxxi. 10),—“My life is spent with grief,
and my years with sighing.” Appended to Hugo’s device are seventy-six
lines of Latin elegiac verses, and five pages of illustrative quotations
from the Fathers; but the character of the Emblem will be seen from the
device presented.

Drayton in his _Barons’ Wars_, bk. vi., published in 1598, shows how the
knowledge of our subject had spread and was spreading; as when he says
of certain ornaments,—

“About the border, in a curious fret,
Emblems, impressas, hieroglyphics set.”

There is, however, no occasion to pursue any further this branch of our
theme, except it may be by a short continuation or extension of our
Period of time, to show how Milton’s greater Epic most curiously
corresponds with the title-page of a Dutch Emblem-book, which appeared
in 1642, several years before _Paradise Lost_ was written. (See Plate
X.) The book is, _Jan Vander Veens Zinne-beelden, oft Adams
Appel_,—“John Vander Veen’s Emblems, or Adam’s Apple,”—presenting some
Dutch doggerel lines, of which this English doggerel contains the
meaning,—

“When wounded Adam lay from the sin and the fall,
Out of the accursed wound flowed corruption and gall;
Hence is all wickedness and evil bred,
As here in print ye see the Devil fashioned.”

And again,—

“Out of Adam’s Apple springs
Misery, Sin, and deadly things.”

Singularly like to Milton’s Introduction (bk. i. lines 1–4),—

“Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden.”

_Plate 10_

IAN VANDER VEENS
ZINNE-BEELDEN,
OFT
ADAMS APPEL.
Verciert met ſeer aerdige Conſt-Plaeten
Meſgaders
Syne oude ende nieuwe ongemeene Bruyde-lofs ende Zege-zangen.

t’AMSTERDAM
BY EVERHARD CLOPPENBURGH, Boeck vercooper op’t Water 1642

[Illustration: _Title of “Adam’s Appel” Vander Veen 1642_]

_Plate 11_

_Lapsus diaboli._

CAP. III.

_LAPSVS SATANÆ._

_Cœlestes Genios perfecta luce creatos
Peccatum horrendo perdidit exitio.
Sub Phlegethonte Satan Cocyti mergitur undis:
Pœna eadem reliquis addita dœmonibus._

[Illustration: _Fall of Satan from Boissard’s “Theatrum Vitæ Humanæ,”
1596_]

With equal singularity appears in Boissard’s _Theatrum Vitæ
Humanæ_,—“Theatre of Human Life,”—edition Metz, 1596, p. 19, the
coincidence with Milton’s Fall of the rebel Angels. We have here
pictured and described the Fall of Satan (see Plate XI.) almost as in
modern days Turner depicted it, and as Milton has narrated the terrible
overthrow (_Paradise Lost_, bk. vi.), when they were pursued

“With terrors, and with furies, to the bounds
And crystal wall of heaven; which, opening wide,
Roll’d inward, and a spacious gap disclosed
Into the wasteful deep: the monstrous sight
Struck them with horror backward, but far worse
Urged them behind: headlong themselves they threw
Down from the verge of heaven....
Nine days they fell: confounded Chaos roar’d,
And felt tenfold confusion in their fall
Through his wild anarchy.”[81]

That same _Theatre of Human Life_, p. 1 (see Plate XIV.), also contains
a most apt picture of Shakespeare’s lines, _As You Like It_, act. ii.
sc. 7, l. 139, vol. ii. p. 409,—

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”

The same notion is repeated in the _Merchant of Venice_, act. i. sc. 1,
l. 77, vol. ii. p. 281, when Antonio says,—

“I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.”

In England, as elsewhere, emblematical carvings and writings preceded
books of Emblems, that is, books in which the art of

the engraver and the genius of the poet were both employed to illustrate
one and the same motto, sentiment, or proverbial saying. Not to repeat
what may be found in Chaucer and others, Spenser’s _Visions of
Bellay_,[82] alluded to in the fac-simile reprint of Whitney, pp. xvi &
xvii, needed only the designer and engraver to make them as perfectly
Emblem-books as were the publications of Brant, Alciatus and Perriere.
Those visions portray in words what an artist might express by a
picture. For example, in Moxon’s edition, 1845, p. 438, iv.,—

“I saw raisde vp on pillers of Iuorie,
Wereof the bases were of richest golde,
The chapters Alabaster, Christall frises,
The double front of a triumphall arke.
On eche side portraide was a Victorie,
With golden wings, in habite of a nymph
And set on hie vpon triumphing chaire;
The auncient glorie of the Romane lordes.
The worke did shew it selfe not wrought by man,
But rather made by his owne skilfull hands
That forgeth thunder dartes for Ioue his sire.
Let me no more see faire thing vnder heauen,
Sith I haue seene so faire a thing as this,
With sodaine falling broken all to dust.”

Now what artist’s skill would not suffice from this description to
delineate “the pillers of Iuorie,” “the chapters of Alabaster,” “a
Victorie with golden wings,” and “the triumphing chaire, the auncient
glorie of the Romane lordes;” and to make the whole a lively and most
cunning Emblem?

FEBRVARIE.

[Illustration: _Spenser, 1616._]

In his _Shepheards Calender_, indeed, to each of the months Spenser
appends what he names an “Emblem;” it is a motto, or device, from Greek,
Latin, Italian, French, or English, expressive of the supposed leading
idea of each Eclogue, and forming a moral to it. The folio edition of
Spenser’s works, issued in 1616, gives woodcuts for each month, and so
approaches very closely to the Emblematists of a former century. In the
month “FEBRVARIE,” there is introduced a veritable word-picture of “the
Oake and the Brier,” and also a pictorial illustration, with the sign of
the Fishes in the clouds, to indicate the season of the year. The oak is
described as “broughten to miserie:” l. 213,—

“For nought mought they quitten him from decay,
For fiercely the goodman at him did laye.
The blocke oft groned under the blow,
And sighed to see his neere overthrow.
In fine, the steele had pierced his pith,
Tho downe to the earth hee fell forthwith.”

The Brier, “puffed up with pryde,” has his turn of adversity: l. 234,—

“That nowe upright hee can stand no more;
And, being downe, is trod in the durt
Of cattel, and brouzed, and sorely hurt.”

The whole Eclogue, or Fable, is rounded off by the curious Italian
proverbs, to which Spenser gives the name of Emblems,—

THENOTS EMBLEME.

“Iddio, perche é vecchio,
Fa suoi al suo essempio.”

CUDDIES EMBLEME.

“Niuno vecchio
Spaventa Iddio.”

_i.e._, “God, although he is very aged, makes his friends copies of
himself,” makes them aged too; but the biting satire is added. “No old
man is ever terrified by Jove.”

IVNE

[Illustration: _Spenser, 1616._]

The Emblem for June represents a scene which the poet does not describe;
it is the field of the haymakers, with the zodiacal sign of the Crab,
and appropriate to the characters of Hobbinoll and Colin Clout,— but it
certainly does not translate into pictures what the poet had delineated
in words of great beauty:

“Lo! Colin, here the place whose plesaunt syte
From other shades hath weaned my wandring minde,
Tell mee, what wants mee here to worke delyte?
The simple ayre, the gentle warbling winde,
So calme, so coole, as nowhere else I finde;
The grassie grounde with daintie daysies dight,
The bramble bush, where byrdes of every kinde
To the waters fall their tunes attemper right.”

No more needs be said respecting the knowledge of Emblem-books in
Britain, unless it be to give the remarks of Tod, the learned editor of
Spenser’s works, edition 1845, p. x. “_The Visions_ are little things,
done probably when Spenser was _young_, according to the taste of the
times for Emblems.[83] The _Theatre of Wordlings_, I must add, evidently
presents a series of Emblems.”

II. We will now state some of the general indications that Shakespeare
was acquainted with Emblem-books, or at least had imbibed “the taste of
the times.”

Here and there in Shakespeare’s works, even from the way in which
sayings and mottoes, in Spanish, as well as in French and Latin, are
employed, we have indications that he had seen and, it may be, had
studied some of the Emblem-writers of his day, and participated of their
spirit. Thus Falstaff’s friend, the ancient Pistol, _2 Henry IV._ act.
ii. sc. 4, l. 165, vol. iv. p. 405, quotes the doggerel line, as given
in the note, _Si fortuna me tormenta, il sperare me contenta_,—“If
fortune torments me, hope contents me,”—which doubtless was the motto on
his sword, which he immediately lays down. As quoted, the line is
Spanish; a slight alteration would make it Italian; but Douce’s
conjecture appears well founded, that as Pistol was preparing to lay
aside his sword, he read off the motto which was upon it. Such mottoes
were common as inscriptions upon swords; and Douce, vol. i. pp. 452, 3,
gives the drawing of one with the French line, “Si fortune me tourmente,
L’esperance me contente.”

[Illustration: _Douce, 1807._]

He gives it, too, as a fact, that “Haniball Gonsaga being in the
low-countries overthrowne from his horse by an English captaine and
commanded to yeeld himselfe prisoner, _kist his sword_, and gave it to
the Englishman, saying, ‘_Si fortuna me tormenta, il speranza me
contenta_.’” Allow that Shakespeare served in the Netherlands, and we
may readily suppose that he had heard the motto from the very Englishman
to whom Gonsaga had surrendered.

The Clown in _Twelfth Night_, act. i. sc. 5, l. 50, vol. iii. p. 234,
replies to the Lady Olivia ordering him as a fool to be taken
away,—“Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, _cucullus non facit
monachum_, [—it is not the hood that makes the monk,]—that’s as much to
say as I wear not motley in my brain.” The saying is one which might
appropriately adorn any Emblem-book of the day;—and the motley-wear
receives a good illustration from a corresponding expression in Whitney,
p. 81:

“The little childe, is pleas’de with cockhorse gaie,
Although he aske a courser of the beste:
The ideot likes, with bables for to plaie,
And is disgrac’de when he is brauelie dreste:
A motley coate, a cockescombe, or a bell,
Hee better likes, than Jewelles that excell.”

So, during Cade’s rebellion, when the phrase is applied by Lord Say, in
answer to Dick the butcher’s question, “What say you of Kent?” _2 Henry
VI._ act. iv. sc. 7, l. 49, vol. v. p. 197,—

“Nothing but this: ’Tis _bona terra, mala gens_;”

or when falling under the attack of York on the field of St. Alban’s,
Lord Clifford exclaims, _La fin couronne les œuvres_ (_2 Henry VI._ act.
v. sc. 2, l. 28, vol. v. p. 217); these again are instances after the
methods of Emblem-writers; and if they were carried out, as might be
done, would present all the characteristics of the Emblem, in motto,
illustrative woodcut, and descriptive verses.

It is but an allusion, and yet the opening scene, act. i. sc. 1, l. 50,
vol. ii. p. 280, of the _Merchant of Venice_ might borrow that allusion
from an expression of Alciatus, edition Antwerp, 1581, p. 92, _Jane
bifrons_,—“two-headed Janus.” (See woodcut, p. 140.)

IANE _bifrons, qui iam transacta futuraq̃ calles,
Quiq̃ retro sannas, sicut & ante, vides_;—

“Janus two-fronted, who things past and future well knowest,
And who mockings behind, as also before dost behold.”[84]

The friends of Antonio banter him for his sadness, and one of them
avers,—

“Now by two-headed Janus,
Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time:
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper;
And other of such vinegar aspect
That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.”

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1581._]

Even if Shakespeare understood no Latin, the picture itself, or a
similar one, would be sufficient to give origin to the phrase
“two-headed Janus.” He adopts the picture, but not one of the
sentiments; these, however, he did not need: it was only as a passing
illustration that he named Janus, and how the author described the god’s
qualities was no part of his purpose.

Or if the source of the phrase be not in Alciatus, it may have been
derived either from Whitney’s _Choice of Emblemes_, p. 108, or from
Perriere’s _Theatre des Bons Engins_, Paris, 1539, emb. i., reproduced
in 1866 to illustrate pl. 30 of the fac-simile reprint of Whitney.
Perriere’s French stanza is to this effect:—

“In old times the god Janus with two faces
Our ancients did delineate and portray,
To demonstrate that counsels of wise races
Look to a future, as well as the past day;
In fact all time of deeds should leave the traces,
And of the past recordance ever have;
The future should foresee like providence,
Following up virtue in each noble quality,
Seeking God’s strength from sinfulness to save.
Who thus shall do will learn by evidence
That he has power to live in great tranquillity.”[85]

Another instance of Emblem-like delineation, or description, we have in
_King Henry V._ act iii. sc. 7, lines 10–17, vol. iv. p. 549. Louis the
Dauphin, praising his own horse, as if bounding from the earth like a
tennis ball (see woodcut on next page), exclaims,—

“I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four
pasterns. Ça, ha! he bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were
hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus, chez les narines de feu! When I
bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings
when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the
pipe of Hermes.[86]

_Orl._ He’s of the colour of the nutmeg.

_Dau._ And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus: he is
pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear
in him, but only in patient stillness, while his rider mounts him: he is
indeed a horse; and all other jades you may call beasts.

_Con._ Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.

_Dau._ It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of
a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.”

[Illustration: _Bocchius, 1555._]

This lively description suits well the device of a Paris printer,
Christian Wechel, who, in 1540,[87] dwelt “a l’enseigne du Cheval
volant;” or that of Claude Marnius of Francfort, who, before 1602, had a
similar trade-mark. At least three of Reusner’s _Emblems_, edition
Francfort, 1581, have the same device; and the Dauphin’s paragon answers
exactly to a Pegasus in the first Emblem, dedicated to Rudolph II., who,
on the death of his father, Maximilian, became Emperor of Germany.

ΣΥΝ ΔΥΩ ΕΡΧΟΜΕΝΩ.
Non abſque Theſeo.
_EMBLEMA I._

[Illustration: _Reusner_, 1581.]

_Ad Diuum Rudolphum Secundum_
_Cæſarem Romanum._

Here[88] we have a Pegasus like that which Shakespeare praises; it has a
warrior on its back, and bounds along, trotting the air. In other two of
Reusner’s _Emblems_, the Winged Horse is standing on the ground, with
Perseus near him; and in a third, entitled _Principis boni
imago_,—“Portrait of a good prince,”—St. George is represented on a
flying steed[89] attacking the Dragon, and delivering from its fury the
Maiden chained to a rock, that shadows forth a suffering and persecuted
church. Shakespeare probably had seen these or similar drawings before
he described Louis the Dauphin riding on a charger that had nostrils of
fire.

The qualities of good horsemanship Shakespeare specially admired. Hence
those lines in _Hamlet_, act iv. sc. 7, l. 84, vol. viii. p. 145,—

“I’ve seen myself, and served against, the French,
And they can well on horseback: but this gallant
Had witchcraft in’t; he grew unto his seat,
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,
As he had been incorpsed and demi-natured
With the brave beast.”

An emblem in Alciatus, edition 1551, p. 20, also gives the mounted
warrior on the winged horse;—it is Bellerophon in his contest with the
Chimæra. The accompanying stanza has in it an expression like one which
the dramatist uses,—

“Sic tu Pegaseis vectus petis æthera pennis,”—

“So thou being borne on the wings of Pegasus seekest the air.”

Equally tasting of the Emblem-writers of Henry’s and Elizabeth’s reigns
is that other proverb in French which Shakespeare places in the mouth of
the Dauphin Louis. The subject is still his “paragon of animals,” which
he prefers even to his mistress. See _Henry V._ act iii. sc. 7, l. 54,
vol iv. p. 550. “I had rather,” he says, “have my horse to my mistress;”
and the Constable replies, “I had as lief have my mistress a jade.”

“_Dau._ I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears his own hair.

_Con._ I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to my
mistress.

_Dau._ Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie
lavée au bourbier. Thou makest use of anything.” [“The dog has returned
to his vomit, and the sow that had been washed, to her mire.”]

Though the French is almost a literal rendering of the Latin Vulgate, _2
Pet._ ii. 23, “Canis reversus ad suum vomitum: & sus lota in volutabro
luti;” the whole conception is in the spirit of Freitag’s _Mythologia
Ethica_, Antwerp, 1579, in which there is appended to each emblem a text
of Scripture. A subject is chosen, a description of it given, an
engraving placed on the opposite page, and at the foot some passage from
the Latin vulgate is applied.

It may indeed be objected that, if Shakespeare was well acquainted with
the Emblem literature it is surprising he should pass over, almost in
silence, some Devices which partake peculiarly of his general spirit,
and which would furnish suggestions for very forcible and very
appropriate descriptions. Were we to examine his works thoroughly, we
should discover some very remarkable omissions of subjects that appear
to be exactly after his own method and perfectly natural to certain
parts of his dramas. We may instance the almost total want of
commendation for the moral qualities of the dog, whether “mastiff,
greyhound, mongrel grim, hound or spaniel, brach or lym, or bob-tail
tike, or trundle-tail.” The whole race is under a ban.

[Illustration: _Perriere, 1539._]

So industry, diligence, with their attendant advantages,—negligence,
idleness, with their disadvantages, are scarcely alluded to, and but
incidentally praised or blamed.

We may take one of Perriere’s Emblems, the 101st of _Les Bons Engins_,
as our example, to show rather divergence than agreement,—or, at any
rate, a different way of treating the subject.

“En ce pourtraict pouuez veoir diligence,
Tenant en main le cornet de copie:
Elle triumph[e/] en grand magnificence:
Car de paress[e/] one ne fut assoupie:
Dessoubz ses piedz tiẽt famin[e/] acroupie
Et attaché[e/] en grand captiuité:
Puis les formys par leur hastiuité
Diligemment tirent le tout ensemble:
Pour demonstrer qu’ auec oysiuité,
Impossibl[e/] est que grãdz biẽs l’õ assẽble.”

“A portrait here you see of diligence
Bearing in hand full plenty’s horn,
Triumphant in her great magnificence,
And ever holding laziness in scorn;
Crouching beneath her feet famine forlorn
In fetters bound of strong captivity.
And then the ants with their activity
The whole most diligently along do draw,—
A demonstration clear that idleness
Finds it impossible by nature’s law
With stores of goods her poverty to bless.”

Under the motto, _Otiosi semper egentes_,—“The idle always
destitute,”—Whitney, p. 175, describes the same conditions,—

“HERE, Idlenes doth weepe amid her wantes,
Neare famished: whome, labour whippes for Ire:
Here, labour sittes in chariot drawen with antes:
And dothe abounde with all he can desire.
The grashopper, the toyling ante derides,
In Sommers heate, cause she for coulde prouides.”

The idea is in some degree approached in the Chorus of _Henry V._ act i.
l. 5, vol. iv. p. 491,—

“Then should the warlike Harry, like himself
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire
Crouch for employment.”

The triumph of industry may also be inferred from the marriage blessing
which Ceres pronounces in the Masque of the _Tempest_, act iv. sc. 1, l.
110, vol. i. p. 57,—

“Earth’s increase, foison plenty,
Barns and garners never empty;
Vines with clustering bunches growing;
Plants with goodly burthen bowing;
Spring come to you at the farthest
In the very end of harvest!
Scarcity and want shall shun you,
Ceres’ blessing so is on you.”

Yet for labour, work, industry, diligence, or by whatever other name the
virtue of steady exertion may be known, there is scarcely a word of
praise in Shakespeare’s abundant vocabulary, and of its effects no clear
description. We are told in _Cymbeline_, act iii. sc. 6, l. 31, vol. ix.
p. 240,—

“The sweat of industry would dry and die,
But for the end it works to.... Weariness
Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth
Finds the down pillow hard.”

And in contrasting the cares of royalty with the sound sleep of the
slave, Henry V. (act iv. sc. 1, l. 256, vol iv. p. 564) declares that
the slave,—

“Never sees horrid night, the child of hell;
But like a lacquey, from the rise to set,
Sweats in the eye of Phœbus, and all night
Sleeps in Elysium; next day, after dawn,
Doth rise, and help Hyperion to his horse;
And follow so the ever running year
With profitable labour to his grave;”

but the subject is never entered upon in its moral and social aspects,
unless the evils which are ascribed by the Duke of Burgundy (_Henry V._
act v. sc. 2, l. 48, vol. iv. p. 596) to war, are also to be attributed
to the negligence which war creates,—

“The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled cowslip, burnet and green clover,
Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,
Conceives by idleness; and nothing teems
But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,
Losing both beauty and utility.”

Another instance we may give of that Emblem spirit, which often occurs
in Shakespeare, and at the same time we may supply an example of
Freitag’s method of illustrating a subject, and of appending to it a
scriptural quotation. (See _Mythologia Ethica_, Antwerp, 1579, p. 29.)
The instance is from _King Lear_, act ii. sc. 4, l. 61, vol. viii. p.
317, and the subject, _Contraria industriæ ac desidiæ præmia_—“The
opposite rewards of industry and slothfulness.”

When Lear had arrived at the Earl of Gloster’s castle, Kent inquires,—

“How chance the king comes with so small a train?

_Fool._ An thou hadst been set i’ the stocks for that question, thou
hadst well deserv’d it.

_Gent._ Why, fool?

_Fool._ We’ll set thee to school to an ant to teach thee there’s no
labouring in the winter.”

That school we have presented to us in Freitag’s engraving (see woodcut
on next page), and in the stanzas of Whitney, p. 159. There are the
ne’er-do-well grasshopper and the sage schoolmaster of an ant,
propounding, we may suppose, the wise saying, _Dum ætatis ver agitur:
consule brumæ_,—“While the spring of life is passing, consult for
winter,”—and the poet moralizes thus:

“IN winter coulde, when tree, and bushe, was bare,
And frost had nip’d the rootes of tender grasse:
The antes, with ioye did feede vpon their fare,
Which they had stor’de, while sommers season was:
To whome, for foode the grashopper did crie,
And said she staru’d, if they did helpe denie.

Whereat, an ante, with longe experience wise?
And frost, and snowe, had manie winters seene:
Inquired, what in sommer was her guise.
Quoth she, I songe, and hop’t in meadowes greene:
Then quoth the ante, content thee with thy chaunce,
For to thy songe, nowe art thou light to daunce?”

Contraria induſtriae ac deſidiæ præmia.

[Illustration: _Freitag_, 1579.]

_Propter frigus piger arare noluit: mendicabit ergo æſtate, & non
dabitur illi._

_Prouerb. 20, 4._

“The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall
he beg in harvest, and have nothing.”

Freitag’s representation makes indeed a change in the season at which
the “ante, with longe experience wise,” administers her reproof; but it
is equally the school for learning in the time of youth and strength, to
provide for the infirmities of age and the adversities of fortune.

And more than similar in spirit to the Emblem writers which preceded,
almost emblems themselves, are the whole scenes from the _Merchant of
Venice_, act ii. sc. 7 and 9, and act iii. sc. 2, where are introduced
the three caskets of gold, of silver, and of lead, by the choice of
which the fate of Portia is to be determined,[90]—

“The first, of gold, who this inscription bears,
‘Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire;’
The second, silver, which this promise carries,
‘Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves;’
This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt,
‘Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.’”
Act ii. sc. 7, lines 4–9.

And when the caskets are opened, the drawings and the inscriptions on
the written scrolls, which are then taken out, examined and read, are
exactly like the engravings and the verses by which emblems and their
mottoes are set forth. Thus, on unlocking the golden casket, the Prince
of Morocco exclaims,—

“O hell! what have we here?
A carrion Death, within whose empty eye
There is a written scroll! I’ll read the writing. [_Reads._]
All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms infold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been inscroll’d:
Fare you well; your suit is cold.”
Act ii. sc. 7, lines 62–73.

The Prince of Arragon, also, on opening the silver casket, receives not
merely a written scroll, as is represented in Symeoni’s “DISTICHI
MORALI,”—_Moral Stanzas_,—but what corresponds to the device or woodcut
of the Emblem-book; “The portrait of a blinking idiot,” who presents to
him “The schedule,” or explanatory rhymes,—

“The fire seven times tried this:
Seven times tried that judgment is,
That did never choose amiss.
Some there be that shadows kiss;
Such have but a shadow’s bliss:
There be fools alive, I wis,
Silver’d o’er; and so was this.
Take what wife you will to bed,
I will ever be your head:
So be gone: you are sped.”
Act ii. sc. 9, lines 63–72.

These Emblems of Shakespeare’s are therefore complete in all their
parts; the mottoes, the pictures, “a carrion Death” and “a blinking
idiot,” and the descriptive verses.

Coſi viuo Piacer conduce à morte.

[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]

The words of Portia (act. ii. sc. 9, l. 79, vol. ii. p. 319), when the
Prince of Arragon says,—

“Sweet adieu, I’ll keep my oath,
Patiently to bear my wroth;”

are moreover a direct reference to the Emblems which occur in various
authors. _Les Devises Heroiqves_, by Claude Paradin, Antwerp, 1562,
contains the adjoining Emblem, _Too lively a pleasure conducts to
death_.

And Giles Corrozet in his “HECATOMGRAPHIE, C’est à dire, les
descriptions de cent figures, &c.,”[91] adopting the motto, _War is
sweet only to the inexperienced_, presents, in illustration, a butterfly
fluttering towards a candle.

La guerre doulce aux inexperimentez.

[Illustration: _Corrozet, 1540._]

Les Papillons ſe vont bruſler
A la chandelle qui reluyct.
Tel veult à la bataill[e/] aller
Qui ne ſcaict combien guerre nuyct.

“The Butterflies themselves are about to burn,
In the candle which still shines on and warms;
Such foolish, wish to battle fields to turn,
Who know not of the war, how much it harms.”

This device, in fact, was one extremely popular with the Emblem
literati. Boissard and Messin’s _Emblems_, 1588, pp. 58, 59, present
it to the mottoes, “Temerité dangereuse,” or _Temere ac
Pericvlose_,—“rashly and dangerously.” Joachim Camerarius, in his
Emblems _Ex Volatilibus et Insectis_ (Nuremberg, 4to, 1596), uses it,
with the motto, _Brevis et damnosa Voluptas_—“A short and destructive
pleasure,”—and fortifies himself in adopting it by no less authorities
than Æschylus and Aristotle. _Emblemes of Love, with Verses in Latin,
English, and Italian_, by Otho Vænius, 4to, Antwerp, 1608, present
Cupid to us, at p. 102, as watching the moths and the flames with
great earnestness, the mottoes being, _Brevis et damnosa
voluptas_,—“For one pleasure a thousand paynes,”—and _Breue
gioia_,—“Brief the gladness.”

There is, too, on the same subject, the elegant device which Symeoni
gives at p. 25 of his “DISTICHI MORALI,” and which we repeat on the next
page.

The subject is, _Of Love too much_; and the motto, “Too much pleasure
leads to death,” is thus set forth, almost literally, by English
rhymes:—

“In moderation Love is praised and prized,
Loss and dishonour in excess it brings:
In burning warmth how fail its boasted wings,
As simple butterflies in light chastised.”

_D’AMOR SOVERCHIO._

[Illustration: _Giovio and Symeoni, 1561._]

_Il moderato amor ſi loda & prezza,
Ma il troppo apporta danno & diſhonore,
Et ſpeſſo manca nel ſouerchio ardore,
Qual ſemplice farfalla al lume auuezza._

Coſi piacer conduce à morte.

Now can there be unreasonableness in supposing that out of these many
Emblem writers Shakespeare may have had some one in view when he
ascribed to Portia the words,—

“Thus hath the candle singed the moth.
O, these deliberate fools! when they do choose,
They have the wisdom by their wit to lose.”
Act ii. sc. 9, lines 79–81.

The opening of the third of the caskets (act. iii. sc. 2, l. 115, vol.
ii. p. 328), that made of lead, is also as much an Emblem delineation as
the other two, excelling them, indeed, in the beauty of the language as
well as in the excellence of the device, a very paragon of gracefulness.
“What find I here?” demands Bassanio; and himself replies,—

“Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demi-god
Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?
Or whether, riding on the balls of mine
Seem they in motion? Here are sever’d lips,
Parted with sugar breath: so sweet a bar
Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs
The painter plays the spider, and hath woven
A golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men,
Faster than gnats in cobwebs:[92] but her eyes,—
How could he see to do them? Having made one,
Methinks it should have power to steal both his,
And leave itself unfurnish’d. Yet look, how far
The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
In underprizing it, so far this shadow
Doth limp behind the substance. Here’s a scroll,
The continent and summary of my fortune.
[_Reads_] You that choose not by the view,
Chance as fair, and choose as true!
Since this fortune falls to you,
Be content and seek no new.
If you will be pleased with this,
And hold your fortune for your bliss,
Turn you where your lady is,
And claim her with a loving kiss.”

In these scenes of the casket, Shakespeare himself, therefore, is
undoubtedly an Emblem writer; and there needs only the woodcut, or the
engraving, to render them as perfect examples of Emblem writing as any
that issued from the pens of Alciatus, Symeoni, and Beza. The dramatist
may have been sparing in his use of this tempting method of
illustration, yet, with the instances before us, we arrive at the
conclusion that Shakespeare knew well what Emblems were. And surely he
had seen, and in some degree studied, various portions of the Emblem
literature which was anterior to, or contemporary with himself.

[Illustration:

ΜΙΚΡΟΝ ΦΡΟΝΤΙΣΑΝΤΕΣ ΖΩΚΡΑΤΟΥΣ.
ΤΗΣ ΔΕ ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑΣ ΗΟΛΥ ΜΑΛΛΟΝ.
_Cebes_, _ed._ 1552. Motto _from Plate_
]

-----

Footnote 73:

The subjects of the “nyne pageauntes,” and of their verses,
are—~“Chyldhod, Manhod, Venus and Cupyde, Age, Deth, Fame, Tyme,
Eternitee,”~ in English; and ~“The Port”~ in Latin.

Footnote 74:

Thus to be rendered—

While Elizabeth, as king, did reign,
England the terror was of Spain;
Now, chitter-chatter and Emblemes
Rule, through our queen, the little James.

Footnote 75:

Through Mr. Jones, of the Chetham Library, Manchester, I applied to D.
Laing, Esq., of the Signet Library, Edinburgh, to inquire if the bed
of state is known still to exist. The reply, Dec. 31st, 1867, is—

“In regard to Queen Mary’s bed at Holyrood, there is one which is
shown to visitors, but I am quite satisfied that it does not
correspond with Drummond’s description, as ‘wrought in silk and gold.’
There are some hangings of old tapestry, but in a very bad state of
preservation. Yesterday afternoon I went down to take another look at
it, but found, as it was getting dark, some of the rooms locked up,
and no person present. Should, however, I find anything further on the
subject, I will let you know, but I do not expect it.”

Footnote 76:

This mode of naming the motto appears taken from Shakespeare’s
_Pericles_, as—

“A black Æthiop, reaching at the sun:
The word, _Lux tua vita mihi_.”

Footnote 77:

In two other Letters Drummond makes mention of Devices or Emblems.
Writing from Paris, p. 249, he describes “the Fair of St. Germain:”—

“The diverse Merchandize and Wares of the many nations at that
Mart;” and adds, “Scarce could the wandering thought light upon any
Storie, Fable, Gayetie, which was not here represented to view.”

A letter to the Earl of Perth, p. 256, tells of various Emblems:—

“MY NOBLE LORD,—After a long inquiry about the Arms of your
Lordships antient House, and the turning of sundry Books of
_Impresaes_ and Herauldry, I found your V N D E S. famous and very
honourable.”

“In our neighbour Countrey of _England_ they are born, but inverted
upside down and diversified. _Torquato Tasso_ in his _Rinaldo_ maketh
mention of a Knight who had a Rock placed in the Waves, with the Worde
_Rompe ch’il percote_. And others hath the Seas waves with a Syren
rising out of them, the word _Bella Maria_, which is the name of some
Courtezan. _Antonio Perenotto, Cardinal Gravella_, had for an
_Impresa_ the sea, a Ship on it, the word _Durate_ out of the first of
the Æneades, _Durate et vosmet rebus servate secundis_. _Tomaso de
Marini_, Duca di terra nova, had for his _Impresa_ the Waves with a
sun over them, the word, _Nunquam siccabitur æstu_. The Prince of
Orange used for his _Impresa_ the _Waves_ with an _Halcyon_ in the
midst of them, the word, _Mediis tranquillus in undis_, which is
rather an _Embleme_ than _Impresa_, because the figure is in the
word.”

Footnote 78:

See device at a later part of our volume.

Footnote 79:

See Symeon’s _Deuises Heroiques & Morales_, edition, 4to, Lyons, 1561,
p. 246, where the motto and device occur, followed by the explanation,
“_Ceux qui ont escrit de la Physiognomie, & mesme Aristote, disent
parmy d’autres choses que le front de l’homme est celuy, par lequell’
on peut facilement cognoistre la qualité de ses mœurs, & la complexion
de sa nature_,” &c.

Footnote 80:

It may be named as a curious fact that a copy of Alciat’s _Emblemes en
Latin et en Francois Vers pour Vers_, 16mo, Paris, 1561, contains the
autograph of the Prolocutor against Mary Queen of Scots, W. PYKERYNGE,
1561, which would be about _five_ years before Mary’s son was born,
for whom she wrought a bed of state. The edition of Paradin, a copy of
which bears Geffrey Whitney’s autograph, was printed at Antwerp in
1562; and one at least of his Emblems to the motto, _Video et taceo_,
was written as early as 1568.

Footnote 81:

In some of the more elaborate of Plantin’s devices, the action of “the
omnific word” seems pictured, though in very humble degree,—

“In his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God’s eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe, and all created things:
One foot he centred, and the other turn’d
Round through the vast profundity obscure.”—_Par. Lost_, bk. vii.

Footnote 82:

Derived from Joachim du Bellay (who died in 1560 at the age of
thirty-seven), the excellence of whose poetry entitled him to be named
the Ovid of France. There is good evidence to show that Du Bellay was
well acquainted with the Emblematists, who in his time were rising
into fame.

Footnote 83:

Dibdin, in his _Bibliomania_, p. 331, adduces an instance; he says,
“In the PRAYER-BOOK which goes by the name of QUEEN ELIZABETH’S, there
is a portrait of her Majesty kneeling, upon a superb cushion, with
elevated hands, in prayer. This book was first printed in 1575, and is
decorated with woodcut borders of considerable spirit and beauty,
representing, among other things, some of the subjects of Holbein’s
_Dance of Death_.”

Footnote 84:

Amplified by Whitney, p. 108, _Respice, et prospice_, “Look back, and
look forward.”

“THE former parte, nowe paste, of this my booke,
The seconde parte in order doth insue:
Which, I beginne with IANVS double looke,
That as hee sees, the yeares both oulde, and newe,
So, with regarde, I may these partes behoulde,
Perusinge ofte, the newe, and eeke the oulde

And if, that faulte within vs doe appeare,
Within the yeare, that is alreadie donne,
As IANVS biddes vs alter with the yeare,
And make amendes, within the yeare begonne,
Even so, my selfe suruayghinge what is past;
With greater heede, may take in hande the laste.”

Footnote 85:

We subjoin the old French,—

“LE Dieu Ianus iadis à deux visages,
Noz anciẽs ont pourtraict & trassé,
Pour demõstrer que l’aduis des gẽs sages.
Vis[e/] au futur aussi bien qu’ au passé,
Tout temps doibt estr[e/] en effect cõpassé,
Et du passé auoir la recordance,
Pour au futur preueoir en providence,
Suyuant vertu en toute qualité.
Qui le fera verra par euidence,
Qu’il pourra viure en grãd tranquillité.”

Footnote 86:

The illustration we immediately choose is from Sym. cxxxvii. p.
cccxiiii. of Achilles Bocchius, edition Bologna, 1555, with the motto—

“ARS RHETOR, TRIPLEX MOVET, IVVAT, DOCET,
SED PRÆPOTENS EST VERITAS DIVINITVS.
SIC MONSTRA VITIOR, DOMAT PRVDENTIA.”

Rhetoric’s art threefold, it moves, delights, instructs,
But powerful above all is truth of heaven inspired.
So the monsters of our vices doth wisdom’s self subdue.

Footnote 87:

See _Les Emblemes de Maistre Andre Alciat, mis en rime françoyse_,
Paris, 1540.

Footnote 88:

The device, however, of this Emblem is copied from Symeoni’s _Vita et
Metamorfoseo d’Ovidio_, Lyons, 1559, p. 72; as also are some others
used by Reusner.

Footnote 89:

In _Troilus and Cressida_, act i. sc. 3, l. 39, vol. vi. p. 142, we
read,—

“Anon beheld
The strong-ribb’d bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements,
Like Perseus’ horse.”

Footnote 90:

The description and quotations are almost identical with the Whitney
_Dissertations_, pp. 294–6.

Footnote 91:

See Whitney’s _Fac-simile Reprint_, plate 32.

Footnote 92:

In the work of Joachim Camerarius, just quoted, at p. 152, to the
motto, “VIOLENTIOR EXIT,”—_The more violent escapes_, p. 99,—there is
the device of Gnats and Wasps in a cobweb, with the stanza,—

“_Innodat culicem, sed vespæ pervia tela est:
Sic rumpit leges vis, quibus hæret inops._”

“The gnat the web entangles, but to the wasp
Throughout is pervious; so force breaks laws,
To which the helpless is held bound in chains.”

-----

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER V.
SIX DIRECT REFERENCES IN THE PERICLES TO BOOKS OF EMBLEMS, SOME OF THEIR DEVICES DESCRIBED, AND OF THEIR MOTTOES QUOTED.

SHAKESPEARE’S name, in three quarto editions, published during his
lifetime, appears as author of the play of _Pericles, Prince of Tyre_;
and if a decision be made that the authorship belongs to him, and that
in the main the work was his composition, then our previous conjectures
are changed into certainties, and we can confidently declare who were
the Emblem writers he refers to, and can exhibit the very passages from
their books which he has copied and adopted.

The early folio editions of the plays, those of 1623 and 1632, omit the
_Pericles_ altogether, but later editions restore it to a place among
the works of Shakespeare. Dr. Farmer contends that the hand of the great
dramatist is visible only in the last act; but others controvert this
opinion, and maintain, though he was not the fabricator of the plot, nor
the author of every dialogue and chorus, that his genius is evident in
several passages.

In Knight’s _Pictorial Shakspere_, supplemental volume, p. 13, we are
informed: “The first edition of _Pericles_ appeared in 1609,”—several
years before the dramatist’s death,—“under the following title,—‘The
late and much admired play, called _Pericles, Prince of Tyre, &c._ By
William Shakespeare: London, Glosson, 1609.’”

According to the Cambridge editors, vol. ix. p. i, Preface, “another
edition was issued in the same year.” The publication was repeated in
1611, 1619, 1630 and 1635, so that at the very time when Shakespeare was
living, his authorship was set forth; and after his death, while his
friends and contemporaries were alive, the opinion still prevailed.

The conclusion at which Knight arrives, sup. vol. pp. 118, 119, is thus
stated by him: “We advocate the belief that _Pyrocles_, or _Pericles_
was a very early work of Shakspere in some form, however different from
that which we possess.” And again, “We think that the _Pericles_ of the
beginning of the seventeenth century was the revival of a play written
by Shakspere some twenty years earlier.... Let us accept Dryden’s
opinion, that

“‘Shakespeare’s own Muse his Pericles first bore.’”

The Cambridge editors, vol. ix. p. 10, ed. 1866, gave a firmer
judgment:—“There can be no doubt that the hand of Shakespeare is
traceable in many of the scenes, and that throughout the play he largely
retouched, and even rewrote, the work of some inferior dramatist. But
the text has come down to us in so maimed and imperfect a state that we
can no more judge of what the play was when it left the master’s hand
than we should have been able to judge of _Romeo and Juliet_, if we had
only had the first quarto as authority for the text.”

Our own Hallam tells us,—“_Pericles_ is generally reckoned to be in
part, and only in part, the work of Shakespeare:” but with great
confidence the critic Schlegel declares,—“This piece was acknowledged to
be a work, but a youthful work of Shakespeare’s. It is most undoubtedly
his, and it has been admitted into several later editions of his works.
The supposed imperfections originate in the circumstance that
Shakespeare here handled a childish and extravagant romance of the old
poet Gower, and was unwilling to drag the subject out of its proper
sphere. Hence he even introduces Gower himself, and makes him deliver a
prologue in his own antiquated language and versification. This power of
assuming so foreign a manner is at least no proof of helplessness.”

There are, then, strong probabilities that in the main the _Pericles_
was Shakespeare’s own composition, or at least was adopted by him; it
belongs to his early dramatic life, and at any rate it may be taken as
evidence to show that the Emblem writers were known and made use of
between 1589 and 1609 by the dramatists of England.

Books of Emblems are not indeed mentioned by their titles, nor so quoted
in the _Pericles_ as we are accustomed to do, by making direct
references; they were a kind of common property, on which everyone might
pasture his Pegasus or his Mule without any obligation to tell where his
charger had been grazing. The allusions, however, are so plain, the
words so exactly alike, that they cannot be misunderstood. The author
was of a certainty acquainted with more than one Emblem writer, in more
than one language, and Paradin, Symeoni, and our own Whitney may be
recognised in his pages. We conclude that he had them before him, and
copied from them when he penned the second scene of the Second Act of
_Pericles_.

The Dialogue is between Simonides, king of Pentapolis, and his daughter,
Thaisa, on occasion of the “triumph,” or festive pageantry, which was
held in honour of her birthday. (_Pericles_, act. ii. sc. 2, lines
17–47, vol. ix. pp. 343, 344.)

“_Enter a_ Knight; _he passes over, and his_ Squire _presents his shield
to the_ Princess.
_Sim._ Who is the first that doth prefer himself?
_Thai._ A knight of Sparta, my renowned father;
And the device he bears upon his shield
Is a black Ethiope reaching at the sun;
The word, ‘Lux tua vita mihi.’

_Sim._ He loves you well that holds his life of you.
[_The_ Second Knight _passes_.
Who is the second that presents himself?
_Thai._ A prince of Macedon, my royal father;
And the device he bears upon his shield
Is an arm’d knight that’s conquer’d by a lady;
The motto thus, in Spanish, ‘Piu por dulzura que por fuerza.’
[_The_ Third Knight _passes_.
_Sim._ And what’s the third?
_Thai._ The third of Antioch;
And his device, a wreath of chivalry;
The word, ‘Me pompæ provexit apex.’
[_The_ Fourth Knight _passes_.
_Sim._ What is the fourth?
_Thai._ A burning torch that’s turned upside down;
The word, ‘Quod me alit, me extinguit.’
_Sim._ Which shows that beauty hath his power and will,
Which can as well inflame as it can kill.
[_The_ Fifth Knight _passes_.
_Thai._ The fifth, an hand environed with clouds,
Holding out gold that’s by the touchstone tried;
The motto thus, ‘Sic spectanda fides.’
[_The_ Sixth Knight _passes_.
_Sim._ And what’s
The sixth and last, the which the knight himself
With such a graceful courtesy deliver’d?
_Thai._ He seems to be a stranger; but his present is
A wither’d branch, that’s only green at top;
The motto, ‘In hac spe vivo.’
_Sim._ A pretty moral;
From the dejected state wherein he is,
He hopes by you his fortunes yet may flourish.”

As with the ornaments “in silk and gold,” which Mary Queen of Scotland
worked on the bed of her son James, or with those in “the lady’s closet”
at Hawsted, we trace them up to their originals, and pronounce them,
however modified, to be derived from the Emblem-books of their age; so,
with respect to the devices which the six knights bore on their shields,
we conclude that these have their sources in books of the same
character, or in the genius of the author who knew so well how to
contrive and how to execute. Emblems beyond a doubt they are, though not
engraved on our author’s page, as they were on the escutcheons of the
knightly company. Take the device and motto of the gnats or butterflies
and the candle; we trace them from Vænius, Camerarius, and Whitney, to
Paradin, from Paradin to Symeoni, and from Symeoni to Giles Corrozet,—at
every step we pronounce them Emblems,—and should pass the same judgment,
though we could not trace them at all. It is the same with these devices
in the Triumph Scene of _Pericles_; we discover the origin of some of
them in Emblem works of, or before Shakespeare’s era,—and where we fail
to discover, there we attribute invention, invention guided and
perfected by masters in the art of fashioning pictures to portray
thoughts by means of things. We will, however, in due order consider the
devices and mottoes of these six knights who came to honour the king’s
daughter.

The first knight is the Knight of Sparta,—

“And the device he bears upon his shield
Is a black Ethiope reaching at the sun;
The word, _Lux tua vita mihi_.”
Act ii. sc. 2, lines 19–21.

A motto almost identical belongs to an old family of Worcestershire, the
Blounts, of Soddington, of which Sir Edward Blount, Bart., is, or was
the representative; their motto is, _Lux tua vita mea_,—“Thy light, my
life;”—but their crest is an armed foot in the sun, not a black Ethiop
reaching towards him. There was a Sir Walter Blount slain on the king’s
side at the battle of Shrewsbury, and whom, previous to the battle,
Shakespeare represents as sent by Henry IV. with offers of pardon to
Percy. (_Henry IV._ Pt. 1. act. iv. sc. 3, l. 30, vol. iv. p. 323.) A
Sir James Blount is also briefly introduced in _Richard III._ act. v.
sc. 2, l. 615. The name being familiar to Shakespeare, the motto also
might be;—and by a very slight alteration he has ascribed it to the
Knight of Sparta.

I have consulted a considerable number of books of Emblems published
before the _Pericles_ was written, but have not discovered either the
device or “the word” exactly in the form given in the play. There is a
near approach to the device in Reusner’s _Emblems_, printed at Francfort
in 1581 (Emb. 7, lib. i. p. 9). A man is represented stretching forth
his hand towards the meridian sun, and the device is surmounted by the
motto, _Sol animi virtus_,—“Virtue the sun of the soul.” The elegiac
verses which follow carry out the thought with considerable clearness,—

_“Sol, oculus cœli, radijs illuminat orbem:
Et Phœbe noctem disjicit alba nigram.
Sol animi virtus sensus illuminat ægros:
Et tenebras mentis discutit alma fides.
Si menti virtus, virtuti præuia lucet
Pura fides: nihil hoc clarius esse potest.
Aurea virtutis species, fideiq., Philippe,
Præradians, cœlo sic tibi monstrat iter.
Scilicet hic vitæ Sol est, & Lucifer vnus:
Hæc Phœbe, noctem quæ fugat igne suo.
Quæ dum mente vides correcta lumina; mundi
Impauidus tenebras despicis, atq. metus.
Sol magno Phœbeq. micent, & Lucifer orbi:
Dum tibi sic virtus luceat, atq. fides.”_[93]

Among these lines is one to illustrate the first knight’s motto;

“_Scilicet hic vitæ Sol est, & Lucifer vnus_,”
“_This in truth is the Sun of life, and the one Light-bringer._”

But Plautus, the celebrated comic poet of Rome, gives in his _Asinaria_,
3. 3. 24, almost the very words of the Spartan knight: _Certe tu vita es
mihi_,—“Of a truth thou art life to me.”

The introduction of an Ethiop was not unusual with Shakespeare. In the
_Two Gentlemen of Verona_ (act. ii. sc. 6. l. 25, vol. i. p. 112),
Proteus avers,—

“And Silvia,—witness Heaven that made her fair!—
Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope;”

and in _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ (act. iv. sc. 3, l. 111, vol. ii. p. 144),
Dumain reads these verses,—

“Do not call it sin in me,
That I am forsworn for thee;
Thou for whom Jove would swear
Juno but an Ethiope were.”

A genius so versatile as that of Shakespeare, and capable of creating
almost a whole world of imagination out of a single hint, might very
easily accommodate to his own idea Reusner’s suggestive motto, and make
it yield the light of love to the lover rather than to the reverend
sage. Failing in identifying the exact source of the “black Ethiope
reaching at the sun,” we may then not unreasonably suppose that
Shakespeare himself formed the device, and fitted the Latin to it.

In the Emblem-books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the
Latin mottoes very greatly preponderated over those of other languages;
and had Shakespeare confined himself to Latin, it might remain doubtful
whether he knew anything of Emblem works beyond those of our own
countrymen—Barclay and Whitney—and of the two or three translations into
English from Latin, French, and Italian. But the quotation of a purely
Spanish motto, that on the second knight’s device, _Piu por dulzura que
por fuerza_,—“More by gentleness than by force” (act ii. sc. 2, l.
27),—shows that his reading and observation extended beyond mere English
sources, and that with other literary men of his day he had looked into,
if he had not studied, the widely-known and very popular writings of
Alciatus and Sambucus among Latinists, of Francisco Guzman and Hernando
Soto among Spaniards, of Gabriel Faerni and Paolo Giovio among Italians,
and of Bartholomew Aneau and Claude Paradin among the French.

Shakespeare gives several snatches of French, as in _Twelfth Night_, act
iii. sc. 1, l. 68, vol. iii. p. 265,—

“_Sir Andrew._ Dieu vous garde, monsieur,
_Viola._ Et vous aussi; votre serviteur;”

and in _Henry V._ act iii. sc. 4; act iv. sc. 4 and 5; act v. sc. 2,
vol. iv. pp. 538–540, 574–577, and 598–603: in the scenes between
Katharine and Alice; Pistol and the French soldier taken prisoner; and
Katharine and King Henry. Take the last instance,—

“_K. Hen._ Fair Katharine, and most fair,
Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms
Such as will enter at a lady’s ear
And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?
_Kath._ Your majesty shall mock at me; I cannot speak your England.
_K. Hen._ O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with your
French
heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English
tongue. Do you like me, Kate?
_Kath._ Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is ‘like me.’
_K. Hen._ An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.
_Kath._ Que dit-il? que je suis semblable à les anges?
_Alice._ Oui, vraiment, sauf votre grace, ainsi dit-il.
_K. Hen._ I said so, dear Katharine; and I must not blush to affirm
it.
_Kath._ O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines de
tromperies.”

Appropriately also to the locality of the _Taming of the Shrew_ (act i.
sc. 2, l. 24, vol. iii. p. 23), Hortensio’s house in Padua, is the
Italian quotation.

“_Pet._ ‘Con tutto il core ben trovato,’ may I say.
_Hor._ Alla nostra casa ben venuto, molto honorato, signor mio
Petrucio.”

We find only two Spanish sentences, those already quoted,—one being
Pistol’s motto on his sword, _Si fortuna me tormenta sperato me
contenta_; the other, that of the Prince of Macedon, on his shield, _Piu
por dulzura que por fuerza_.

Similar proverbs and sayings abound both in Cervantes, who died in 1616,
the year of Shakespeare’s death, and in the Spanish Emblem-books of an
earlier date. I have very carefully examined the Emblems of Alciatus,
translated into Spanish in 1549, but the nearest approach to the motto
of the Prince of Macedon is, _Que mas puede la eloquençia que la
fortaliza_ (p. 124),—“Eloquence rather than force prevails,”—which may
be taken from Alciat’s 180th Emblem, _Eloquentia fortitudine
præstantior_.

Other Spanish Emblem-books of that day are the _Moral Emblems_ of
Hernando de Soto, published at Madrid in 1599, and _Emblems Moralized_,
of Don Sebastian Orozco, published in the year 1610, also at Madrid; but
neither of these gives the words of the second knight’s device. Nor are
they contained in the _Moral Triumphs_, as they are entitled, of
Francisco Guzman, published in 1587, the year after Whitney’s work
appeared. The _Moral Emblems_, too, of Juan de Horozco, are without
them,—an octavo, published at Segovia in 1589.

But, although there has been no discovery of this Spanish motto in a
Spanish Emblem-book, the exact literal expression of it is found in a
French work of extreme rarity—Corrozet’s “HECATOMGRAPHIE,” Paris, 1540.
There, at Emblem 28, _Plus par doulceur que par force_,[94]—“More by
gentleness than by force,”—is the saying which introduces the old fable
of the Sun and the Wind, and of their contest with the travellers.
Appended are a symbolical woodcut and a French stanza,

Contre la froidure du vent,
L’homme ſe tient clos & ſe ſerre,
Mais le Soleil le plus ſouuent
Luy faict mettre ſa rob[e/] à terre.

Plus par doulceur que par force.

[Illustration: _Corrozet, 1540._]

which may be pretty accurately rendered by the English quatrain,—

“Against the wind’s cold blasts
Man draws his cloak around;
But while sweet sunshine lasts,
He leaves it on the ground.”

This comment in verse follows Corrozet’s Emblem,—

“Qvand le vent est fort & subit,
Violent pour robe emporter,
L’homme se serr[e/] en son habit,
Affin qu’il ne luy puisse oster.
Mais quand le Soleil vient iecter
Sur luy ses rays clers & luysantz,
Le cauld le faict sans arrester
Despouiller ses habitz plaisantz.
* Ainsi ãmytié & doulceur
Faict plus que force & violence,
Doulceur est d’amour propre sœur,
Qui rend l’homme plein d’excellence.
II ne fault doncq mettr[e/] en silence
Ceste tres noble courtoisie,
Mais l’extoller en precellence;
Comm[e/] vne vertu bien choisie.
* Hommes, chassez de vous rigueur
Qui vostre grand beaulté efface,
Prenez de doulceur la vigueur,
Qui enrichera vostre face.
Doulceur ci bien meilleure grace,
Qui rend le visag[e/] amoureux,
Que d’estre dict en toute place
L’oultre cuidé, fol, rigoureuz.”

There is a brief allusion to this fable in _King John_ (act iv. sc. 3,
l. 155, vol. iv. p. 76), in the words of Philip, the half-brother of
Faulconbridge,—

“Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can
Hold out this tempest.”

_Moderata vis impotenti violentia potior_,—

[Illustration: _Freitag, 1579._]

The same fable is given in Freitag’s “MYTHOLOGIA ETHICA,” Antwerp, 1579,
p. 27. It is to a very similar motto,—

“Moderate force more powerful than impotent violence,”—to which are
added, below the woodcut, two quotations from the Holy Scriptures,—

“_Non quia dominamur fidei._”—2 Cor. i. 24.
“_Factus sum infirmis infirmus; vt infirmos lucrifacerem._”—1 Cor. ix.
22.

“Not that we have dominion over your faith;”
“To the weak I became as weak, that I might gain the weak;”

implying that not by the rigid exercise of authority, but by a
sympathising spirit, the true faith will be carried onward unto victory.

Now, as the motto of the second knight existed in French, and, as we
have seen, Emblem-books were translated into Spanish, the supposition is
justifiable, though we have failed to trace out the very fact, that the
author of the _Pericles_—Shakespeare, if you will—copied the words of
the motto from some Spanish Emblem-book, or book of proverbs, that had
come within his observation, and which applied the saying to woman’s
gentleness subduing man’s harsher nature. Future inquirers will,
perhaps, clear up this little mystery, and trace the very work in which
the Spanish saying is original, _Piu por dulzura que por fuerza_.

We pass to the third, the fourth, and the fifth knights, with their
“devices” and “words;” and to illustrate these we have almost a
superabundant wealth of emblem-lore, from any portion of which
Shakespeare may have made his choice. His materials may have come from
some one of the various editions of Claude Paradin’s, or of Gabriel
Symeoni’s “DEVISES HEROIQVES,” which appeared at Lyons and Antwerp, in
French and Italian, between the years 1557 and 1590; or, as the learned
Francis Douce supposes, in his _Illustrations of Shakspere_, pp. 302,
393, the dramatist may have seen the English translation of these
authors, which was published in London in 1591, or, with greater
probability, as some are inclined to say, he may have used the emblems
of our countryman, Geffrey Whitney. Were it not that Daniell’s
translation, in 1585, of _The Worthy Tract of Paulus Jovius_ is without
plates, we should include this in the number.

Of the devices in question, Whitney’s volume contains two, and the other
works the three; but between certain expressions of Whitney’s and those
of the _Pericles_, the similarity is so great, that the evidence of
circumstance inclines, I may say decidedly inclines, to the conclusion
that for two out of the three emblems referred to, Shakespeare was
indebted to his fellow Elizabethan poet, and not to a foreign source.

From his use of Spanish and French mottoes, as well as Latin, it is
evident that Shakespeare, no more than Spenser, needed the aid of
translations to render the emblem treasures available to himself; and
if, as some maintain,[95] the _Pericles_ was in existence previous to
the year 1591, it could not have been that use was made of the English
translation of that date of the “DEVISES HEROIQVES,” by P. S.; it
remains, therefore, that for two out of the three emblems he must either
have employed one of the original editions of Lyons and of Antwerp, or
have been acquainted with our Whitney’s _Choice of Emblemes_, and have
obtained help from them; and for the third emblem he must have gone to
the French or Italian originals.

The third knight, named of Antioch, has for his device “a wreath of
chivalry,”—

“The word, _Me pompæ provexit apex_;”—
(Act ii. sc. 2, l. 30,)

_i. e._, “The crown at the triumphal procession has carried me onward.”
On the 146th leaf of Paradin’s “DEVISES HEROIQVES,” edition Antwerp,
1562, the wreath and the motto are exactly as Shakespeare describes
them. But Paradin gives a long and interesting account of the
laurel-wreath, and of the high value accorded to it in Roman estimation.
“It was,” as that author remarks, “the grandest recompense, or the
grandest reward which the ancient Romans could think of to offer to the
Chieftains over armies, to Emperors, Captains, and victorious Knights.”

Me pompæ prouexit apex.

[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]

To gratify the curiosity which some may feel respecting this subject, I
add the whole of the original.

“_La plus grande recompense, ou plus grãd loyer que les antiques
Rommains estimassent faire aus Chefz d’armee, Empereurs, Capitaines, et
Cheualiers victorieux, c’estoit de les gratifier & honnorer (selon
toutefois leurs merites, estats, charges, & degrez) de certaines belles
Couronnes: qui generalemẽt (à cette cause) furent apellees Militaires.
Desquelles (pour auoir estées indice & enseignes de prouesse & vertu)
les figures des principales & plus nobles, sont ci tirees en deuises:
tant a la louange & memoire de l’antique noblesse, que pareillement à la
recreation, consolation, & esperance de la moderne, aspirãt & desirãt
aussi de paruenir aus gages & loyers apartenãs & dediez aus defenseurs
de la recommendable Republique. La premiere donques mise en reng,
representera la Trionfale: laquelle estant tissue du verd Laurier, auec
ses bacques, estoit donnée au Trionfateur, auquel par decret du Senat,
estoit licite de trionfer parmi la vile de Romme, sur chariot, comme
victorieus de ses ennemis. Desquels neantmoins lui conuenoit deuant la
pompe, faire aparoir de la deffaite, du nombre parfait de cinq mile, en
vne seule bataille. La susdite Couronne trionfale, apres long trait de
temps (declinant l’Empire) fut commẽcee à estre meslee, & variée de
Perles & pierrerie, & puis entierement changée de Laurier naturel en
Laurier buriné, & enleué, sus vn cercle d’or: comme se void par les
Medailles, de plusieurs monnoyes antiques._”[96]

Shakespeare does not add a single word of explanation, or of
amplification, which he might be expected to have done, had he used an
English translation; but simply, and without remark, he adopts the
emblem and its motto, as is natural to anyone who, though not unskilled
in the language by which they are expressed, is not perfectly at home in
it.

Of chivalry, however, he often speaks,—“of chivalrous design of knightly
trial.” To Bolingbroke and Mowbray wager of battle is appointed to
decide their differences _(Richard II._ act i. sc. 1, l. 202, vol. iv.
p. 116), and the king says,—

“Since we can not atone you, we shall see
Justice design the victor’s chivalry.”

And (vol. iv. p. 137) John of Gaunt declares of England’s kings; they
were,—

“Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
In Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s Son.”

But in the case of the fourth and fifth knights, it is not the simple
adoption of a device which we have to consider; the very ideas, almost
the very phrases in which those ideas were clothed, have also been
given, pointing out that the Dramatist had before him something more
than explanations in an unfamiliar tongue.

The device of the fourth knight is both described and interpreted,—

“A burning torch that’s turned upside down;
The word, _Quod me alit, me extinguit._
Which shows, that beauty hath this power and will,
Which can as well inflame as it can kill.”
Act ii. sc. 2, lines 32–35.

Thus presented in Symeoni’s “TETRASTICHI MORALI,” edition Lyons, 1561,
p. 35,—

_SIGNOR DI S._
VALIER.

[Illustration: _Symeoni, 1561_ (_diminished copy_).]

An Italian stanza explains the device,—

“_Nutriſce il fuoco à lui la cera intorno,
Et la cera l’eſtingue. ò quanti ſono,
Che dopo vn riceuuto & largo dono,
Dal donator riceuon danno & ſcorno._”

“Qui me alit,
me extinguit.”

The sense of which we now endeavour to give,—

“The wax here within nourishes the flames
And the wax stifles them; how many names
Who after a large gift and kindness shown,
Get from the giver harm and scorn alone.”

“Who nourishes me,
extinguishes me.”

Symeoni (from edition Lyons, 1574, p. 200) adds this little piece of
history:—

“In the battle of the Swiss, routed near Milan by King Francis, M. de
Saint Valier, the old man, father of Madame the Duchess de
Valentinois,[97] and captain of a hundred gentlemen of the king’s house,
bore a standard, whereon was painted a lighted torch with the head
downward, on which flowed so much wax as would extinguish it, with this
motto ‘QVI ME ALIT, ME EXTINGVIT,’ imitating the emblem of the king his
master; that is, ‘NVTRISCO ET EXTINGVO.’ It is the nature of the wax,
which is the cause of the torch burning when held upright, that with the
head downward it should be extinguished. Thus he wished to signify, that
as the beauty of a lady whom he loved nourished all his thoughts, so she
put him in peril of his life. See still this standard in the church of
the Celestins at Lyons.”[98]

Paradin, who confessedly copies from Symeoni, agrees very nearly with
this account, but gives the name of the Duchess “Diane de Poitiers,” and
omits mentioning “the emblem of the king.”

_Qui me alit, me extinguit._

[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]

As stated in the _fac-simile Reprint_ of Whitney’s _Emblemes_, p. 302,
Douce in his _Illustrations of Shakespeare_, pp. 302, 393, advances the
opinion that the translation of Paradin into English, 1591, by P. S.,
was the source of Shakespeare’s torch-emblem; “but it is very
note-worthy that the torch in the English translation is not a torch
‘that’s turned upside down,’ but one held uninverted, with the flame
naturally ascending. This contrariety to Shakespeare’s description seems
fatal therefore to the translator’s claim.” P. S., however, renders the
motto, “He that nourisheth me, killeth me;” and so may put in a claim to
the suggestion of the line,—

“Which can as well inflame as it can kill.”

Let us next take Whitney’s stanza of six lines to the same motto and the
same device, p. 183; premising that the very same wood-block appears to
have been used for the Paradin in 1562, and for the Whitney in 1586.

“Even as the waxe dothe feede, and quenche the flame,
So, loue giues life; and loue, dispaire doth giue:
The godlie loue, doth louers croune with fame:
The wicked loue, in shame dothe make them liue.
Then leaue to loue, or loue as reason will,
For, louers lewde doe vainlie languishe still.”

Now, comparing together Symeoni, Paradin, Whitney, and Shakespeare, as
explanatory of the fourth knight’s emblem, we can scarcely fail to
perceive in the _Pericles_ a closer resemblance, both of thought and
expression, to Whitney than to the other two. Whitney wrote,—

“So, loue giues life; and loue, dispaire doth giue,”

which the _Pericles_ thus amplifies:

“Which shows, that beauty hath this power and will,
Which can as well inflame as it can kill.”

We conclude, therefore, from this instance, that Whitney’s _Choice of
Emblemes_ was known to the author of the _Pericles_, and that in this
instance he has simply carried out the idea which was there suggested to
him.

A slight allusion to this same device of the burning torch is made in _3
Henry VI._ (act iii. sc. 2, l. 51, vol. v. p. 281), when Clarence
remarks,—

“As red as fire! nay, then her wax must melt;”

but a very distinct one in Hamlet’s words (act iii. sc. 4, l. 82, vol.
viii. p. 112),—

“O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax
And melt in her own fire; proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will.”

The “AMORVM EMBLEMATA,”—_Emblemes of Loue,—with verses in Latin,
English, and Italian_: 4to, Antverpiæ, M.DC.IIX., gives the same
variation in the reading of the motto as Shakespeare does, namely,
“Quod” for “Qui;” and as Daniell had done in _The Worthy Tract of Paulus
Jouius_, in 1585, by substituting “_Quod me alit_” for “_Qui me
alit_.”[99] The latter is the reading in Paulus Jovius himself,—and is
also found in some of the early editions of this play. (See Cambridge
_Shakespeare_, vol. ix. p. 343.) The _Amorum Emblemata_, by Otho Vænius,
named above, and dated 1608—one year before “PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE,”
was first published, in quarto—has the Latin motto, “QVOD NVTRIT,
EXTINGVIT,” Englished and Italianised as follows:

“_Loue killed by his owne nouriture._”

“The torche is by the wax maintayned whyle it burnes,
But turned vpsyde-down it straight goes out & dyes,
Right so by Cupids heat the louer lyues lykewyse,
But thereby is hee kild, when it contrarie turnes.”

“Quel che nutre, estingue.”

“_Nutre la cera il foco, e ne lo priua
Quando è riuolto in giù: d’Amor l’ardore
Nutre e sfare l’Amante in vn calore,
Contrario effetto vn sol suggetto auiua._”

At a much earlier date, 1540, Corrozet’s _Hecatomgraphie_ gives the
inverted torch as a device, with the motto, “Mauluaise nourriture,”—

“Quelcun en prenant ses esbatz
M’ainsi mise contrebas
La cire le feu nourrissant
L’estainct & le faict perissant.”

DEVISES
Sic spectanda fides.

[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]

But the “device” and “the word” of the fifth knight,—

“An hand environed with clouds,
Holding out gold that’s by the touchstone tried;
The motto thus, _Sic spectanda fides_,”
(Act ii. sc. 2, lines 36–38,)

“So is fidelity to be proved,”—occur most exactly in Paradin’s “DEVISES
HEROIQUES,” edition 1562, leaf 100, _reverse_; they are here figured.

Paradin often presents an account of the origin and appropriation of his
emblems, but, in this instance, he offers only an application. “If, in
order to prove fine gold, or other metals, we bring them to the touch,
without trusting to their glitter or their sound;—so, to recognise good
people and persons of virtue, it is needful to observe the splendour of
their deeds, without dwelling upon their mere talk.”[100]

The narrative which Paradin neglects to give may be supplied from other
sources. This Emblem or Symbol is, in fact, that which was appropriated
to Francis I. and Francis II., kings of France from 1515 to 1560, and
also to one of the Henries—probably Henry IV. The inscription on the
coin, according to Paradin and Whitney’s woodcut, is “FRANCISCVS DEI
GRATIA FRAN. REX;” this is for Francis I.; but in the _Hierographia
Regvm Francorvm_[101] (vol. i. pp. 87 and 88), the emblem is inscribed,
“Franciscus II. Valesius Rex Francorum XXV. Christianissimus.” A device
similar to Paradin’s then follows, and the comment, _Coronatum aureum
nummum, ad Lydium lapidem dextra hæc explicat & sic, id est, duris in
rebus fidem explorandam docet_,—“This right hand extends to the Lydian
stone a coin of gold which is wreathed around, and so teaches that
fidelity in times of difficulty is put to the proof.” The coin applied
to the touchstone bears the inscription, “FRANCISCVS II. FRANCORV. REX.”
An original drawing,[102] by Crispin de Passe, in the possession of Sir
William Stirling Maxwell, Bart., of Keir, presents the inscription in
another form, “HENRICVS, D. G. FRANCORV. REX.” The first work of Crispin
de Passe is dated 1589, and Henry IV. was recognised king of France in
1593. His portrait, and that of his queen, Mary of Medicis, were painted
by De Passe; and so the Henry on the coin in the drawing above alluded
to was Henry of Navarre.

The whole number of original drawings at Keir, by Crispin de Passe, is
thirty-five, of the size of the following plate,—No 27 of the series.

[Illustration: _Crispin de Passe, about 1595._[103]]

The mottoes in _Emblemata Selectiora_ are,—

“PECUNIA SANGUIS ET ANIMA MORTALIUM.
Quidquid habet mundus, regina Pecunia vincit,
Fulmineoque ictu fortius una ferit.”

“’T GELD VERMAG ALLES.
’t Geld houd den krygsknecht in zyn plichten,
Kan meer dan’t dondertuig uit richten.”

“MONEY THE BLOOD AND LIFE OF MEN.
Whatever the world possesses, money rules as queen,
And more strongly than by lightning’s force smites together.”

“MONEY CAN DO EVERYTHING.
To his duty the warrior, ’tis money can hold,—
Than the thunderbolt greater the influence of gold.”

Very singular is the correspondence of the last two mottoes to a scene
in _Timon of Athens_ (act iv. sc. 3, lines 25, 377, vol. vii. pp. 269,
283). Timon digging in the wood finds gold, and asks,—

“What is here?
Gold! yellow, glittering, precious gold!”

and afterwards, when looking on the gold, he thus addresses it,—

“O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce
’Twixt natural son and sire! thou bright defiler
Of Hymen’s purest bed! thou valiant Mars!
Thou ever young, fresh, loved, and delicate wooer,
Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow
That lies on Dian’s lap! thou visible god,
That solder’st close impossibilities,
And makest them kiss! that speak’st with every tongue,
To every purpose! O thou touch of hearts!
Think, thy slave man rebels; and by thy virtue
Set them into confounding odds, that beasts
May have the world in empire!”

The Emblem which Shakespeare attributes to the fifth knight is fully
described by Whitney (p. 139), with the same device and the same motto,
_Sic spectanda fides_,[104]—

“THE touche doth trye, the fine, and purest goulde:
And not the sound, or els the goodly showe.
So, if mennes wayes, and vertues, wee behoulde,
The worthy men, wee by their workes, shall knowe.
But gallant lookes, and outward showes beguile,
And ofte are clokes to cogitacions vile.”

If, in the use of this device, and in their observations upon it,
Paradin, either in the original or in the English version, and Whitney
be compared with the lines on the subject in _Pericles_, it will be seen
“that Shakespeare did not derive his fifth knight’s device either from
the French emblem or from its English translator, but from the English
Whitney which had been lately published. Indeed, if _Pericles_ were
written, as Knight conjectures, in Shakespeare’s early manhood, previous
to the year 1591, it could not be the English translation of Paradin
which furnished him with the three mottoes and devices of the Triumph
Scene.”

To the motto, “AMOR CERTVS IN RE INCERTA CERNITVR,”—_Certain love is
seen in an uncertain matter_,—Otho Vænius, in his _Amorum Emblemata_,
4to, Antwerp, 1608, represents two Cupids at work, one trying gold in
the furnace, the other on the touchstone. His stanzas, published with an
English translation, as if intended for circulation in England, may, as
we have conjectured, have been seen by Shakespeare before 1609, when the
_Pericles_ was revived. They are to the above motto,—

“_Nummi vt adulterium exploras priùs indice, quam sit
Illo opus: haud aliter ritè probandus Amor.
Scilicet vt fuluium spectatur in ignibus aurum:
Tempore sic duro est inspicienda fides._”

“_Loues triall._

As gold is by the fyre, and by the fournace tryde,
And thereby rightly known if it be bad or good,
Hard fortune and distresse do make it vnderstood,
Where true loue doth remayn, and fayned loue resyde.”

“Come l’oro nel foco.

_Sû la pietra, e nel foco l’or si proua,
E nel bisogno, come l’or nel foco,
Si dee mostrar leale in ogni loco
l’Amante; e alhor si vee d’Amor la proua._”

The same metaphor of attesting characters, as gold is proved by the
touchstone or by the furnace, is of frequent occurrence in Shakespeare’s
undoubted plays; and sometimes the turn of the thought is so like
Whitney’s as to give good warrant for the supposition, either of a
common original, or that Shakespeare had read the Emblems of our
Cheshire poet and made use of them.

King Richard III. says to Buckingham (act iv. sc. 2, l. 8, vol. v. p.
580),—

“O Buckingham, now do I play the touch,
To try if thou be current gold indeed.”

And in _Timon of Athens_ (act iii. sc. 3, l. 1, vol. vii. p. 245), when
Sempronius observes to a servant of Timon’s,—

“Must he needs trouble me in’t,—hum!—’bove all others?
He might have tried Lord Lucius and Lucullus;
And now Ventidius is wealthy too,
Whom he redeem’d from prison: all these
Owe their estates unto him.”

The servant immediately replies,—

“My lord,
They have all been touch’d and found base metal, for
They have all denied him.”

Isabella, too, in _Measure for Measure_ (act ii. sc. 2, l. 149, vol. i.
p. 324), most movingly declares her purpose to bribe Angelo, the
lord-deputy,—

“Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,
Or stones whose rates are either rich or poor
As fancy values them; but with true prayers
That shall be up at heaven and enter there
Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.”

In the dialogue from _King John_ (act iii. sc. 1, l. 96, vol. iv. p. 37)
between Philip of France and Constance, the same testing is alluded to.
King Philip says,—

“By heaven, lady, you shall have no cause
To curse the fair proceedings of this day:
Have I not pawn’d to you my majesty?”

But Constance answers with great severity,—

“You have beguiled me with a counterfeit
Resembling majesty, which being touch’d and tried,
Proves valueless: you are forsworn, forsworn.”

One instance more shall close the subject;—it is from the _Coriolanus_
(act iv. sc. 1, l. 44, vol. vi. p. 369), and contains a very fine
allusion to the testing of true metal; the noble traitor is addressing
his mother Volumnia, his wife Virgilia, and others of his kindred,—

“Fare ye well:
Thou hast years upon thee; and thou art too full
Of the wars’ surfeits, to go rove with one
That’s yet unbruised: bring me but out at gate.
Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and
My friends of noble touch, when I am forth,
Bid me farewell, and smile.”

So beautifully and so variously does the great dramatist carry out that
one thought of making trial of men’s hearts and characters to learn the
metal of which they are made.

To finish our notices and illustrations of the Triumph Scene in
_Pericles_, there remain to be considered the device and the motto of
the sixth—the stranger knight—who “with such a graceful courtesy
delivered,”—

“A wither’d branch, that’s only green at top,[105]
The motto, _In hac spe vivo_;”
(Act ii. sc. 2, lines 43, 44;)

and on which the remark is made by Simonides,—

“A pretty moral:
From the dejected state wherein he is,
He hopes by you his fortune yet may flourish.”

With these I have found nothing identical in any of the various books of
Emblems which I have examined; indeed, I cannot say that I have met with
anything similar. The sixth knight’s emblem is very simple, natural, and
appropriate; and I am most of all disposed to regard it as invented by
Shakespeare himself to complete a scene, the greater part of which had
been accommodated from other writers.

_Illicitum non ſperandum._

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

“SPES _ſimul & Nemeſis noſtris altaribus adſunt,
Scilicet vt ſperes non niſi quod liceat._”

The unlawful thing not to be hoped for.

“HERE NEMESIS, and Hope: our deedes doe rightlie trie,
Which warnes vs, not to hope for that, which justice doth denie.”

Yet the sixth device and motto need not remain without illustration.
Hope is a theme which Emblematists could not possibly omit. Alciatus
gives a series of four Emblems on this virtue,—Emblems 43, 44, 45, and
46; Sambucus, three, with the mottoes “Spes certa,” “In spe fortitudo,”
and “Spes aulica;” and Whitney, three from Alciatus (pp. 53, 137, and
139); but none of these can be accepted as a proper illustration of the
_In hac spe vivo_. Their inapplicability may be judged of from Alciat’s
46th Emblem, very closely followed by Whitney (p. 139).

In the spirit, however, if not in the words of the sixth knight’s
device, the Emblem writers have fashioned their thoughts. From Paradin’s
“DEVISES HEROIQVES,” so often quoted, we select two devices (fol. 30 and
152) illustrative of our subject. The one, an arrow issuing from a tomb,
on which is the sign of the cross, and having verdant shoots twined
around it, was the emblem which Madame Diana of Poitiers adopted to
express her strong hope of a resurrection from the dead;[106] and the
same hope is also shadowed forth by ears of corn growing out of a
collection of dry bones, and ripening and shedding their seed.

[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]

The first, _Sola viuit in illo_,—“Alone on that,” _i.e._, on the cross,
“she lives,”—we now offer with Paradin’s explanation; “_L’esperance que
Madame Diane de Poitiers Illustre Duchesse de Valentinois, a de la
resurrection, & que son noble esprit, contemplant les cieus en cette
view, paruiendra en l’autre après la mort: est possible signifié par sa
Deuise, qui est d’vn Sercueil, ou tombeau, duquel sort vn trait,
acompagné de certains syons verdoyans._” _i.e._,—“The hope which Madame
Diana of Poitiers, the illustrious Duchess de Valentinois, has of the
resurrection, and which her noble spirit, contemplating the heavens in
this life, will arrive at in the other, after death: it is really
signified by her Device, which is a Sepulchre or tomb, from which issues
an arrow, accompanied by certain verdant shoots.”

The motto of the second is more directly to the purpose, _Spes altera
vitæ_,—“Another hope of life,” or “The hope of another life,”—and its
application is thus explained by Paradin (leaf 151 _reverso_),—“_Les
grains des Bleds, & autres herbages, semées & mortifiées en terre, se
reuerdoyent, & prennent nouuel accroissement: aussi les corps humains
tombãs par Mort, seront relevés en gloire, par generale
resurrection._”—_i.e._, “The seeds of wheat, and other herbs, sown and
dying in the ground, become green again, and take new growth: so human
bodies cast down by Death will be raised again in glory, by the general
resurrection.”

We omit the woodcut which Paradin gives, and substitute for it the 100th
Emblem, part i. p. 102, from Joachim Camerarius, edition, 1595, which
bears the very same motto and device.

SPES ALTERA VITÆ.

[Illustration: _Camerarius, 1595._]

“_Securus moritur, qui scit se morte renasci:
Non ea mors dici, sed noua vita potest._”

“Fearless doth that man die, who knows
From death he again shall be born;
We never can name it as death,—
’Tis new life on eternity’s morn.”

A sentence or two from the comment may serve for explanation; “The seeds
and grains of fruits and herbs are thrown upon the earth, and as it were
entrusted to it; after a certain time they spring up again and produce
manifold. So also our bodies, although already dead, and destined to
burial in the earth, yet at the last day shall arise, the good to life,
the wicked to judgment.”... “Elsewhere it is said, ONE HOPE SURVIVES,
doubtless beyond the grave.”[107]

“MORT VIVIFIANTE,” of Messin, _In Morte Vita_, of Boissard, edition
1588, pp. 38, 39, also receive their emblematical representation, from
wheat growing among the signs of death.

“En vain nous attendons la moisson, si le grain
Ne se pourrit au creux de la terre beschée.
Sans la corruption, la nature empeschée
Retient toute semence au ventre soubterrain.”

At present we must be content to say that the source of the motto and
device of the sixth knight has not been discovered. It remains for us to
conjecture, what is very far from being an improbability, that
Shakespeare had read Spenser’s _Shepherd’s Calendar_, published in 1579,
and from the line, on page 364 of Moxon’s edition, for January (l. 54),—

“Ah, God! that love should breed both ioy and paine!”—

and from the Emblem, as Spenser names it, _Anchora speme_,—“Hope is my
anchor,”—did invent for himself the sixth knight’s device, and its
motto, _In hac spe vivo_,—“In this hope I live.” The step from applying
so suitably the Emblems of other writers to the construction of new ones
would not be great; and from what he has actually done in the invention
of Emblems in the _Merchant of Venice_ he would experience very little
trouble in contriving any Emblem that he needed for the completion of
his dramatic plans.

The _Casket_ Scene and the _Triumph_ Scene then justify our conclusion
that the correspondencies between Shakespeare and the Emblem writers
which preceded him are very direct and complete. It is to be accepted as
a fact that he was acquainted with their works, and profited so much
from them, as to be able, whenever the occasion demanded, to invent and
most fittingly illustrate devices of his own. The spirit of Alciat was
upon him, and in the power of that spirit he pictured forth the ideas to
which his fancy had given birth.

[Illustration: _Horapollo, ed. 1551._]

-----

Footnote 93:

Thus to be rendered into symmetrical lines of English,—

“The Sun, the eye of heaven, with beams the world illumes,
And the pale Moon afar scatters black night.
So virtue, the soul’s sun, our pining senses illumes,
And genial faith dispels the darkness of the mind.
If virtue to the mind,—so leading the way to virtue shines
Faith in her purity: nothing can be brighter than this.
The golden splendour of virtue and faith, O Philip,
Throwing out beamings, shows to thee paths to the sky.
This in truth is the Sun of life, and the one Light-bringer,
This in truth the Moon which by shining drives away night.
While in thy mind these lights thou seest on high,—of the world
The darkness and terrors untrembling thou dost behold.
Sun and Moon and the Light-bringer flash light to their orbs,
And the while on thee shine, too, virtue and faith.”

Footnote 94:

Of cognate meaning is Messin’s motto in Boissard’s _Emblems_, 1588,
pp. 82–3, “Plvs par vertv qve par armes,”—_Plus virtute quàm
armis_,—the device being a tyrant, with spearmen to guard him, but
singeing his beard because he was afraid of his barber,—

“Et vuyde d’asseurance, il aymoit fier
La façon de son poil au charbon, qu’au barbier
Tant l’injustice au cœur ente de meffiance.”

Footnote 95:

See _Penny Cyclopædia_, vol. xxi. p. 343, where the _Pericles_ and
eight other plays are assigned “to the period from Shakspere’s early
manhood to 1591. Some of those dramas may possibly then have been
created in an imperfect state, very different from that in which we
have received them. If the _Titus Andronicus_ and _Pericles_ are
Shakspere’s, they belong to this epoch in their first state, whatever
it might have been.” See also Knight’s _Pictorial Shakspere_,
supplemental volume, p. 119, where, as before mentioned, the opinion
is laid down,—“We think that the _Pericles_ of the beginning of the
seventeenth century was the revival of a play written by Shakspere
some twenty years earlier.”

Footnote 96:

It may be mentioned that Paradin describes five other Roman wreaths of
honour.

Footnote 97:

Symeoni, in 1559, dedicated “All’ Illustrissima Signora Duchessa di
Valentinois,” his “VITA ET METAMORFOSEO D’OVIDIO,” 8vo, containing 187
pages of devices, with beautiful borders.

Footnote 98:

“_Nella giornata de Suizzeri, rotti presso à Milano dal Rè Francesco,
Monsignor di San Valiere il Vecchio, padre di Madama la Duchessa di
Valentinoys, e Capitano di cento Gentil’huomini della Casa del Rè,
portò vno Stendardo, nel quale era dipinto vn torchio acceso con la
testa in giù, sulla quale colaua tanta cera, che quasi li spegneua,
con queste parole_, QVI ME ALIT, ME EXTINGVIT, _imitando l’impresa del
Rè suo Padrone: cio è_, NVTRISCO ET EXTINGVO. _È la natura della cera,
la quale è cagione che ’l torchio abbrucia stando ritto, che col capo
in giù si spegne: volendo per ciò significare, che come la bellezza
d’vna Donna, che egli amaua, nutriua tutti i suoi pensieri, così lo
metteua in pericolo della vita. Vedesi anchora questo stendardo nella
Chiesa de Celestini in Lyone._”

Footnote 99:

See _Essays Literary and Bibliographical_, pp. 301–2, and 311, in the
Fac-simile Reprint of Whitney’s _Emblemes_, 1866.

Footnote 100:

“_Si pour esprouuer la fin Or, ou autre metaus, lon les raporte sus la
Touche, sans qu’on se confie de leurs tintemens, ou de leurs sons,
aussi pour connoitre les gens de bien, & vertueus personnages, se faut
prendre garde à la splendeur de leurs œuures, sans s’arrester au
babil._”

Footnote 101:

See _Symbola Diuina & Humana Pontificvm, Imperatorvm, Regvm_, 3 vols.
folio in one, Franckfort, 1652.

Footnote 102:

This original drawing, with thirty-four others by the same artist,
first appeared in _Emblemata Selectiora_, 4to, Amsterdam, 1704; also
in _Acht-en-Dertig Konstige Zinnebeelden_,—“Eight-and-thirty Artistic
Emblems,”—4to, Amsterdam, 1737.

Footnote 103:

Or it may be a few years later. The drawings, however, are undoubted
from which the above woodcut has been executed.

Footnote 104:

This Emblem is dedicated to “GEORGE MANWARINGE _Esquier_,” son of “Sir
Arthvre Menwerynge,” “of Ichtfeild,” in Shropshire, from whom are
directly descended the Mainwarings of Oteley Park, Ellesmere, and
indirectly the Mainwarings of Over-Peover, Cheshire.

Footnote 105:

The phrase is matched by another in _Much Ado about Nothing_ (act ii.
sc. 1, l. 214, vol. ii. p. 22), when Benedict said of the Lady
Beatrice, “O, she misused me past endurance of a block! an oak but
with one green leaf on it would have answered her.”

Footnote 106:

“The sixth device,” say the _Illustrations of Shakespeare_, by Francis
Douce, vol. ii. p. 127, “from its peculiar reference to the situation
of Pericles, may, perhaps, have been altered from one in the same
collection (Paradin’s), used by Diana of Poitiers. It is a green
branch springing from a tomb, with the motto, ‘SOLA VIVIT IN
ILLO,’”—_Alone on that she lives._

Footnote 107:

“_Frvmentorvm ac leguminum semina ac grana in terram projecta, ac illi
quasi concredita, certo tempore renascuntur, atque multiplices fructus
producunt. Sic nostra etiam corpora, quamvis: jam mortua, ac terrestri
sepulturæ destinata, in die tamen ultima resurgent, & piorum quidem ad
vitam, impiorum vero ad judicium._”... “_Alibi legitur, SPES VNA
SVPERSTES, nimirum post funus._”

-----

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER VI.
CLASSIFICATION OF THE CORRESPONDENCIES AND PARALLELISMS OF SHAKESPEARE WITH EMBLEM WRITERS.

HAVING established the facts that Shakespeare invented and described
Emblems of his own, and that he plainly and palpably adopted several
which had been designed by earlier authors, we may now, with more
consistency, enter on the further labour of endeavouring to trace to
their original sources the various hints and allusions, be they more or
less express, which his sonnets and dramas contain in reference to
Emblem literature. And we may bear in mind that we are not now
proceeding on mere conjecture; we have dug into the virgin soil and have
found gold that can bear every test, and may reasonably expect, as we
continue our industry, to find a nugget here and a nugget there to
reward our toil.

But the correspondencies and parallelisms existing in Shakespeare
between himself and the earlier Emblematists are so numerous, that it
becomes requisite to adopt some system of arrangement, or of
classification, lest a mere chaos of confusion and not the symmetry of
order should reign over our enterprise. And as “all Emblemes for the
most part,” says Whitney to his readers, “maie be reduced into these
three kindes, which is _Historicall_, _Naturall_, & _Morall_,” we shall
make that division of his our foundation, and considering the various
instances of imitation or of adaptation to be met with in Shakespeare,
shall arrange them under the _eight_ heads of—1, Historical Emblems; 2,
Heraldic Emblems; 3, Emblems of Mythological Characters; 4, Emblems
illustrative of Fables; 5, Emblems in connexion with Proverbs; 6,
Emblems from Facts in Nature, and from the Properties of Animals; 7,
Emblems for Poetic Ideas; and 8, Moral and Æsthetic, and Miscellaneous
Emblems.

------------------

SECTION I.
_HISTORICAL EMBLEMS._

AS soon as learning revived in Europe, the great models of ancient times
were again set up on their pedestals for admiration and for guidance.
Nearly all the Elizabethan authors, certainly those of highest fame,
very frequently introduce, or expatiate upon, the worthies of Greece and
Rome,—both those which are named in the epic poems of Homer and Virgil,
and those which are within the limits of authentic history. It seemed
enough to awaken interest, “to point a moral, or adorn a tale,” that
there existed a record of old.

Shakespeare, though cultivating, it may be, little direct acquaintance
with the classical writers, followed the general practice. He has built
up some of the finest of his Tragedies, if not with chorus, and
semi-chorus, strophe, anti-strophe, and epode, like the Athenian models,
yet with a wonderfully exact appreciation of the characters of
antiquity, and with a delineating power surprisingly true to history and
to the leading events and circumstances in the lives of the personages
whom he introduces. From possessing full and adequate scholarship,
Giovio, Domenichi, Claude Mignault, Whitney, and others of the Emblem
schools, went immediately to the original sources of information.
Shakespeare, we may admit, could do this only in a limited degree, and
generally availed himself of assistance from the learned translators of
ancient authors. Most marvellously does he transcend them in the
creative attributes of high genius: they supplied the rough marble,
blocks of Parian perchance, and a few tools more or less suited to the
work; but it was himself, his soul and intellect and good right arm,
which have produced almost living and moving forms,—

“See, my lord,
Would you not deem it breath’d? and that those veins
Did verily bear blood?”
_Winter’s Tale_, act v. sc. 3, l. 63.

For Medeia, one of the heroines of Euripides, and for Æneas and Anchises
in their escape from Troy, Alciat (Emblem 54), and his close imitator
Whitney (p. 33), give each an emblem.

To the first the motto is,—

“_Ei qui semel sua prodegerit, aliena credi non oportere_,”—

“To that man who has once squandered his own, another person’s ought not
to be entrusted,”—

similar, as a counterpart, to the Saviour’s words (_Luke_ xvi. 12), “If
ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give
you that which is your own.”

The device is,—

[Illustration: _Alicat, 1581._]

with the following Latin elegiacs,—

COLCHIDOS _in gremio nidum quid congeris? eheu
Neſcia cur pullos tam malè credis auis?
Dira parens Medea ſuos ſæuiſſima natos
Perdidit; & ſperas parcat vt illa tuis?_

Which Whitney (p. 33) considerably amplifies,—

“MEDEA loe with infante in her arme,
Whoe kil’de her babes, shee shoulde haue loued beste:
The swallowe yet, whoe did suspect no harme,
Hir Image likes, and hatch’d vppon her breste:[108]
And lifte her younge, vnto this tirauntes guide,
Whoe, peecemeale did her proper fruicte deuide.

Oh foolishe birde, think’ste thow, shee will haue care,
Vppon thy yonge? Whoe hathe her owne destroy’de,
And maie it bee, that shee thie birdes should spare?
Whoe slue her owne, in whome shee shoulde haue ioy’d.
Thow arte deceau’de, and arte a warninge good,
To put no truste, in them that hate theire blood.”

And to the same purport, from Alciat’s 193rd Emblem, are Whitney’s lines
(p. 29),—

“MEDEA nowe, and PROGNE, blusshe for shame:
By whome, are ment yow dames of cruell kinde
Whose infantes yonge, vnto your endlesse blame,
For mothers deare, do tyrauntes of yow finde:
Oh serpentes seede, each birde, and sauage brute,
Will those condempne, that tender not theire frute.”

The stanza of his 194th Emblem is adapted by Alciat, and by Whitney
after him (p. 163), to the motto,—

_Pietas filiorum in parentes_,—
“The reverence of sons towards their parents.”

[Illustration: _Alicat, 1581._]

PER _medios hoſteis patriæ cùm ferret ab igne
Aeneas humeris dulce parentis onus:
Parcite, dicebat: vobis ſene adorea rapto
Nulla erit, erepto ſed patre ſumma mihi._

“AENEAS beares his father, out of Troye,
When that the Greekes, the same did spoile, and sacke:
His father might of suche a sonne haue ioye,
Who throughe his foes, did beare him on his backe:
No fier, nor sworde, his valiaunt harte coulde feare,
To flee awaye, without his father deare.
Which showes, that sonnes must carefull bee, and kinde,
For to releeue their parentes in distresse:
And duringe life, that dutie shoulde them binde,
To reuerence them, that God their daies maie blesse:
And reprehendes tenne thowsande to their shame,
Who ofte dispise the stocke whereof they came.”

The two emblems of Medeia and of Æneas and Anchises, Shakespeare, in _2
Henry VI._ (act. v. sc. 2, l. 45, vol. v. p. 218), brings into close
juxta-position, and unites by a single description; it is, when young
Clifford comes upon the dead body of his valiant father, stretched on
the field of St. Albans, and bears it lovingly on his shoulders. With
strong filial affection he addresses the mangled corpse,—

“Wast thou ordain’d, dear father,
To lose thy youth in peace, and to atchieve
The silver livery of advised age;
And, in thy reverence, and thy chair-days, thus
To die in ruffian battle?”

On the instant the purpose of vengeance enters his mind, and fiercely he
declares,—

“Even at this sight,
My heart is turn’d to stone; and, while ’tis mine,
It shall be stony. York not our old men spares;
No more will I their babes: tears virginal
Shall be to me even as the dew to fire;
And beauty, that the tyrant oft reclaims,
Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.
Henceforth I will not have to do with pity:
Meet I an infant of the house of York,
Into as many gobbets will I cut it,
As wild Medea young Absyrtus did:
In cruelty will I seek out my fame.”

Then suddenly there comes a gush of feeling, and with most exquisite
tenderness he adds,—

“Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford’s house:
As did Æneas old Anchises bear,
So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders:
But then Æneas bare a living load,
Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine.”

The same allusion, in _Julius Cæsar_ (act. i. sc. 2, l. 107, vol. vii.
p. 326), is also made by Cassius, when he compares his own natural
powers with those of Cæsar, and describes their stout contest in
stemming “the troubled Tyber,”—

“The torrent roar’d, and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy;
But ere he could arrive the point proposed,
Cæsar cried, ‘Help me, Cassius, or I sink!’
I, as Æneas our great ancestor
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Cæsar: and this man
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature, and must bend his body
If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him.”

[Illustration: _Aneau, 1552._]

Progne, or Procne, Medeia’s counterpart for cruelty, who placed the
flesh of her own son Itys before his father Tereus, is represented in
Aneau’s “PICTA POESIS,” ed. 1552, p. 73, with a Latin stanza of ten
lines, and the motto, “IMPOTENTIS VINDICTÆ FOEMINA,”—_The Woman of
furious Vengeance._ In the _Titus Andronicus_ (act. v. sc. 2, l. 192,
vol. vi. p. 522) the fearful tale of Progne enters into the plot, and a
similar revenge is repeated. The two sons of the empress, Chiron and
Demetrius, who had committed atrocious crimes against Lavinia the
daughter of Titus, are bound, and preparations are made to inflict such
punishment as the world’s history had but once before heard of. Titus
declares he will bid their empress mother, “like to the earth swallow
her own increase.”

“This is the feast that I have bid her to,
And this the banquet she shall surfeit on;
For worse than Philomel you used my daughter,
And worse than Progne I will be revenged.”

’Tis a fearful scene, and the father calls,—

“And now prepare your throats. Lavinia, come,
[_He cuts their throats._
Receive the blood: and when that they are dead,
Let me go grind their bones to powder small,
And with this hateful liquor temper it;
And in that paste let their vile heads be baked.
Come, come, be every one officious
To make this banquet; which I wish may prove
More stern and bloody than the Centaurs’ feast.”

A character from Virgil’s _Æneid_ (bk. ii. lines 79–80; 195–8;
257–9),[109] frequently introduced both by Whitney and Shakespeare, is
that of the traitor Sinon, who, with his false tears and lying words,
obtained for the wooden horse and its armed men admission through the
walls and within the city of Troy. Asia, he averred, would thus secure
supremacy over Greece, and Troy find a perfect deliverance. It is from
the “PICTA POESIS” of Anulus (p. 18), that Whitney (p. 141) on one
occasion adopts the Emblem of treachery, the untrustworthy shield of
Brasidas,—

_Perfidvs familiaris_,—
“The faithless friend.”

[Illustration: _Aneau_, 1552.]

PER _medium Brasidas clypeum traiectus ab hoſte:
Quóque foret læſus ciue rogante modum.
Cui fidebam (inquit) penetrabilis vmbo fefellit._
SIC CVI _ſæpe fides credita: proditor eſt._

Thus rendered in the _Choice of Emblemes_,—

“While throughe his foes, did boulde BRASIDAS thruste,
And thought with force, their courage to confounde:
Throughe targat faire, wherein he put his truste,
His manlie corpes receau’d a mortall wounde.
Beinge ask’d the cause, before he yeelded ghoste:
Quoth hee, my shielde, wherein I trusted moste.

Euen so it happes, wee ofte our bayne doe brue,
When ere wee trie, wee trust the gallante showe:
When frendes suppoas’d, do prooue them selues vntrue.
When SINON false, in DAMONS shape dothe goe:
Then gulfes of griefe, doe swallowe vp our mirthe,
And thoughtes ofte times, doe shrow’d vs in the earthe.

* * * * * *

But, if thou doe inioye a faithfull frende,
See that with care, thou keepe him as thy life:
And if perhappes he doe, that may offende,
Yet waye thy frende: and shunne the cause of strife,
Remembringe still, there is no greater crosse;
Then of a frende, for, to sustaine the losse.

Yet, if this knotte of frendship be to knitte,
And SCIPIO yet, his LELIVS can not finde?
Content thy selfe, till some occasion fitte,
Allot thee one, according to thy minde:
Then trie, and truste: so maiste thou liue in rest,
But chieflie see, thou truste thy selfe the beste?”

[Illustration: _Sambucus_, 1564.]

And again, adopting the Emblem of John Sambucus, edition Antwerp, 1564,
p. 184,[110] and the motto,

_Nusquam tuta fides_,—
“Trustfulness is never sure,”

with the exemplification of the Elephant and the undermined tree,
Whitney writes (p. 150),—

“No state so sure, no seate within this life
But that maie fall, thoughe longe the same haue stoode:
Here fauninge foes, here fained frendes are rife.
With pickthankes, blabbes, and subtill Sinons broode,
Who when wee truste, they worke our ouerthrowe,
And vndermine the grounde, wheron wee goe.

The Olephant so huge, and stronge to see,
No perill fear’d: but thought a sleepe to gaine
But foes before had vndermin’de the tree,
And downe he falles, and so by them was slaine:
First trye, then truste: like goulde, the copper showes:
And NERO ofte, in NVMAS clothinge goes.”

Freitag’s “MYTHOLOGIA ETHICA,” pp. 176, 177, sets forth the well-known
fable of the Countryman and the Viper, which after receiving warmth and
nourishment attempted to wound its benefactor. The motto is,—

_Maleficio beneficium compensatum_,—
“A good deed recompensed by maliciousness.”

[Illustration: _Freitag, 1579._]

“_Qui reddit mala pro bonis, non recedet malum de domo
eius._”—_Prouerb_, 17, 13.
“Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house.”

Nicolas Reusner, also, edition Francfort, 1581, bk. ii. p. 81, has an
Emblem on this subject, and narrates the whole fable,—

_Merces anguina_,—“Reward from a serpent.”

“Frigore confectum quem rusticus inuenit anguem
Imprudens fotum recreat ecce sinu.
Immemor hic miserum lethale sauciat ictu:
Reddidit hìc vitam; reddidit ille necem.
Si benefacta locis malè, simplex mente, bonusq.:
Non benefacta quidem, sed malefacta puta.
Ingratis seruire nefas, gratisq. nocere:
Quod benè fit gratis, hoc solet esse lucro.”[111]

In several instances in his historical plays, Shakespeare very expressly
refers to this fable. On hearing that some of his nobles had made peace
with Bolingbroke, in _Richard II._ (act. iii. sc. 2, l. 129, vol. iv. p.
168), the king exclaims,—

“O villains, vipers, damn’d without redemption!
Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!
Snakes, in my heart blood warm’d that sting my heart!”

In the same drama (act. v. sc. 3, l. 57, vol. iv. p. 210) York urges
Bolingbroke,—

“Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove,
A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.”

And another, bearing the name of York, in _2 Henry VI._ (act. iii. sc.
1, l. 343, vol. v. p. 162), declares to the nobles,—

“I fear me, you but warm the starved snake,
Who, cherish’d in your breasts, will sting your hearts.”

Also Hermia, _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (act. ii. sc. 2, l. 145, vol. ii.
p. 225), when awakened from her trance-like sleep, calls on her
beloved,—

“Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.”

Whitney combines Freitag’s and Reusner’s Emblems under one motto (p.
189), _In sinu alere serpentem_,—“To nourish a serpent in the
bosom,”—but applies them to the siege of Antwerp in 1585 in a way which
Schiller’s famous history fully confirms:[112]—“The government of the
citizens was shared among too many hands, and too strongly influenced by
a disorderly populace to allow any one to consider with calmness, to
decide with judgment, or to execute with firmness.”

The typical Sinon is here introduced by Whitney,—

“Thovghe, cittie stronge the cannons shotte dispise,
And deadlie foes, beseege the same in vaine:
Yet, in the walles if pining famine rise,
Or else some impe of SINON, there remaine.
What can preuaile your bulwarkes? and your towers,
When, all your force, your inwarde foe deuoures.”

In fact, Sinon seems to have been the accepted representative of
treachery in every form; for when Camillus, at the siege of Faleria,
rewarded the Schoolmaster as he deserved for attempting to give up his
scholars into captivity, the occurence is thus described in the _Choice
of Emblemes_, p. 113,—

“With that, hee caus’de this SINON to bee stripte,
And whippes, and roddes, vnto the schollers gaue:
Whome, backe againe, into the toune they whipte.”

Shakespeare is even more frequent in his allusions to this same Sinon.
The _Rape of Lucrece_, published in 1594, speaks of him as “the perjured
Sinon,” “the false Sinon,” “the subtle Sinon,” and avers (vol. ix. p.
537, l. 1513),—

“Like a constant and confirmed devil,
He entertain’d a show so seeming just,
And therein so ensconc’d his secret evil,—
That jealousy itself could not mistrust,
False creeping craft and perjury should thrust
Into so bright a day such black-faced storms,
Or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms.”

Also in _3 Henry VI._ (act. iii. sc. 2, l. 188, vol. v. p. 285), and in
_Titus Andronicus_ (act. v. sc. 3, l. 85, vol. vi. p. 527), we read,—

“I’ll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could,
And like a Sinon, take another Troy;”

and,—

“Tell us what Sinon hath bewitch’d our ears,
Or who hath brought the fatal engine in
That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound.”

But in _Cymbeline_ (act. iii. sc. 4, l. 57, vol. ix. p. 226), Æneas is
joined in almost the same condemnation with Sinon. Pisano expostulates
with Imogen,—

“_Pis._ Good madam, hear me.
_Imo._ True honest men being heard, like false Æneas,
Were in his time thought false; and Sinon’s weeping
Did scandal many a holy tear, took pity
From most true wretchedness: so thou, Posthumus,
Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men;
Goodly and gallant shall be false and perjured
From thy great fail.”

Doubtless it will be said that such allusions to the characters in
classical history are the common property of the whole modern race of
literary men, and that to make them implies no actual copying by later
writers of those who preceded them in point of time; still in the
examples just given there are such coincidences of expression, not
merely of idea, as justify the opinion that Shakespeare both availed
himself of the usual sources of information, and had read and taken into
his mind the very colour of thought which Whitney had lately spread over
the same subject.

The great Roman names, Curtius, Cocles, Manlius and Fabius gave Whitney
the opportunity for saying (p. 109),—

“With these, by righte comes _Coriolanus_ in,
Whose cruell minde did make his countrie smarte;
Till mothers teares, and wiues, did pittie winne.”

And these few lines, in fact, are a summary of the plot and chief
incidents of Shakespeare’s play of _Coriolanus_, so that it is far from
being unlikely that they may have been the germ, the very seed-bed of
that vigorous offset of his genius. Almost the exact blame which Whitney
imputes is also attributed to Coriolanus by his mother Volumnia (act. v.
sc. 3, l. 101, vol. vi. p. 407), who charges him with,—

“Making the mother, wife and child, to see
The son, the husband and the father, tearing
His country’s bowels out.”

And when wife and mother have conquered his strong hatred against his
native land (act. v. sc. 3, l. 206, vol. vi. p. 411), Coriolanus
observes to them,—

“Ladies, you deserve
To have a temple built you: all the swords
In Italy, and her confederate arms,
Could not have made this peace.”

The subject of Alciat’s 119th Emblem, edition 1581, p. 430, is the
_Death of Brutus_, with the motto,—

_Fortuna virtutem superans_,—
“Fortune overcoming valour.”

[Illustration: _Alicat, 1581._]

CÆSAREO _poſtquàm ſuperatus milite, vidit
Ciuili vndantem ſanguine Pharſaliam;
Jam iam ſtricturus moribunda in pectora ferrum,
Audaci hos Brutus protulit ore ſonos:
Infelix virtus; & ſolis prouida verbis,
Fortunam in rebus cur ſequeris dominam?_

On the ideas here suggested Whitney enlarges, p. 70, and writes,—

“When BRVTVS knewe, AVGVSTVS parte preuail’de,
And sawe his frendes, lie bleedinge on the grounde,
Such deadlie griefe, his noble harte assail’de,
That with his sworde, hee did him selfe confounde:
But firste, his frendes perswaded him to flee,
Whoe aunswer’d thus, my flighte with handes shalbee.

And bending then to blade, his bared breste,
Hee did pronounce, theise wordes with courage great:
Oh Prowes vaine, I longe did loue thee beste,
But nowe I see, thou doest on fortune waite.
Wherefore with paine, I nowe doe prouue it true,
That fortunes force, maie valiant hartes subdue.”

So, in the _Julius Cæsar_ (act. v. sc. 5, l. 25, vol. vii. p. 413), the
battle of Philippi being irretrievably lost to the party of the
Republic, and Marcus Cato slain, Brutus, meditating self-destruction,
desires aid from one of his friends that he may accomplish his purpose,—

“Good Volumnius,
Thou know’st that we two went to school together:
Even for that our love of old, I prithee,
Hold thou my sword-hilts, whilst I run on it.
_Vol._ That’s not an office for a friend, my lord.”

The alarum continues,—the friends of Brutus again remonstrate, and
Clitus urges him to escape (l. 30),—

“_Cli._ Fly, fly, my lord; there is no tarrying here.
_Bru._ Farewell to you; and you; and you, Volumnius.
Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep;
Farewell to thee, too, Strato. Countrymen,
My heart doth joy that yet in all my life
I found no man but he was true to me.
I shall have glory by this losing day,
More than Octavius and Mark Antony
By this vile contest shall attain unto.
So, fare you well at once; for Brutus’ tongue
Hath almost ended his life’s history:
Night hangs upon mine eyes; my bones would rest,
That have but labour’d to attain this hour.”

Once more is the alarum raised,—“Fly, fly, fly.” “Hence, I will follow
thee,” is the hero’s answer; but when friends are gone, he turns to one
of his few attendants, and entreats (l. 44),—

“I prithee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord:
Thou art a fellow of a good respect;
Thy life hath had some smatch of honour in it:
Hold then my sword, and turn away thy face,
While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato?

_Stra._ Give me your hand first: fare you well, my lord.
_Bru._ Farewell, good Strato. [_Runs on his sword._] Cæsar, now be
still:
I kill’d not thee with half so good a will.@span 6: [_Dies._]”@

In the presence of the conquerors Strato then declares,—

“The conquerors can but make a fire of him;
For Brutus only overcame himself,
And no man else hath honour by his death.
_Lucil._ So Brutus should be found. I thank thee, Brutus,
That thou hast proved Lucilius’ saying true.”

And we must mark how finely the dramatist represents the victors at
Philippi testifying to the virtues of their foe (l. 68),—

“_Antony._ This was the noblest Roman of them all:
All the conspirators, save only he,
Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar;
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
* * * * * *
_Octavius._[113] According to his virtue let us use him,
With all respect and rites of burial.
Within my tent his bones to-night shall lie,
Most like a soldier, order’d honourably.”

The mode of the catastrophe differs slightly in the two writers; and
undoubtedly, in this as in most other instances, there is a very wide
difference between the life and spiritedness of the dramatist, and the
comparative lameness of the Emblem writers,—the former instinct with the
fire of genius, the latter seldom rising above an earth-bound
mediocrity; yet the references or allusions by the later poet to the
earlier can scarcely be questioned; they are too decided to be the
results of pure accident.

In one instance Whitney (p. 110, l. 32) hits off the characteristics of
Brutus and Cassius in a single line,—

“With _Brutus_ boulde, and _Cassius_, pale and wan.”

It is remarkable how Shakespeare amplifies these two epithets, “pale and
wan” into a full description of the personal manner and appearance of
Cassius. Cæsar and his train have re-entered upon the scene, and (act.
i. sc. 2, l. 192, vol. vii. p. 329) the dictator haughtily and
satirically gives order,—

“_Cæs._ Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
_Ant._ Fear him not, Cæsar; he’s not dangerous;
He is a noble Roman, and well given.
_Cæs._ Would he were fatter! but I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays,
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;
Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
As if he mock’d himself and scorn’d his spirit
That could be moved to smile at any thing.
Such men as he be never at heart’s ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,
And therefore are they very dangerous.”

“Pale and wan,”—two most fruitful words, certainly, to bring forth so
graphic a description of men that are “very dangerous.”

Of names historic the Emblem writers give a great many examples, but
only a few, within the prescribed boundaries of our subject, that are at
the same time historic and Shakespearean.

_Vel post mortem formidolosi_,—“Even after death to be dreaded,”—is the
sentiment with which Alciatus (Emblem 170), and Whitney after him (p.
194), associate the noisy drum and the shrill-sounding horn; and thus
the Emblem-classic illustrates his device,—

“CÆTERA _mutescent, coriumq. silebit ouillum,
Si confecta lupi tympana pelle sonent.
Hanc membrana ouium sic exhorrescit, vt hostem
Exanimis quamuis non ferat exanimem.
Sic cute detracta Ziscas, in tympana versus,
Boëmos potuit vincere Pontifices._”

Literally rendered the Latin elegiacs declare,—

“Other things will grow dumb, and the sheep-skin be silent,
If drums made from the hide of a wolf should sound.
Of this so sore afraid is the membrane of sheep,
That though dead it could not bear its dead foe.
So Zisca’s skin torn off, he, changed to a drum,
The Bohemian chief priests was able to conquer.”

These curious ideas Whitney adopts, and most lovingly enlarges,—

“A Secret cause, that none can comprehende,
In natures workes is often to bee seene;
As, deathe can not the ancient discorde ende,
That raigneth still, the wolfe and sheepe betweene;
The like, beside in many thinges are knowne,
The cause reueal’d, to none, but GOD alone.

For, as the wolfe, the sillye sheepe did feare,
And make him still to tremble, at his barke:
So beinge dead, which is most straunge to heare,
This feare remaynes, as learned men did marke;
For with their skinnes, if that two drommes bee bounde,
That, clad with sheepe, doth iarre; and hathe no sounde.

And, if that stringes bee of their intrailes wroughte,
And ioyned both, to make a siluer sounde:
No cunninge care can tune them as they oughte,
But one is harde, the other still is droun’de:
Or discordes foule, the harmonie doe marre;
And nothinge can appease this inward warre.

So, ZISCA thoughte when deathe did shorte his daies,
As with his voice, hee erste did daunte his foes;
That after deathe hee shoulde new terror raise,
And make them flee, as when they felte his bloes.
Wherefore, hee charg’d that they his skinne shoulde frame,
To fitte a dromme, and marche forth with the same.

So, HECTORS sighte greate feare in Greekes did worke,
When hee was showed on horsebacke, beeinge dead:
HVNIADES, the terrour of the Turke,
Thoughe layed in graue, yet at his name they fled:
And cryinge babes, they ceased with the same,
The like in FRANCE, sometime did TALBOTS name.”

The cry[114] “A Talbot! a Talbot!” is represented by Shakespeare as
sufficient in itself to make the French soldiers flee and leave their
clothes behind; _1 Henry VI._ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 78, vol. v. p. 29),—

_Sold._i> I’ll be so bold to take what they have left.
The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword;
For I have loaden me with many spoils
Using no other weapon but his name.”

And in the same play (act ii. sc. 3, l. 11, vol. v. p. 32), when the
Countess of Auvergne is visited by the dreaded Englishman, the
announcement is made,—

“_Mess._ Madam,
According as your ladyship desired,
By message craved, so is Lord Talbot come.

_Count._ And he is welcome. What! is this the man?

_Mess._ Madam, it is.

_Count._ Is this the scourge of France?
Is this the Talbot, so much fear’d abroad
That with his name the mothers still their babes?”

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

Five or six instances may be found in which Shakespeare introduces the
word “lottery;” and, historically, the word is deserving of notice,—for
it was in his boyhood that the first public lottery was set on foot in
England; and judging from the nature of the prizes, he appears to have
made allusion to them. There were 40,000 chances,—according to Bohn’s
_Standard Library Cyclopædia_, vol. iii. p. 279,—sold at ten shillings
each: “The prizes consisted of articles of plate, and the profit was
employed for the repair of certain harbours.” The drawing took place at
the west door of St. Paul’s Cathedral; it began “23rd January, 1569, and
continued incessantly drawing, _day and night_, till the 6th of May
following.”[115] How such an event should find its record in a Book of
Emblems may at first be accounted strange; but in addition to her other
mottoes, Queen Elizabeth had, on this occasion of the lottery, chosen a
special motto, which Whitney (p. 61) attaches to the device,—

_Silentium_,—“Silence,”—

which, after six stanzas, he closes with the lines,—

“Th’ Ægyptians wise, and other nations farre,
Vnto this ende, HARPOCRATES deuis’de,
Whose finger, still did seeme his mouthe to barre,
To bid them speake, no more than that suffis’de,
Which signe thoughe oulde, wee may not yet detest,
But marke it well, if wee will liue in reste.”

[Illustration: decoration]

_Written to the like effecte, vppon
Video, & taceo.
Her Maieſties poëſie, at the great Lotterie in_ LONDON,
_begon_ M.D.LXVIII. _and ended_ M.D.LXIX.

I See, and houlde my peace: a Princelie Poëſie righte,
For euerie faulte, ſhoulde not provoke, a Prince, or man of mighte.
For if that IOVE ſhoulde ſhoote, ſo ofte as men offende,
The Poëttes ſaie, his thunderboltes ſhoulde ſoone bee at an ende.
Then happie wee that haue, a Princeſſe ſo inclin’de.
That when as iuſtice drawes hir ſworde, hath mercie in her minde,
And to declare the ſame, howe prone ſhee is to ſaue:
Her Maieſtie did make her choice, this Poëſie for to haue.

_Sed piger ad pœnas princeps, ad prœmia velox:
Cuique dolet, quoties cogitur eſſe ferox._[116]

Lines from Ovid, _2 Trist._, are in the margin,—

“_Si quoties peccãt homines sua fulmina mittat
Jupiter, exiguo tempore inermis erit._”[117]

Silence, also, was represented by the image of the goddess Ageniora. In
an Emblem-book by Peter Costalius, _Pegma_, edition Lyons, 1555, p. 109,
he refers to her example, and concludes his stanza with the words, _Si
sapis à nostra disce tacere dea_,—“If thou art wise, learn from our
goddess to be silent.”

That Casket Scene in the _Merchant of Venice_ (act i. sc. 2, l.
24),—from which we have already made long extracts,—contains a reference
to lotteries quite in character with the prizes, “articles of plate and
rich jewelry.” Portia is deeming it hard, that according to her father’s
will, she “may neither choose whom she would, nor refuse whom she
disliked.” “Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor
refuse none?”

“_Ner._ Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men, at their
death, have good inspirations: therefore, the lottery, that he hath
devised in these three chests of gold, silver, and lead,—whereof who
chooses his meaning chooses you—will, no doubt, never be chosen by any
rightly, but one who shall rightly love.”

The Prince of Morocco (act ii. sc. 1, l. 11) affirms to Portia,—

“I would not change this hue,
Except to steal your thoughts, my gentle queen;”

and Portia answers,—

“In terms of choice I am not solely led
By nice direction of a maiden’s eyes;
Besides the lottery of my destiny
Bars me the right of voluntary choosing.”

The prevalence of lotteries, too, seems to be intimated by the Clown in
_All’s Well that Ends Well_ (act i. sc. 3, l. 73, vol. iii. p. 123),
when he repeats the song,—

“Among nine bad if one be good,
Among nine bad if one be good,
There’s yet one good in ten;”

and the Countess reproving him says,—

“What, one good in ten? you corrupt the song, sirrah.

_Clo._ One good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying o’ the
song: would God would serve the world so all the year! we’d find no
fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the parson: one in ten, quoth a’!
an’ we might have a good woman born but one every blazing star, or at an
earthquake, ’twould mend the lottery well: a man may draw his heart out,
ere a’ pluck one.”

Shakespeare’s words will receive a not inapt illustration from the
sermon of a contemporary prelate, Dr. Chatterton, Bishop of Chester from
1579 to 1595, and to whom Whitney dedicated the Emblem on p. 120,
_Vigilantia et custodia_,—“Watchfulness and guardianship.”[118] He was
preaching a wedding sermon in Cambridge, and Ormerod, i. p. 146, quoting
King’s _Vale Royal_, tells us,—

“He used this merry comparison. The choice of a wife is full of
hazard, not unlike to a man groping for one fish in a barrel full of
serpents: if he escape harm of the snakes, and light on the fish, he may
be thought fortunate; yet let him not boast, for perhaps it may be but
an eel.”

That “good woman” “to mend the lottery well,” that “one fish in a barrel
full of serpents,” came, however, to the chance of one of Cæsar’s
friends. Even when Antony (_Antony and Cleopatra_, act ii. sc. 2, l.
245, vol. ix. p. 40) was under the witchery of the “rare Egyptian
queen,” that “did make defect, perfection,” the dramatist says,—

“If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle
The heart of Antony, Octavia is
A blessed lottery to him.”

The Emblems applicable to Shakespeare’s historical characters are only a
few among the numbers that occur in the Emblem writers, as Alciat,
Cousteau, Giovio, Symeoni, &c.: but our choice is limited, and there
would be no pertinency in selecting devices to which in the dramas of
our author there are no corresponding expressions of thought, though
there may be parallelisms of subject.

[Illustration:

Virtati fortuna comes
_Alciat’s Arms (Giovio, ed. 1562)._
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION II.
_HERALDIC EMBLEMS, OR EMBLEMS APPLIED TO HERALDRY._

KNOTTED together as are Emblems and the very language of Heraldry, we
must expect to find Emblem writers devoting some at least of their
inventions to heraldic purposes. This has been done to a very
considerable extent by the Italians, especially by Paolo Giovio,
Domenichi, Ruscelli, and Symeoni; but in several other authors also
there occur heraldic devices among their more general emblems. These are
not full coats of arms and the complete emblazonnes of “the gentleman’s
science,” but rather cognizances, or badges, by which persons and
families of note may be distinguished. In this respect Shakespeare
entirely agrees with the Emblem writers; neither he nor they give us the
quarterings complete, but they single out for honourable mention some
prominent mark or sign.

I attempt not to arrange the subject according to the Rules of the Art,
but to exhibit instances in which Shakespeare and the Emblematists
agree, of Poetic Heraldry, the Heraldry of Reward for Heroic
Achievements, and the Heraldry of Imaginative Devices.

Of Poetic Heraldry the chief type is that bird of renown, which was a
favourite with Shakespeare, and from which he has been named by general
consent, “the Swan of Avon.” A white swan upon a shield occurs both in
Alciat and in Whitney, and is expressly named _Insignia Poetarum_,—“The
poets’ ensigns.”

The swan, in fact, was sacred to Apollo and the Muses; and hence was
supposed to be musical. Æschylus, in his _Agamemnon,_ makes Cassandra
speak of the fable, when the Chorus bewail her sad destiny (vv. 1322,
3),—

“Ἃπαξ ἔπ’ εἰπεῖν ῥῆσιν ἢ θρῆνον θέλω
ἐμὸν τὸν αὐτῆς.”

_i.e._,—“Yet once again I wish for her to speak forth prophecy or
lamentation, even my own,”—and Clytæmnēstra mentions the singing of the
swan at the point of death (vv. 1444–7),—

“Ὁ μὲν γὰρ οὕτως· ἡ δέ τοι κύκνου δίκην
τὸν ὓστατον μέλψασα θανάσιμον γόον
κεῖται φίλητωρ, τοῦδ’, ἐμοὶ δ’ ἐπηγαγεν
εὐνης παροψώνημα τῆς ἐμῆς χλιδῆς.”

Which is to this effect: that when she has sung the last mortal
lamentation, according to the custom of the swan, she lies down as a
lover, and offers to me the solace of the bed of my joy.

[Illustration: _Horapollo, ed. 1551._]

This notion of the singing of the swan is to be traced even to the
hieroglyphics of Egypt. In answer to the question, “Πῶς γέροντα
μουσικόν·”—how to represent “an old man musical?”—Horapollo, edition
Paris, 1551, p. 136, replies,—

“Ιἐροντα μουσικὸν βουλόμενοι σημῇναι, κύκνον ζωγραφοῦσιν. οὑ~τος γαρ
ἡδύτατον μέλος ᾅδει γηράσκων.”

_i.e._—“Wishing to signify an old man musical, they paint a swan; for
this bird sings its sweetest melody when growing old.” Virgil frequently
speaks of swans, both as melodious and as shrill voiced. Thus in the
_Æneid_, vii. 700–3; xi. 457,—

“Cum sese è pastu referunt, et longa canoros
Dant per colla modos: sonat amnis et Asia longè
Pulsa palus.”

_i.e._—“When they return from feeding, and through their long necks give
forth melodious measures; the river resounds and the Asian marsh from
far.”

“Piscosóve amne Padusæ
Dant sonitum rauci per stagna loquacia cycni.”[119]

_i.e._—“Or on the fish-abounding river Po the hoarse swans give forth a
sound through the murmuring pools.”

Horace, _Carm._ iv. 2. 25, names Pindar _Dircæum cycnum_,—“the Dircæan
swan;” and _Carm._ ii. 20. 10, likens himself to an _album alitem_,—“a
white-winged creature;” which a few lines further on he terms a _canorus
ales_,—“a melodious bird,”—and speaks of his apotheosis to immortal
fame.[120]

Anacreon is called by Antipater of Sidon, _Anthol. Græc. Carm._ 76,
κύκνος Τηϊος,—“the Teïan swan.”

Poets, too, after death, were fancifully supposed to assume the form of
swans. It was believed also that swans foresaw their own death, and
previously sang their own elegy. Thus in Ovid, _Metam._ xiv. 430,—

“Carmina jam monens canit exequialia Cygnus,”—

“Now dying the Swan chants its funereal songs.”

Very beautifully does Plato advert to this fiction in his account of the
conversation of Socrates with his friends on the day of his execution.
(See _Phædon_, Francfort edition, 1602, p. 77, 64A.) They were fearful
of causing him trouble and vexation; but he reminds them they should not
think him inferior in foresight to the swans; for these,—

“Fall a singing, as soon as they perceive that they are about to
die, and sing far more sweetly than at any former time, being glad that
they are about to go away to the God whose servants they are.... They
possess the power of prophesying, and foreseeing the blessings of Hades
they sing and rejoice exceedingly. Now I imagine that I am also a
fellow-servant with the Swans and sacred to the same God, and that I
have received from the same Master a power of foresight not inferior to
theirs, so that I could depart from life itself with a mind no more cast
down.”

Thus the melodious dirge of the swan was attributed to the same kind of
prescience which enables good men to look forward with delight to that
time “when this mortal shall put on immortality.”

The “PICTA POESIS,” p. 28, adopts the same fancy of the swan singing at
the end of life, but makes it the emblem of “old age eloquent.” Thus,—

“FACVNDA SENECTVS.
“CANDIDA Cygnus auis suprema ætate canora est:
Inquam verti homines tabula picta docet,
Nam sunt canitie Cygni dulciq. canore,
Virtute illustres, eloquioque senes.
_Dulce vetus vinum: senis est oratio dulcis,
Dulcior hoc ipso quò sapientior est._”

_i.e._—“At the end of life tuneful is the bird, the white swan, into
which the painted tablet teaches that men are changed, for swans are
illustrious from hoariness and the sweet singing, old men illustrious
for virtue and for eloquence. Old wine is sweet; of an old man sweet is
the speech; sweeter, for this very cause, the wiser it is.”

Shakespeare himself adopts this notion in the _Merchant of Venice_ (act
i. sc. 2, l. 24, vol. ii. p. 286), when he says, “Holy men at their
death have good inspirations.”

Reusner, however, luxuriating in every variety of silvery and snowy
whiteness, represents the swan as especially the symbol of the _pure
simplicity of truth_. (_Emblemata_, lib. ii. 31, pp. 91, 92, ed. 1581.)

Simplicitas veri ſana.

[Illustration: _Reusner, 1581._]

_EMBLEMA XXXI._

“_Albo candidius quid est olore,
Argento, niue, lilio, ligustro?
Fides candida, candidiq’ mores,
Et mens candida, candidi sodalis.
Te Schedi niueam fidem Melisse,
Moratum benè, candidamq’ mentem
Possidere sodalis integelli:
Ligustro niueo nitentiorem:
Argento niueo beatiorem:
Albis liliolis fragrantiorem:
Cygnis candidulis decentiorem:
Armorum niueus docet tuorum
Cygnus: liliolis decorus albis:
Phœbea redimitus ora lauro.
Albo candidior cygnus ligustro:
Argento preciosior beato:
Cui nec par eboris decus, nec auri,
Nec gemmæ valor est, nitorq’ pulcræ:
Et si pulcrius est in orbe quicquam._”

_i.e._—“Than a white swan what is brighter,—than silver, snow, the
lily, the privet? Bright faith and bright morals,—and the bright mind of
a bright companion. That thou of good morals, O Schedius Melissus, dost
possess snow-like faith, and the bright mind of an uncorrupted
companion;—that (thou art) more fair than the snowy privet,—more blessed
than the snowy silver,—more fragrant than the white lilies,—more comely
than the little bright swans,—the snowy swan on thy arms doth teach: a
swan handsome with white lilies, encircled as to its features with the
laurel of Phœbus; a swan brighter than the white privet,—more precious
than the blessed silver; to which cannot be equalled the comeliness of
ivory, or of gold; nor the worth and the splendour of a beautiful gem:
and if in the world there is any thing more beautiful still.”

To a short, but very learned dissertation on the subject, and to the
device of a swan on a tomb, in his work, _De Volatilibus_, edition 1595,
Emb. 23, Joachim Camerarius affixes the motto, “SIBI CANIT ET ORBI,”—_It
sings for itself and for the world_,—

“_Ipsa suam celebrat sibi mens bene conscia mortem,
Vt solet herbiferum Cygnus ad Eridanum._”

_i.e._—“The mind conscious of good celebrates its own death for
itself; as the swan is accustomed to do on the banks of the grassy
Eridanus.”[121]

Shakespeare’s expressions, however, as to the swan, correspond more
closely with the stanzas of Alciat (edition Lyons, 1551, p. 197) which
are contained in the woodcut on next page.

Whitney (p. 126) adopts the same ideas, but enlarges upon them, and
brings out a clearer moral interpretation, fortifying himself with
quotations from Ovid, Reusner, and Horace,—

“The Martiall Captaines ofte, do marche into the fielde,
With Egles, or with Griphins fierce, or Dragons, in theire shielde.
But Phœbus sacred birde, let Poëttes moste commende.
Who, as it were by skill deuine, with songe forshowes his ende.
And as his tune delightes: for rarenes of the same.
So they with sweetenes of theire verse, shoulde winne a lasting name.
And as his colour white: Sincerenes doth declare.
So Poëttes must bee cleane, and pure, and must of crime beware.
For which respectes the Swanne, should in their Ensigne stande.
No forren fowle, and once suppos’de kinge of LIGVRIA Lande.”

Inſignia Poëtarum.

_Gentiles clypeos ſunt qui in Iouis alite geſtant,
Sunt quibus aut Serpens, aut Leo ſigna ferunt.
Dira ſed hæc Vatum fugiant animalia ceras,
Doctaque, ſuſtineat ſtemmata pulcher Olor.
Hic Phœbo ſacer, & nostræ regionis alumnus:
Rex, olim veteres ſeruat adhuc titulos_.

[Illustration: _Alciat, Lugd. 1551_, p. 197.]

In the very spirit of these Emblems of the Swan, the great dramatist
fashions some of his poetical images and most tender descriptions. Thus
in _King John_ (act v. sc. 7, lines 1–24, vol. iv. p. 91), in the
Orchard Scene at Swinstead Abbey, the king being in his mortal sickness,
Prince Henry demands, “Doth he still rage?” And Pembroke replies,—

“He is more patient
Than when you left him; even now he sung.

_P. Hen._ O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes
In their continuance will not feel themselves.
Death, having prey’d upon the outward parts,
Leaves them invisible, and his siege is now
Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds
With many legions of strange fantasies,
Which in their throng and press to that last hold,
Confound themselves. ’Tis strange that death should sing.
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
And from the organ pipe of frailty sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.”

To the same purport, in _Henry VIII._ (act iv. sc. 2, l. 77, vol. vi. p.
88), are the words of Queen Katharine, though she does not name the
poet’s bird,—

“I have not long to trouble thee. Good Griffith,
Cause the musicians play me that sad note
I named my knell, whilst I sit meditating
On that celestial harmony I go to.”

And in the Casket Scene, so often alluded to (_Merchant of Venice_, act
iii. sc. 2, l. 41, vol. ii. p. 325), when Bassanio is about to try his
fortune, Portia thus addresses him,—

“If you do love me, you will find me out.
Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof.
Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music: that the comparison
May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream,
And watery death-bed for him. He may win;
And what is music then? Then music is
Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
To a new-crowned monarch: such it is
As are those dulcet sounds in break of day
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom’s ear
And summon him to marriage.”

In the sad ending, too, of the _Moor of Venice_ (act v. sc. 2, l. 146,
vol. viii. p. 581), after Othello had said of Desdemona,—

“Nay, had she been true,
If heaven would make me such another world
Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,
I’d not have sold her for it:”

and the full proof of innocence having been brought forward, Emilia
desires to be laid by her dead “Mistress’ side,” and inquires mournfully
(l. 249, p. 586),—

“What did thy song bode, lady?
Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan,
And die in music. [_Singing._] Willow, willow, willow.
Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor,
So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true;
So speaking as I think, I die, I die. [_Dies._]”

After this long dissertation _anent_ swans, there may be readers who
will press hard upon me with the couplet from Coleridge,—

“Swans sing before they die: ’twere no bad thing,
Should certain persons die before they sing.”

From Heraldry itself the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (act iii. sc. 2, l.
201, vol. ii. p. 239) borrows one of its most beautiful comparisons; it
is in the passage where Helena so passionately reproaches Hermia for
supposed treachery,—

“O, is all forgot?
All school-days’ friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted;
But yet an union in partition,
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.”

In speaking of the Heraldry of Heroic Achievements, we may refer to the
“wreath of chivalry” (p. 168), already described from the _Pericles_.
There were, however, other wreaths which the Romans bestowed as the
rewards of great and noble exploits. Several of these are set forth by
the Emblem writers; we will select one from Whitney (p. 115), _Fortiter
& feliciter_,—“Bravely and happily.”

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

To this device of an armed hand grasping a spear, on which are hanging
four garlands or crowns of victory, the stanzas are,—

“MARC SERGIVS nowe, I maye recorde by righte,
A Romane boulde, whome foes coulde not dismaye:
Gainste HANNIBAL hee often shewde his mighte,
Whose righte hande loste, his lefte hee did assaye
Vntill at lengthe an iron hande hee proou’d:
And after that CREMONA siege remoou’d.

Then, did defende PLACENTIA in distresse,
And wanne twelue houldes, by dinte of sworde in France,
What triumphes great? were made for his successe,
Vnto what state did fortune him aduance?
What speares? what crounes? what garlandes hee possest;
The honours due for them, that did the beste.”

Of such honours, like poets generally, Shakespeare often tells. After
the triumph at Barnet (_3 Henry VI._, act v. sc. 3, l. 1, vol. v. p.
324), King Edward says to his friends,—

“Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course,
And we are grac’d with wreaths of victory.”

Wreaths of honour and of victory are figured by Joachim Camerarius, “EX
RE HERBARIA,” edition 1590, in the 99th Emblem. The laurel, the oak, and
the olive garlands are ringed together; the motto being, “HIS ORNARI AVT
MORI,”—_With these to be adorned or to die_,—

“_Fronde oleæ, lauri, quercus contexta corolla
Me decoret, sine qua viuere triste mihi_,”—

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“From bough of olive, laurel, oak, a woven crown
Adorns me, without which to live is sadness to me.”

Among other illustrations are quoted the words of the _Iliad,_ which are
applied to Hector, τεθνάτω, οὔ οἱ ἀεικὲς ἀμυνομένω περὶ πάτρης,—“Let
death come, it is not unbecoming to him who dies defending his country.”

Of the three crowns two are named (_3 Henry VI._, act iv. sc. 6, l. 32,
vol. v. p. 309), when Warwick rather blames the king for preferring him
to Clarence, and Clarence replies,—

“No, Warwick, thou art worthy of the sway,
To whom the heavens in thy nativity
Adjudged an olive branch and laurel crown,
As likely to be blest in peace and war,
And therefore I yield thee my free consent.”

The introduction to _King Richard III._ (act i. sc. 1, l. 1, vol. v. p.
473) opens suddenly with Gloster’s declaration,—

“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds, that lour’d upon our house,
In the deep bosom of the ocean bury’d.”

“Sun of York” is a direct allusion to the heraldic cognizance which
Edward IV. adopted, “in memory,” we are told, “of the _three suns_,”
which are said to have appeared at the battle which he gained over the
Lancastrians at Mortimer’s Cross. Richard then adds,—

“Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.”

We meet, too, in the _Pericles_ (act ii. sc. 3, l. 9, vol. ix. p. 345)
with the words of Thaisa to the victor,—

“But you, my knight and guest;
To whom this wreath of victory I give,
And crown you king of this day’s happiness.”

But in the pure Roman manner, and according to the usage of
Emblematists, Shakespeare also tells of “victors’ crowns;” following, as
would appear, “LES DEVISES HEROIQVES” of Paradin, edition Anvers, 1562,
f. 147 _verso_, which contains several instances of garlands for noble
brows. Of these, one is entitled, _Seruati gratia ciuis_,—“For sake of a
citizen saved.”

[Illustration]

The garland is thus described in Paradin’s French,—

“_La Courõne, apellee Ciuique, eſtoit dõnee par le Citoyẽ, au Citoyẽ
qu’il auoit ſauué en guerre: en repreſentatiõ de vie ſauuee. Et eſtoit
cete Courõne, tiſſue de fueilles, ou petis rameaus de Cheſne: pour autãt
qu’au Cheſne, la vielle antiquité, ſouloit prẽdre ſa ſubſtãce, ſõ mãger,
ou sa nourriture_.”

_i.e._—“The crown called Civic was given by the Citizen to the
Citizen[122] whom he had saved in war; in testimony of life saved. And
this Crown was an inweaving of leaves or small branches of Oak; inasmuch
as from the Oak, old antiquity was accustomed to take its subsistence,
its food, or its nourishment.”

“Among the rewards” for the Roman soldiery, remarks Eschenburg (_Manual
of Classical Literature_, p. 274), “golden or gilded crowns were
particularly common; as, the _corona castrensis_, or _vallaris_, to him
who first entered the enemy’s entrenchments; _corona muralis_, to him
who first scaled the enemy’s walls; and _corona navalis_, for seizing a
vessel of the enemy in a sea-fight; also wreaths and crowns formed of
leaves and blossoms; as the _corona civica_, of oak leaves, conferred
for freeing a citizen from death or captivity at the hands of the enemy;
the _corona obsidionalis_, of grass, for delivering a besieged city; and
the _corona triumphalis_, of laurel, worn by a triumphing general.”

Shakespeare’s acquaintance with these Roman customs we find, where we
should expect it to be, in the _Coriolanus_ and in the _Julius Cæsar_.
Let us take the instances; first, from the _Coriolanus_, act i. sc. 9,
l. 58, vol. vi. p. 304; act i. sc. 3, l. 7, p. 287; act ii. sc. 2, l.
84, p. 323; and act ii. sc. 1, l. 109, p. 312. Cominius thanks the gods
that “our Rome hath such a soldier” as Caius Marcius, and declares (act
i. sc. 9, l. 58),—

“Therefore, be it known,
As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius
Wears this war’s garland: in token of the which,
My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,
With all his trim belonging; and from this time.
For what he did before Corioli, call him,
With all the applause and clamour of the host,
CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS. Bear
The addition nobly ever!”

With most motherly pride Volumnia rehearses the brave deed to Virgilia,
her son’s wife (act i. sc. 3, l. 7),—

“When, for a day of kings’ entreaties, a mother should not sell him
an hour from her beholding; I, considering how honour would become such
a person; that it was no better than picture-like to hang by the wall,
if renown made it not stir, was pleased to let him seek danger where he
was like to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him; from whence he
returned, his brows bound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not
more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child than now in first seeing
he had proved himself a man.”

And the gaining of that early renown is most graphically drawn by
Cominius, the consul (act ii. sc. 2, l. 84),—

“At sixteen years,
When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought
Beyond the mark of others: our then dictator,
Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight,
When with his Amazonian chin he drove
The bristled lips before him: he bestrid
An o'er press’d Roman, and i’ the consul’s view
Slew three opposers: Tarquin’s self he met,
And struck him on his knee: in that day’s feats,
When he might act the woman in the scene,
He proved best man i’ the field, and for his meed
Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age
Man-enter’d thus, he waxed like a sea;
And, in the brunt of seventeen battles since,
He lurch’d all swords of the garland.”

The successful general is expected in Rome, and this dialogue is held
between Menenius, Virgilia, and Volumnia (act ii. sc. 1, l. 109, p.
312),—

“_Men._ Is he not wounded? he was wont to come home wounded.

_Vir._ O, no, no, no.

_Vol._ O, he is wounded; I thank the gods for’t.

_Men._ So do I too, if it be not too much: brings a’ victory in his
pocket? The wounds become him.

_Vol._ On’s brows: Menenius, he comes the third time home with the
oaken garland.”

Next, we have an instance from the _Julius Cæsar_ (act v. sc. 3, l. 80,
vol. vii. p. 409), on the field of Philippi, when “in his red blood
Cassius’ day is set,” Titanius asks,—

“Why didst thou send me forth, brave Cassius?
Did I not meet thy friends? and did not they
Put on my brows this wreath of victory,
And bid me give it thee? Didst thou not hear their shouts?
Alas, thou hast misconstrued every thing!
But, hold thee, take this garland on thy brow;
Thy Brutus bid me give it thee, and I
Will do his bidding.”

The heraldry of honours from sovereign princes, as testified to, both by
Paradin in his “DEVISES HEROIQVES,” edition Antwerp, 1562, folio 12_v_,
and 25, 26, and by Shakespeare, embraces but two or three instances, and
is comprised in the magniloquent lines (_1 Henry VI_., act iv. sc. 7, l.
60, vol. v. p. 80) in which Sir William Lucy inquires,—

“But where’s the great Alcides of the field,
Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,
Created, for his rare success in arms,
Great Earl of Washford, Waterford and Valence;
Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,
Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,
Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,
The thrice-victorious Lord of Falconbridge:
Knight of the noble order of Saint George,
Worthy Saint Michael and the Golden Fleece;
Great marshal to Henry the Sixth
Of all his wars within the realm of France?”

[Illustration: _Paradin, ed. 1562, p. 12v._]

From Paradin we learn that the Order of St. Michael had for its motto
_Immensi tremor Oceani_,—“The trembling of the immeasurable ocean,”—and
for its badge the adjoining collar.—

“This order was instituted by Louis XI., King of France, in the year
1469.[123] He directed for its ensign and device a collar of gold, made
with shells laced together in a double row, held firm upon little chains
or meshes of gold; in the middle of which collar on a rock was a
gold-image of Saint Michael, appearing in the front. And this the king
did (with respect to the Archangel) in imitation of King Charles VII.
his father; who had formerly borne that image as his ensign, even at his
entry into Rouen. By reason always (it is said) of the apparition, on
the bridge of Orleans, of Saint Michael defending the city against the
English in a famous attack. This collar then of the royal order and
device of the Knights of the same is the sign or true ensign of their
nobleness, virtue, concord, fidelity and friendship; Pledge, reward and
remuneration of their valour and prowess. By the richness and purity of
the gold are pointed out their high rank and grandeur; by the similarity
or likeness of its shells, their equality, or the equal fraternity of
the Order (following the Roman senators, who also bore shells on their
arms for an ensign and a device); by the double lacing of them together,
their invincible and indissoluble union; and by the image of Saint
Michael, victory over the most dangerous enemy. A device then instituted
for the solace, protection and assurance of this so noble a kingdom;
and, on the contrary, for the terror, dread and confusion of the enemies
of the same.”

_Precium non vile laborum_,—
“No mean reward of labours.”

[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]

Paradin (f. 25) is also our authority with respect to the Order of the
Golden Fleece, its motto and device being thus presented:—

“The order of the Golden Fleece,” says Paradin, “was instituted by
Philip, Duke of Burgundy, styled the Good, in the year 1429, for which
he named[124] twenty-four Knights without reproach, besides himself, as
chief and founder, and gave to each one of them for ensign of the said
Order a Collar of gold composed of his device of the Fusil, with the
Fleece of gold appearing in front; and this (as people say) was in
imitation of that which Jason acquired in Colchis, taken customarily for
Virtue, long so much loved by this good Duke, that he merited this
surname of Goodness, and other praises contained on his Epitaph, where
there is mention made of this Order of the Fleece, in the person of the
Duke saying,—

'Pour maintenir l’Eglise, qui est de Dieu maison,
J’ai mis sus le noble Ordre, qu’on nomme la Toison.'”

The expedition of the Argonauts, and Jason’s carrying off of the Golden
Fleece may here be appropriately mentioned; they are referred to by the
Emblem writers, as well as the exploit of Phrixus, the brother of Helle,
in swimming across the Hellespont on the golden-fleeced ram. The
_former_ Whitney introduces when describing the then new and wonderful
circumnavigation of the globe by Sir Francis Drake (p. 203),—

“Let GRÆCIA then forbeare, to praise her IASON boulde?
Who throughe the watchfull dragons pass’d, to win the fleece of goulde.
Since by MEDEAS helpe, they weare inchaunted all,
And IASON without perrilles, pass’de: the conqueste therfore small?
But, hee, of whome I write, this noble minded DRAKE,
Did bringe away his goulden fleece, when thousand eies did wake.”

Diues indoctus.

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1551._]

_Tranat aquas reſidẽs precioſo in vellere Phrixus,
Et flauam impauidus per mare ſcandit ouem.
Ecquid id est? vir ſenſu hebeti, ſed diuite gaza,
Coniugis aut ſerui quem regit arbitrium_.

The _latter_ forms the subject of one of Alciat’s Emblems, edition
Antwerp, 1581, Emb. 189, in which, seated on the precious fleece,
Phrixus crosses the waters, and fearless in the midst of the sea mounts
the tawny sheep, the type of “the rich man unlearned.” Whitney (p. 214)
substitutes _In diuitem, indoctum_,—“To the rich man, unlearned,”—and
thus paraphrases the original,—

“On goulden fleece, did Phryxus passe the waue,
And landed safe, within the wished baie:
By which is ment, the fooles that riches haue,
Supported are, and borne throughe Lande, and Sea:
And those enrich’de by wife, or seruauntes goodds,
Are borne by them like Phryxus through the floodds.”

In a similar emblem, Beza, edition Geneva, 1580, Emb. 3, alludes to the
daring deed of Phrixus,—

“_Aurea mendaci vates non vnicvs ore
Vellera phrixeæ commemorauit ouis.
Nos, te, Christe, agnum canimus. Nam diuite gestas
Tu verè veras vellere solus opes._”

Thus rendered in the French version,—

“_Maint poete discourt de sa bouche menteuse
Sur vne toison d’or. Nous, à iuste raison,
Te chantons, Christ, agneau, dont la riche toison
Est l’vnique thresor qui rend l’Eglise heureuse._”

The _Merchant of Venice_ (act. i. sc. 1, l. 161, vol. ii. p. 284)
presents Shakespeare’s counterpart to the Emblematists; it is in
Bassanio’s laudatory description of Portia, as herself the golden
fleece,—

“In Belmont is a lady richly left;
And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,
Of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyes
I did receive fair speechless messages:
Her name is Portia; nothing undervalued
To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia:
Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth;
For the four winds blow in from every coast
Renowned suitors: and her sunny locks
Hang on her temples like a golden fleece:
Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos strand,
And many Jasons come in quest of her.”

To this may be added a line or two by Gratiano, l. 241, p. 332,—

“How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio?
I know he will be glad of our success;
We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.”

The heraldry of Imaginative Devices in its very nature offers a wide
field where the fancy may disport itself. Here things the most
incongruous may meet, and the very contrariety only justify their being
placed side by side.

Let us begin with the device, as given in the “TETRASTICHI MORALI,” p.
56, edition Lyons, 1561, by Giovio and Symeoni, used between 1498 and
1515; it is the device

_DI LVIGI XII. RE
DI FRANCIA._

[Illustration: _Giovio and Symeoni, 1561._]

to the motto, “Hand to hand and afar off”—

Cominus & eminus.

_Di lontano & da preſſo il Re Luigi,
Feri’l nimico, & lo riduſſe à tale,
Che dall’ Indico al lito Occidentale
Di ſua virtù ſi veggiono i veſtigi._

A Porcupine is the badge, and the stanza declares,—

“From far and from near the King Louis,
Smites the enemy and so reduces him,
That from the Indian to the Western shore,
Of his valour the traces are seen.”

Camerarius with the same motto and the like device testifies that this
was the badge of Louis XI., king of France, to whose praise he also
devotes a stanza,—

“_Cominus ut pugnat jaculis, atq. eminus histrix,
Rex bonus esto armis consiliisque potens._”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“As close at hand and far off the porcupine fights with its spines,
Let a good king be powerful in arms and in counsels.”

It was this Louis who laid claim to Milan, and carried Ludovic Sforza
prisoner to France. He defeated the Genoese after their revolt, and by
great personal bravery gained the victory of Agnadel over the Venetians
in 1509. At the same time he made war on Spain, England, Rome, and
Switzerland, and was in very deed the porcupine darting quills on every
side.

The well known application in _Hamlet_ (act. i. sc. 5, l. 13, vol. viii.
p. 35) of the chief characteristic of this vexing creature is part of
the declaration which the Ghost makes to the Prince of Denmark,—

“But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand an end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.”

And of “John Cade of Ashford,” in _2 Henry VI._ (act. iii. sc. 1, l.
360, vol. v. p. 162), the Duke of York avers,—

“In Ireland I have seen this stubborn Cade
Oppose himself against a troop of kernes;
And fought so long, ’till that his thighs with darts
Were almost like a sharp-quill’d porcupine.”

From the same source, Giovio’s and Symeoni’s “SENTENTIOSE IMPRESE,”
Lyons, 1561, p. 115, we also derive the cognizance,—

_DEL CAPITANO GIROLAMO_
MATTEI ROMANO.

[Illustration: _Giovio and Symeoni, 1561._]

_Diuora il ſtruzzo con ingorda furia
Il ferro, & lo ſmaltiſce poi pian piano,
Coſi (come dipinge il buon Romano)
Smaltir fa il tempo ogni maggiore ingiuria._

Spiritus duriſſima
coquit.

To this Ostrich, with a large iron nail in its mouth, and with a scroll
inscribed, “Courage digests the hardest things,” the stanza is devoted
which means,—

“Devour does the ostrich with eager greediness
The iron, and then very easily digests it,
So (as the good Romano represents)
Time causes every injury to be digested.”

Camerarius, to the same motto, _Ex Volatilibus_ (ed. 1595, p. 19),
treats us to a similar couplet,—

“_Magno animo fortis perferre pericula suevit,
Vllo nec facile frangitur ille metu_.”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“With mighty mind the brave grows accustomed to bear dangers,
Nor easily is that man broken by any fear.”

Shakespeare’s description of the ostrich, as given by Jack Cade, _2
Henry VI._ (act iv. sc. 10, l. 23, vol. v. p. 206), is in close
agreement with the ostrich device,—

“Here’s the lord of the soil,” he says, “come to seize me for a
stray, for entering his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt
betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the king for carrying my head to
him; but I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword
like a great pin, ere thou and I part.”

Note the iron pin in the ostrich’s mouth.

Sola facta ſolum Deum ſequor.

[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]

“My Lady Bona of Savoy,” as Paradin (ed. 1562, fol. 165) names her,
“the mother of Ian Galeaz, Duke of Milan, finding herself a widow, made
a device on her small coins of a Phœnix in the midst of a fire, with
these words, ‘Being made lonely, I follow God alone.’ Wishing to signify
that, as there is in the world but one Phœnix, even so being left by
herself, she wished only to love conformably to the only God, in order
to live eternally.”[125]

The “TETRASTICHI MORALI” presents the same Emblem, as indeed do Giovio’s
“DIALOGO DELL’ IMPRESE,” &c., ed. Lyons, 1574, and “DIALOGVE DES
DEVISES,” &c., ed. Lyons, 1561;

_DI MADAMA BONA_
DI SAVIOA.

[Illustration: _Giovio, 1574 (diminished)._]

with the same motto, and the invariable Italian Quatrain,—

Sola facta solũ
Deũ sequor.

_Perduto ch’ hebbe il fido ſuo conſorte
La nobil Donna, qual Fenice ſola,
A Dio volſe ogni priego, ogni parola,
Dando vita al penſier con l’ altrui morte._

In English,—

“Lost had she her faithful consort,
The noble Lady, as a Phœnix lonely,
To God wills every prayer, every word
Giving life to consider death with others.”

The full description and characteristics of the Phœnix we reserve for
the section which treats of Emblems for Poetic Ideas; but the
loneliness, or if I may use the term, the oneliness of this fabulous
bird Shakespeare occasionally dwells upon.

In the _Cymbeline_ (act i. sc. 6, l. 12, vol. ix. p. 183), Posthumus and
Iachimo had made a wager as to the superior qualities and beauties of
their respective ladies, and Iachimo takes from Leonatus an introduction
to Imogen; the Dialogue thus proceeds,—

“_Iach._ The worthy Leonatus is in safety,
And greets your highness dearly. @span 6: [_Presents a letter._@
_Imo._ Thanks, good sir:
You're kindly welcome.
_Iach._ [_Aside._] All of her that is out of door most rich!
If she be furnish’d with a mind so rare,
She is alone the Arabian bird, and I
Have lost the wager.”

Rosalind, in _As You Like It_ (act iv. sc. 3, l. 15, vol. ii. p. 442),
thus speaks of the letter which Phebe, the shepherdess, had sent her,—

“She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;
She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,
Were man as rare as phœnix.”

The oneliness of the bird is, too, well set forth in the _Tempest_ (act
iii. sc. 3, l. 22, vol. i. p. 50),—

“In Arabia
There is one tree, the phœnix' throne; one phœnix
At this hour reigning there.”

To the Heraldry of Imaginative Devices might be referred the greater
part of the coats of arms, badges and cognizances by which noble and
gentle families are distinguished. To conclude this branch of our
subject, I will name a woodcut which was probably peculiar to Geffrey
Whitney at the time when Shakespeare wrote, though accessible to the
dramatist from other sources; it is the fine frontispiece to the _Choice
of Emblemes_, setting forth the heraldic honours and arms of Robert,
Earl of Leycester, and in part of his brother, Ambrose, Earl of Warwick.
Each of these noblemen bore the same crest, and it was, what
Shakespeare, _2 Henry VI._ (act v. sc. 1, l. 203, vol. v. p. 215), terms
“the rampant bear chained to the ragged staff.”

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

How long this had been the cognizance of the Earls of Warwick, and
whether it was borne by all the various families of the Saxon and Norman
races who held the title,—by the Beauchamps, the Nevilles, and the
Dudleys, admits of doubt; but it is certain that such was the cognizance
in the reign of Henry VI. and in that of Elizabeth.

According to Dugdale’s _Antiquities of Warwickshire_, edition 1730, p.
398, the monument of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick in Edward III.’s
time, has a lion, not a bear; and a lamb for his Countess, the Lady
Katherine Mortimer. Also on the monument of another Earl (p. 404), who
died in 1401, the bear does not appear; but on the monument of Richard
Beauchamp, who died “the last day of Aprill, the year of our lord god
1434,” the inscriptions are crowded with bears, instead of commas and
colons; and the recumbent figure of the Earl has a muzzled bear at his
feet (p. 410). The Nevilles now succeeded to the title, and a limner’s
or designer’s very curious bill, of the fifteenth year of Henry VI.,
1438, shows that the bear and ragged staff were then both in use and in
honour,—

“First CCCC Pencels bete with the Raggidde staffe of silver
pris the pece v d. 08_l._ 06_s._ 00

Item for a grete Stremour for the Ship of XI yerdis length and
IIII yerdis in brede, with a grete Bere and Gryfon holding
a Raggid staffe, poudrid full of raggid staves; and for a
grate Crosse of S. George for the lymmynge and portraying 01 . 06 . 08

Item XVIII Standardes of worsted, entretailled with the
Bere and a Chayne, pris the pece xii d. 00 . 18 . 00”

Among the monuments in the Lady Chapel at Warwick is a full length
figure of “Ambrose Duddeley,” who died in 1589, and of a muzzled bear
crouching at his feet. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leycester, his brother,
died in 1588; and on his magnificent tomb, in the same chapel, is seen
the same cognizance of the bear and ragged staff. The armorial bearings,
however, are a little different from those which Whitney figures.

If, according to the Cambridge edition of Shakespeare’s works,
1863–1866, vol. v. p. vii., “the play upon which the Second part of
Henry the Sixth was founded was first printed in quarto, in 1594;” or
if, as some with as much reason have supposed,[126] it existed even
previous to 1591, it is not likely that these monuments of elaborate
design and costly and skilled workmanship could have been completed, so
that from them Shakespeare had taken his description of “old Nevil’s
crest.” Nathan Drake’s _Shakspeare and his Times_ (vol. i. pp. 410, 416)
tells us that he left Stratford for London “about the year 1586, or
1587;” yet “the _family residence_ of Shakspeare was _always_ at
Stratford: that he himself originally went _alone_ to London, and that
he spent the greater part of every year there _alone_, annually,
however, and probably for some months, returning to the bosom of his
family, and that this alternation continued until he finally left the
capital.”

Of course, had the monuments in question existed before the composition
of the _Henry VI._, his annual visits to his native Warwickshire would
have made them known to him, and he would thus have noted the family
cognizance of the brother Earls; but reason favours the conjecture that
these monuments in the Lady Chapel were not the sources of his
knowledge.

Common rumour, indeed, may have supplied the information; but as Geffrey
Whitney’s book appeared in 1586, its first novelty would be around it
about the time at which Shakespeare was engaged in producing his _Henry
VI._ That Emblem-book was dedicated to “ROBERT Earle of LEYCESTER;” and,
as we have said, contains a drawing, remarkably graphic, of a bear
grasping a ragged staff, having a collar and chain around him, and
standing erect on the helmet’s burgonet. There is also a less elaborate
sketch of the same badge on the title-page to the second part of
Whitney’s _Emblemes_, p. 105.

Most exactly, most artistically, does the dramatist ascribe the same
crest, in the same attitude, and in the same standing place, to Richard
Nevil, Earl of Warwick, the king-setter-up and putter-down of History.
In the fields between Dartford and Blackheath, in Kent, the two armies
of Lancaster and York are encamped; in the Dialogue, there is almost a
direct challenge from Lord Clifford to Warwick to meet upon the
battle-field. York is charged as a traitor by Clifford (_2 Henry VI._,
act v. sc. 1, l. 143, vol. v. p. 213), but replies,—

“I am the king, and thou a false-heart traitor.
Call hither to the stake my two brave bears,
That with the very shaking of their chains
They may astonish these fell-lurking curs:
Bid Salisbury and Warwick come to me.
_Enter the_ EARLS OF WARWICK _and_ SALISBURY.
_Clif._ Are these thy bears? we’ll bait thy bears to death,
And manacle the bear-ward in their chains,
If thou darest bring them to the baiting place.
_Rich._ Oft have I seen a hot o’erweening cur
Run back and bite, because he was withheld;
Who, being suffer’d with the bear’s fell paw,
Hath clapp’d his tail between his legs and cried:
And such a piece of service will you do,
If you oppose yourselves to match Lord Warwick.”

The Dialogue continues until just afterwards Warwick makes this taunting
remark to Clifford (l. 196),—

“_War._ You were best to go to bed and dream again,
To keep thee from the tempest of the field.
_Clif._ I am resolved to bear a greater storm
Than any thou canst conjure up to-day;
And that I’ll write upon thy burgonet,
Might I but know thee by thy household badge.
_War._ Now, by my father’s badge, old Nevil’s crest,
The rampant bear chain’d to the ragged staff,
This day I’ll wear aloft my burgonet,
As on a mountain top the cedar shows
That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm,
Even to affright thee with the view thereof.
_Clif._ And from thy burgonet I’ll rend thy bear
And tread it underfoot with all contempt,
Despite the bear-ward that protects the bear.”

A closer correspondence between a picture and a description of it cannot
be desired; Shakespeare’s lines and Whitney’s frontispiece exactly
coincide;

“Like coats in heraldry
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.”

By Euclid’s axiom, “magnitudes which coincide are equal;” and though the
reasonings in geometry and those in heraldry are by no means of forces
identical, it may be a just conclusion; therefore, the coincidences and
parallelisms of Shakespeare, with respect to Heraldic Emblems, have
their original lines and sources in such writers as Giovio, Paradin, and
Whitney. It was not he who set up the ancient fortifications, but he has
drawn circumvallations around them, and his towers nod over against
theirs, though with no hostile rivalry.

[Illustration: _Horapollo, ed. 1551._]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION III.
_EMBLEMS FOR MYTHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS._

ECHO has not more voices than Mythology has transmutations,
eccentricities, and cunningly devised fancies,—and every one of them has
its tale or its narrative—its poetic tissues woven of such an exquisite
thinness that they leave no shadows where they pass. The mythologies of
Egypt and of Greece, of Etruria and of Rome, in all their varying phases
of absolute fiction and substantial truth, perverted by an unguarded
imagination, were the richest mines that the Emblem writers attempted to
work; they delighted in the freedom with which the fancy seemed invited
to rove from gem to gem, and luxuriated in the many forms into which
their fables might diverge. Now they touched upon Jove’s thunder, or on
the laurel for poets’ brows, which the lightning’s flash could not
harm—then on the beauty and gracefulness of Venus, or on the doves that
fluttered near her car;—Dian’s severe strictness supplied them with a
theme, or Juno with her queenly birds; and they did not disdain to tell
of Bacchus and the vine, of Circe, and Ulysses, and the Sirens. The
slaying of Niobe’s children, Actæon seized by his hounds, and Prometheus
chained to the rock, Arion rescued by the dolphin, and Thetis at the
tomb of Achilles,—these and many other myths and tales of antiquity grew
up in the minds of Emblematists, self-sown—ornaments, if not utilities.

Though the great epic poems are inwrought throughout with the mosaic
work of fables that passed for divine, and of exploits that were almost
more than human, Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_, printed as early as 1471, and
of which an early French edition, in 1484, bears the title ~La Bible
des poetes~, may be regarded as the chief storehouse of mythological
adventure and misadventure. The revival of literature poured forth the
work in various forms and languages. Spain had her translation in 1494,
and Italy in 1497; and as Brunet informs us (vol. iv. c. 277), to
another of Ovid’s books, printed in Piedmont before 1473, there was this
singularly incongruous subscription, “_Laus Deo et Virgini Mariæ
Gloriosissimæ Johannes Glim_.” Caxton, in England, led the way by
printing Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ in 1480, which Arthur Golding may be
said to have completed in 1567 by his _English Metrical Version_.

Thus everywhere was the storehouse of mythology open; and of the Roman
fabulist the Emblem writers, as far as they could, made a Book of
Emblems, and often into their own works transported freely what they had
found in his.

And for a poet of no great depth of pure learning, but of unsurpassed
natural power and genius, like Shakespeare, no class of books would
attract his attention and furnish him with ideas and suggestions so
readily as the Emblem writers of the Latin and Teutonic races. “The
eye,” which he describes, “in a fine phrensy rolling,” would suffice to
take in at a single glance many of the pictorial illustrations which
others of duller sensibilities would only master by laborious study; and
though undoubtedly, from the accuracy with which Shakespeare has
depicted ancient ideas and characters, and shown his familiarity with
ancient customs, usages, and events, he must have read much and thought
much, or else have thought intuitively, it is a most reasonable
conjecture that the popular literature of his times—the illustrated
Emblem-books, which made their way of welcome among the chief nations of
middle, western, and southern Europe—should have been one of the
fountains at which he gained knowledge. Nature, indeed, forms the poet,
and his storehouses of materials on which to work are the inner and
outer worlds, first of his own consciousness, and next of heaven and
earth spread before him. But as a portion of this latter world we may
name the appliances and results of artistic skill in its delineations of
outward forms, and in the fixedness which it gives to many of the
conceptions of the mind. To the artist himself, and to the poet not less
than to the artist, the pictured shapes and groupings of mythological or
fabulous beings are most suggestive, both of thoughts already embodied
there, and also of other thoughts to be afterwards combined and
expressed.

Hence would the Emblem-books, on some of which the foremost painters and
engravers had not disdained to bestow their powers, become to poets
especially fruitful in instruction. A proverb, a fable, an old world
deity is set forth by the pencil and the graving tool, and the
combination supplies additional elements of reflection. Thus, doubtless,
did Shakespeare use such works; and not merely are some of his thoughts
and expressions in unison with them, but moulded and modified by them.

For much indeed of his mythological lore he was indebted to Ovid’s
_Metamorphoses_, or, rather, I should say, to “_Ovid’s Metamorphoses_
translated out of Latin in English metre by Arthur Golding, gent. A
worke very pleasaunt and delectable; 4to London 1565.” That he did
attend to Golding’s couplet,—

“With skill, heed, and judgment, thys work must be red,
For els too the reader it stands in small stead,”—

will appear from some few instances; as,—

“Thy promises are like Adonis’ gardens
That one day bloom’d, and fruitful were the next.”—
_1 Hen. VI._, act i. sc. 6, l. 6.

“Apollo flies and Daphne holds the chase,
The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
Makes speed to catch the tiger.”—
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, act ii. sc. 1, l. 231.

“We still have slept together,
Rose at an instant, learn’d, play’d, eat together,
And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans,
Still we went coupled and inseparable.”
_As You Like It_, act i. sc. 3, l. 69.

“Approach the chamber and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon.”
_Macbeth_, act ii. sc. 3, l. 67.

“I’ll have no worse a name than Jove’s own page;
And therefore look you call me Ganymede.”
_As You Like It_, act i. sc. 3, l. 120.

and,—

“O Proserpina,
For the flowers now, that frighted thou let’st fall
From Dis’s waggon! daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim
But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes
Or Cytherea’s breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phœbus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack
To make you garlands of; and my sweet friend
To strew him o'er and o'er!”
_Winter’s Tale_, act iv. sc. 4, l. 116.

Yet from the Emblem writers as well he appears to have derived many of
his mythological allusions and expressions; we may trace this generally,
and with respect to some of the Heathen Divinities,—to several of the
ancient Heroes and Heroines, we may note that they supply him with most
beautiful personifications.

Generally, as in _Troilus and Cressida_ (act ii. sc. 3, l. 240), the
expression “bull-bearing Milo” finds its device in the _Emblemata_ of
Lebeus Batillius, edition Francfort, 1596, where we are told that “Milo
by long custom in carrying the calf could also carry it when it had
grown to be a bull.” In _Romeo and Juliet_ (act ii. sc. 5, l. 8) the
lines,—

“Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love
And therefore hath the wind swift Cupid wings.”

We have the scene pictured in Corrozet’s _Hecatomgraphie_, Paris, 1540,
leaf 70, with, however, a very grand profession of regard for the public
good,—

“Ce n’est pas cy Cupido ieune enfant
Que vous voier au carre triumphant,
Mais c’est amour lequel tiẽt en sa corde
Tous les estatz en grãd paix & cõcorde.”

In _Richard II._(act iii. sc. 2, l. 24) Shakespeare seems to have in
view the act of Cadmus, when he sowed the serpent’s teeth,—

“This earth shall have a feeling and these stones
Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king
Shall falter under foul rebellion’s arms.”

And the device which emblematizes the fact occurs in Symeoni’s
abbreviation of the _Metamorphoses_ into the form of Italian Epigrams
(edition Lyons, 1559, device 41, p. 52).

And lastly, in _3 Henry VI._ (act v. sc. 1, l. 34), from a few lines of
dialogue between Warwick and King Edward, we read,—

“_War._ ’Twas I that gave the kingdom to thy brother.

_K. Edw._ Why then ’tis mine, if but by Warwick’s gift.

_War._ Thou art no Atlas for so great a weight;
And weakling, Warwick takes his gift again.”

But a better comment cannot be than is found in Giovio’s “DIALOGVE,”
edition Lyons, 1561, p. 129, with Atlas carrying the Globe of the
Heavens, and with the motto, “SVSTINET NEC FATISCIT,”—_He bears nor
grows weary_.

The story of Jupiter and Io is presented in the Emblem-books by Symeoni,
1561, and by the Plantinian edition of Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_, Antwerp,
1591, p. 35. From the latter, were it needed, we could easily have added
a pictorial illustration to the _Taming of the Shrew_ (Induction, sc. 2,
l. 52),—

“We'll show thee Io as she was a maid
And how she was beguiled and surprised,
As lively painted as the deed was done.”

The _Antony and Cleopatra_ (act ii. sc. 7, l. 101, vol. ix. p. 60), in
one part, presents the banquet, or, rather, the drinking bout, between
Cæsar, Antony, Pompey, and Lepidus, “the third part of the world.”
Enobarbus addresses Antony,—

“_Eno._ [_To Antony._] Ha, my brave emperor!
Shall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals,
And celebrate our drink?

_Pom._ Let’s ha’t, good soldier.

_Ant._ Come, let’s all take hands,
Till that the conquering wine hath steep’d our sense
In soft and delicate Lethe.

_Eno._ All take hands.
Make battery to our ears with the loud music:
The while I’ll place you: then the boy shall sing;
The holding every man shall bear as loud
As his strong sides can volley.
[_Music plays_, ENOBARBUS _places them hand in hand._

THE SONG.

“Come, thou monarch of the vine,
Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!
In thy fats our cares be drown’d,
With thy grapes our hairs be crown’d:
Cup us, till the world go round,
Cup us, till the world go round!”

Now, the figures in Alciat, in Whitney, in the _Microcosmos_,[127] and
especially in Boissard’s “THEATRVM VITÆ HUMANÆ,” ed. Metz, 1596, p. 213,
of a certainty suggest the epithets “plumpy Bacchus” “with pink eyne,” a
very chieftain of “Egyptian Bacchanals.” This last depicts the “monarch
of the vine” approaching to mellowness.

[Illustration: _Boissard, 1596._]

The Latin stanzas subjoined would, however, not have suited Enobarbus
and the roistering triumvirs of the world,—

“_Suave Dei munus vinum est: hominumque saluti
Conducit: præsit dummodò sobrietas.
Immodico sed si tibi proluat ora Lyæo,
Pro dulci potas tetra aconita mero._”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“Wine is God’s pleasant gift, and for men’s health
Conduces, when sobriety presides;
But if excessive drained Lyæan wealth,
For liquor sweet black aconite abides.”

The phrase, “rempli de vin dont son visage est teint,” in “LE
MICROCOSME,” Lyons, 1562, suggests the placing the stanzas in which it
occurs, in illustration of Shakespeare’s song; they are,—

“Le Dieu Bacchus d’ordinaire on depeint
Ayant en main vn chapelet de lierre,
Tenant aussi vne couppe ou vn verre
Rempli de vin dont son visage est teint.
Des deux costes son chef on void aislé,
Et pres de luy d’vne pasture belle
Le genereux Pegasus à double aisle
Se veut guinder vers le ciel estoilé.”

In ſtatuam Bacchi.
_DIALOGISMVS._
XXV.

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1581._]

It may give completion to this sketch if we subjoin the figured Bacchus
of Alciat (edition Antwerp, 1581, p. 113), and present the introductory
lines,—

“BACCHE _pater quis te mortali lumine nouit,
Et docta effinxit quis tua membra manu?
Praxiteles, qui me rapientem Gnossida vidit,
Atque illo pinxit tempore, qualis eram._”

Of Alciat’s 36 lines, Whitney, p. 187, gives the brief yet paraphrastic
translation,—

“The timelie birthe that SEMELE did beare,
See heere, in time howe monstêrous he grewe:
With drinkinge muche, and dailie bellie cheare,
His eies weare dimme, and fierie was his hue:
His cuppe, still full: his head, with grapes was croun’de;
Thus time he spent with pipe, and tabret sounde.[128]

Which carpes all those, that loue to much the canne,
And dothe describe theire personage, and theire guise:
For like a beaste, this doth transforme a man,
And makes him speake that moste in secret lies;
Then, shunne the sorte that bragge of drinking muche,
Seeke other frendes, and ioyne not handes with suche.”

On the same subject we may refer to _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ (act iv. sc.
3, l. 308, vol. ii. p. 151), to the long discourse or argument by Biron,
in which he asks,—

“For where is any author in the world
Teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye?”

The offensiveness of excess in wine is then well set forth (l. 333),—

“Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible,
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails;
Love’s tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.”

On these words the best comment are two couplets from Whitney (p. 133),
to the sentiment, _Prudentes vino abstinent_,—“The wise abstain from
wine.”

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

Loe here the vine dothe claſpe, to prudent Pallas tree,
The league is nought, for virgines wiſe, doe Bacchus frendſhip flee.

Alciat.

_Quid me vexatis rami? Sum Palladis arbor,
Auferte hinc botros, virgo fugit Bromium_.

_Engliſhed ſo._

Why vexe yee mee yee boughes? ſince I am Pallas tree:
Remoue awaie your cluſters hence, the virgin wine doth flee.

Not less degrading and brutalising than the goblets of Bacchus are the
poisoned cups of the goddess Circe. Her fearful power and enchantments
form episodes in the 10th book of the _Odyssey_, in the 7th of the
_Æneid_, and in the 14th of the _Metamorphoses_. So suitable a theme for
their art is not neglected by the Emblem writers. Alciat adopts it as a
warning against meretricious allurements (edition 1581, p. 184),—

ANDREAE ALCIATI

Cauendum à meretricibus. _EMBLEMA LXXVI._

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1581._]

SOLE _ſatæ Circes tam magna potentia fertur,
Verterit vt multos in noua monſtra viros.
Teſtis equûm domitor Picus, tum Scylla biformis,
Atque Ithaci poſtquàm vina bibere sues.
Indicat illustri meretricem nomine Circe,
Et rationem animi perdere, quiſquis amat._

Adopting another motto, _Homines voluptatibus transformantur_,—“Men are
transformed by pleasures,”—Whitney (p. 82) yet gives expression to
Alciat’s idea,—

“See here VLISSES men, transformed straunge to heare:
Some had the shape of Goates, and Hogges, some Apes, and Asses weare.
Who, when they might haue had their former shape againe,
They did refuse, and rather wish’d, still brutishe to remaine.
Which showes those foolishe sorte, whome wicked loue dothe thrall,
Like brutishe beastes do passe theire time, and haue no sence at all.
And thoughe that wisedome woulde, they shoulde againe retire,
Yet, they had rather CIRCES serue, and burne in theire desire.
Then, loue the onelie crosse, that clogges the worlde with care,
Oh stoppe your eares, and shutte your eies, of CIRCES cuppes beware.”

The striking lines from Horace (_Epist._ i. 2) are added,—

“_Sirenum voces, & Circes pocula nosti:
Quæ si cum sociis stultus, cupidusq’ bibisset,
Sub domina meretrice fuisset turpis, & excors,
Vixisset canis immundus, vel amica luto sus._”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“Of Sirens the voices, and of Circe the cups thou hast known:
Which if, with companions, anyone foolish and eager had drunk,
Under a shameless mistress he has become base and witless,
Has lived as a dog unclean, or a sow in friendship with mire.”

Circe and Ulysses are also briefly treated of in _The Golden Emblems_ of
Nicholas Reusner, with Stimmer’s plates, 1591, sign ~C. v.~

Bellua dira libido
_Pulcra facit Circe meretrix excordia corda:
Fortis Vlyſseâ, qui ſapit, arte domat._
~Ins Bieh verzäubert Circe vil,
Schlägt hurn von sich, mer weiß sein will.~

Reusner (edition 1581, p. 134), assuming that “Slothfulness is the
wicked Siren,” builds much upon Virgil and Horace, as may be seen from
the epithets he employs. We give only a portion of his Elegiacs, and the
English of them first,—

“Through various chances, through so many dangerous things,
While again and again the Ithacan pursues the long ways:
The voices of Sirens, and of Circe the kingdoms he forsakes:
Nor does the bland Atlantis his journey retard.
But as Circe to his companions supplies the potations foul,
Witless and shameless this becomes a sow and that a dog.”

Improba Siren deſidia.
_EMBLEMA XXIV._
_Ad Vuolfgangum, & Carolum Rechlingeros,
Patr. Auguſtanos._

[Illustration: _Reusner, 1581._]

P_Er varios caſus, per tot diſcrimina rerum,
Dum longas Ithacus itque, reditque vias:
Sirenum voces, & Circes regna relinquit:
Blanda nec Atlantis tunc remoratur iter.
At ſocijs Circe dum pocula fœda miniſtrat:
Excors, & turpis ſus fit hic, ille canis._

Now, Shakespeare’s allusions to Circe are only two. The _first_, in the
_Comedy of Errors_ (act v. sc. 1, l. 269, vol. i. p. 455), when all
appears in inextricable confusion, and Antipholus of Ephesus demands
justice because of his supposed wrongs. The Duke Solinus in his
perplexity says,—

“Why what an intricate impeach is this!
I think you all have drunk of Circe’s cup.”

The _second_, in _1 Henry VI._ (act v. sc. 3, l. 30, vol. v. p. 86). On
fighting hand to hand with the Maid of Orleans, and taking her prisoner,
the Duke of York, almost like a dastard, reproaches and exults over her
noble nature,—

“Damsel of France I think, I have you fast:
Unchain your spirits now with spelling charms
And try if they can gain you liberty.
A goodly prize, fit for the devil’s grace!
See, how the ugly witch doth bend her brows,
As if, with Circe, she would change my shape!”

So closely connected with Circe are the Sirens of fable that it is
almost impossible to treat of them separately. As usual, Alciat’s is the
Emblem-book (edition 1551) from which we obtain the illustrative print
and the Latin stanzas.

Sirenes.

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1551._]

_Abſque alis volucres, & cruribus abſque puellas,
Roſtro abſque, & piſces, qui tamen ore canant:
Quis putet eſſe vllos? iungi hæc natura negauit
Sirenes fieri ſed potuiſſe docent.
Illicitum eſt mulier, quæ in piſcem deſinit atrum,
Plurima quòd ſecum monſtra libido vehit.
Aſpectu, verbis, animi candore, trahuntur,
Parthenope, Ligia, Leucoſiaque viri.
Has muſæ explumant, has atque illudit Vlyſſes.
Scilicet eſt doctis cum meretrice nihil._

It is Whitney who provides the poetic comment (p. 10),—

“Withe pleasaunte tunes, the SYRENES did allure
Vlisses wise, to listen to theire songe:
But nothinge could his manlie harte procure,
Hee sailde awaie, and scap’d their charming stronge,
The face, he lik’de, the nether parte, did loathe:
For womans shape, and fishes had they bothe.

Which shewes to vs, when Bewtie seekes to snare
The carelesse man, whoe dothe no daunger dreede,
That he shoulde flie, and shoulde in time beware,
And not on lookes, his fickle fancie feede:
Such Mairemaides liue, that promise onelie ioyes:
But hee that yeldes, at lengthe him selffe distroies.”

The Dialogue, from the _Comedy of Errors_ (act iii. sc. 2, lines 27 and
45, vol. i. pp. 425, 6), between Luciana and Antipholus of Syracuse,
maintains,—

“’Tis holy sport, to be a little vain,
When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife;”

and the remonstrance urges,—

“O train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
To drown me in thy sister flood of tears:
Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote:
Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
And, as a bed I'll take them, and there lie;
And, in that glorious supposition, think
He gains by death that hath such means to die.”

And in the _Titus Andronicus_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 18, vol. vi. p. 451),
Aaron, the Moor, resolves, when speaking of Tamora his imperial
mistress,—

“Away with slavish weeds and servile thoughts!
I will be bright, and shine in pearl and gold,
To wait upon this new-made empress.
To wait, said I? to wanton with this queen,
This goddess, this Semiramis, this nymph.
This siren, that will charm Rome’s Saturnine,
And see his shipwreck and his commonweal’s.”[129]

To recommend the sentiment that “Art is a help to nature,” Alciatus
(edition 1551, p. 107) introduces the god Mercury and the goddess
Fortune,—

Ars Naturam adiuuans.

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1551._]

_Vt sphæræ Fortuna, cubo ſic inſidet Hermes:
Artibus hic, varijs caſibus illa præeſt.
Aduerſus vim Fortunæ eſt ars facta: ſed artis
Cùm fortuna mala eſt, ſæpe requirit opem.
Diſce bonas artes igitur ſtudioſa iuuentus,
Quæ certæ ſecum commoda ſortis habent_.

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“As on a globe Fortune rests, so on a cube Mercury:
In various arts this one excells, that in mischances.
Against the force of Fortune art is used; but of art,
When Fortune is bad, she often demands the aid.
Learn good arts then ye studious youth,
Which being sure have with themselves the advantages of destiny.”

Sambucus takes up the lyre of some Emblem Muse and causes Mercury to
strike a similar strain to the saying, “Industry corrects nature.”

Induſtria naturam corrigit.

[Illustration: _Sambucus, 1564._]

TAM _rude & incultum nihil eſt, induſtria poſſit
Naturæ vitium quin poliiſſe, labor.
Inuentam caſu cochleam, temereq́ue iacentem
Inſtruxit neruis nuntius ille Deûm.
Informem citharam excoluit: nunc gaudia mille,
Et reddit dulces pectine mota ſonos.
Cur igitur quereris, naturam & fingis ineptam?
Nónne tibi ratio eſt? muta loquuntur, abi.
Ritè fit è concha teſtudo, ſeruit vtrinque:
In venerem hæc digitis, ſæpiùs illa gula._

The god is mending a broken or an imperfect musical instrument, a lyrist
is playing, and a maiden dancing before him. Whitney thus performs the
part of interpreter (p. 92),—

“The Lute, whose sounde doth most delighte the eare
Was caste aside, and lack’de bothe striges, and frettes:
Whereby, no worthe within it did appeare,
MERCVRIVS came, and it in order settes:
Which being tun’de, such Harmonie did lende,
That Poëttes write, the trees theire toppes did bende.

Euen so, the man on whome dothe Nature froune,
Wereby, he liues dispis’d of euerie wighte,
Industrie yet, maie bringe him to renoume,
And diligence, maie make the crooked righte:
Then haue no doubt, for arte maie nature helpe.
Thinke howe the beare doth forme her vgly whelpe.”

The cap with wings, and the rod of power with serpents entwined, are
almost the only outward signs of which Shakespeare avails himself in his
descriptions of Mercury, so that in this instance there is very little
correspondence of idea or of expression between him and our Emblem
authors. Nevertheless, we produce it for what it is worth.

In _King John_ (act iv. sc. 2, l. 170, vol. iv. p. 67), the monarch
urges Falconbridge’s brother Philip to inquire respecting the rumours
that the French had landed,—

“Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.
O, let me have no subject enemies,
When adverse foreigners affright my towns
With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!
Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels
And fly like thought from them to me again.”

One of Shakespeare’s gems is the description which Sir Richard Vernon
gives to Hotspur of the gallant appearance of “The nimble-footed madcap
Prince of Wales” (_1 Henry IV._, act iv. sc. 1, l. 104, vol. iv. p.
318),—

“I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm’d,
Rise from the ground like feather’d Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.”

The railer Thersites (_Troilus and Cressida_, act ii. sc. 3, l. 9, vol.
vi. p. 168) thus mentions our Hermes,—

“O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove
the king of gods; and Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy
caduceus.”

And centering the good qualities of many into one, Hamlet (act iii. sc.
4, l. 55, vol. viii. p. 111) sums up to his mother the perfections of
his murdered father,—

Personifications, or, rather, deifications of the powers and properties
of the natural world, and of the influences which presided over them,
belong especially to the ancient Mythology. Of these, there is one from
the Emblem writers decidedly claiming our notice, I may say, our
admiration, because of its essential truth and beauty;—it is the
Personification of Fortune, or, as some writers name the goddess,
Occasion and Opportunity; and it is highly poetical in all its
attributes.

From at least four distinct sources in the Emblem-books of the sixteenth
century, Shakespeare might have derived the characteristics of the
goddess; from Alciat, Perriere, Corrozet, and Whitney.

Perriere’s “THEATRE DES BONS ENGINS,” Paris, 1539, presents the figure
with the stanzas of old French here subjoined,—

“Qvel est le nõ de la present[e/] image?
Occasion ce nõme pour certain.
Qui fut l’autheur? Lysipus fist l’ouurage:
Et que tient ell[e/]? vng rasoir en sa main.
Pourquoi? pourtãtque tout trâche souldain.
Ell[e/] a cheueulx deuât & non derriere?
Cest pour mõstrer quelle tourne ẽ arriere
Sõ fault le coup quãd on la doibt tenir
Aulx talons a dis esles? car barriere
(Quellesque soit) ne la peult retenir.”

These French verses may be accepted as a translation of the Latin of
Alciat, on the goddess Opportunity; as may be seen, she is portrayed
standing on a wheel that is floating upon the waves; and as the tide
rises, there are apparently ships or boats making for the shore. The
figure holds a razor in the right hand, has wings upon the feet, and
abundance of hair streaming from the forehead.

In occaſionem.

Διαλογισικῶς.

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1551._]

_Lyſippi hoc opus eſt, Sycion cui patria. Tu quis?
Cuncta domans capti temporis articulus.
Cur pinnis ſtas? vſque rotor. Talaria plantis
Cur retines? Paſſim me leuis aura rapit.
In dextra eſt tennis dic vnde nouacula? Acutum
Omni acie hoc ſignum me magis eſſe docet.
Cur in frõte coma? Occurrẽs vt prẽdar. At heus tu
Dic cur pars calua eſt poſterior capitis?
Ne ſemel alipedem si quis permittat abire,
Ne poſſim apprehenſo poſtmodo crine capi.
Tali opifex nos arte, tui cauſa, edidit hoſpes.
Vtque omnes moneam: pergula aperta tenet._

Whitney’s English lines (p. 181) sufficiently express the meaning, both
of the French and of the Latin stanzas,—

“What creature thou? _Occasion I doe showe._
On whirling wheele declare why doste thou stande?
_Bicause, I still am tossed too, and froe._
Why doest thou houlde a rasor in thy hande?
_That men maie knowe I cut on euerie side,
And when I come, I armies can deuide._

But wherefore hast thou winges vppon thy feete?
_To showe, how lighte I flie with little winde._
What meanes longe lockes before? _that suche as meete,
Maye houlde at firste, when they occasion finde_.
Thy head behinde all balde, what telles it more?
_That none shoulde houlde, that let me slippe before._

Why doest thou stande within an open place?
_That I maye warne all people not to staye,
But at the firste, occasion to imbrace,
And when shee comes, to meete her by the waye.
Lysippus so did thinke it best to bee,
Who did deuise mine image, as you see._”

The correspondent part to the thought contained in these three writers
occurs in the _Julius Cæsar_ (act iv. sc. 3, l. 213, vol. vii. p. 396),
where Brutus and Cassius are discussing the question of proceeding to
Philippi and offering battle to “young Octavius and Marc Antony;” it is
decided by the argument which Brutus urges with much force,—

“Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe:
The enemy increaseth every day;
We, at the height, are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”

These lines, we may observe, are an exact comment on Whitney’s text;
there is the “full sea,” on which Fortune is “now afloat;” and people
are all warned, “at the first occasion to embrace,” or “take the current
when it serves.”

The “images,” too, of Fortune and of Occasion in Corrozet’s
“HECATOMGRAPHIE,” Embs. 41 and 84, are very suggestive of the
characteristics of the “fickle goddess.”

L’ymage de fortune

Fortun[e/] eſt vng euenement
Inopiné & treſſoubdain,
Ne luy donne doncques (mondain)
Effect deſſus toy nullement.

[Illustration: _Corrozet, 1540._]

Fortune is standing upright upon the sea; one foot is on a fish, the
other on a globe; and in the right hand is a broken mast. Occasion is in
a boat and standing on a wheel; she has wings to her feet, and with her
hands she holds out a swelling sail; she has streaming hair, and behind
her in the stern of the boat Penitence is seated, lamenting for
opportunities lost. The stanzas to “Occasion” are very similar to those
of other Emblem writers; and we add, therefore, only the English of the
verses to “Fortune,”—_The Image of Fortune_.

“A strange event our Fortune is,
Unlocked for, sudden as a shower;
Never then, worldling! give to her
Right over thee to wield her power.”

A series of questions follow,—

“Tell me, O fortune, for what end thou art holding the broken mast
wherewith thou supportest thyself? And why also is it that thou art
painted upon the sea, encircled with so long a veil? Tell me too why
under thy feet are the ball and the dolphin?”

As in the answers given by Whitney, there is abundant plainness in
Corrozet,—

“It is to show my instability, and that in me there is no security.
Thou seest this mast broken all across,—this veil also puffed out by
various winds,-beneath one foot, the dolphin amid the waves; below the
other foot, the round unstable ball;—I am thus on the sea at a venture.
He who has made my portraiture wishes no other thing to be understood
than this, that distrust is enclosed beneath me and that I am uncertain
of reaching a safe haven;—near am I to danger, from safety ever distant:
in perplexity whether to weep or to laugh,—doubtful of good or of evil,
as the ship which is upon the seas tossed by the waves, is doubtful in
itself where it will be borne. This then is what you see in my true
image, hither and thither turned without security.”

A description, very similar to this, occurs in the dialogue between
Fluellen, a Welsh captain, and “an aunchient lieutenant” Pistol (_Henry
V._, act iii. sc. 6, 1. 20, vol. iv. P. 543),—

“_ Pist._ Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours:
The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.
_Flu._ Ay, I praise God; and I have merited some love at his hands.
_Pist._ Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart.
And of buxom valour, hath, by cruel fate,
And giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel,
That goddess blind,[130]
That stands upon the rolling, restless stone—

_Flu._ By your patience, Aunchient Pistol, Fortune is painted blind,
with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that fortune is blind;
and she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the
moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and
variation: and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone,
which rolls, and rolls, and rolls: in good truth, the poet makes a most
excellent description of it: Fortune is an excellent moral.”

Fortune on the sphere, or “rolling, restless stone,” is also well
pictured in the “ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΣ,” editions 1579 and 1584. The whole device
is described in the French version,—

“L’oiseau de Paradis est de telle nature
Qu’en nul endroit qui soit on ne le void iucher,
Car il n’a point de pieds, & ne peut se rucher
Ailleurs qu’en l’air serein dont il prend nourriture.

En cest oiseau se void de Fortune l’image,
En laquelle n’y a sinon legreté:
Iamais son cours ne fut egal & arresté,
Mais tousiours incertain inconstant & volage.

Pour la quelle raison on souloit la pourtraire,
Tenant vn voile afin d’aller au gré du vent,
Des aisles aux costez pour voler bien auant,
Ayant les pieds coupez, estant sur vne sphære;

Et pourtant cestuy la qui se fie en Fortune,
Au lieu de fier au grand Dieu souuerain,
Est bien maladuisé, & se monstre aussi vain
Que celuy qui bastit sur le dos de Neptune.”

The ideas of the Emblematists respecting the goddess “OCCASION” are also
embodied by Shakespeare two or three times. Thus on receiving the evil
tidings of his mother’s death and of the dauphin’s invasion, King John
(act iv. sc. 2, l. 125, vol. iv, p. 65) exclaims,—

“Withhold thy speed, dreadful Occasion!
O make a league with me, till I have pleased
My discontented peers!”

In _2 Henry IV._ (act iv. sc. 1, l. 70, vol. iv. p. 431) the Archbishop
of York also says,—

“We see which way the stream of time doth run,
And are enforced from our most quiet there
By the rough torrent of occasion.”

Most beautiful too, and forcible are the stanzas on _Occasion_, or
_Opportunity_ from _Lucrece_ (lines 869–882, vol. ix. p. 515),—

“Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring;
Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers;
The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing;
What virtue breeds iniquity devours:
We have no good that we can say is ours
But ill-annexed Opportunity
Or kills his life or else his quality.
O Opportunity, thy guilt is great!
’Tis thou that executes! the traitor’s treason;
Thou set’st the wolf where he the lamb may get;
Whoever plots the sin, thou point’st the season;
’Tis thou that spurn’st at right, at law, at reason,
And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,
Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.”[131]

DVM TEMPVS LABITVR, OCCASIONĒ FRONTE CAPILLATĀ REMORĀTVR. 7.

A. Nunc opus eſt alios Terrarum inuifere tractus,
Et Iuuenes alios. Moniti vos ergo valete.
B. Quis ſubitæ calor iſte fugæ? C. Quin ſi fuga tandem
Certa tibi est; pennas ſaltem Dea salua fugaces
Siſtat adhuc. D. Cur tot nequidquam verba per auras
Perditis? hinc alio, mora nulla recedo; valete.
E. Aufugiat? ſparsos potius pro fronte capillos
Arripite. D. Ai! ſine, ſponte ſequar; veſtrisque morabor
Ædibus, ad ius Fam. donec perduxero metam.
F. Laudo animos, nam vi cogi DEA gaudet amicâ.

[Illustration: _From David’s “Occasio arrepta neglecta &c” 1605_]

Very appropriately in illustration of these and other passages in
Shakespeare may we refer to John David’s work, “OCCASIO ARREPTA
NEGLECTA” (4to, Antwerp, 1605),—_Opportunity seized or neglected_. It
contains twelve curiously beautiful plates by Theodore Galle, showing
the advantages of seizing the Occasion, the disadvantages of neglecting
it. We choose an example, it is Schema 7, cap. 1, p. 117. (See Plate
XII.)

“While Time is passing onward men keep Occasion back by seizing the
hair on her forehead.”

Various speakers are introduced,—

“_Time._ Now the need is to visit other climes of earth
And other youths. Ye warned then, bid farewell.
_B._ What this heat of sudden flight?
_C._ If flight indeed at length
For thee is fix’d, her swift wings let the bald goddess
At least rest here.
_Occasion._ Why to no purpose words in air
Waste ye? hence elsewhere, no delay, I go; farewell.
_E._ Should she flee? rather her scattered locks in front
Seize hold of.
_Occasion._ Alas! freely I follow, at your own homes
Will tarry, till in just measure I prolong my stay.
_Faith._ I praise your spirit, for by friendly force the goddess
Rejoices to be compelled.”

The line, “her scattered locks in front seize hold of,” has its parallel
in _Othello_ (act iii. sc. 1, l. 47, vol. viii. p. 505),—

“he protests he loves you,
And needs no other suitor but his likings
To take the safest occasion by the front
To bring you in again.”

Classical celebrities, whether hero or heroine, wrapt round with
mystery, or half-developed into historical reality, may also form
portion of our Mythological Series.

The grand character in Æschylus, _Prometheus Bound_, is depicted by at
least four of the Emblematists. The hero of suffering is reclining
against the rock on Caucasus, to which he had been chained; a vulture is
seated on his broad chest and feeding there. Alciat’s Emblem, from the
Lyons edition of 1551, or Antwerp, 1581, number 102, has the motto which
reproves men for seeking the knowledge which is beyond them: _Things
which are above us, are nothing to us_,—they are not our concern. The
whole fable is a warning.

Quæ ſupra nos, nihil ad nos.

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1551._]

_Caucaſi a æternùm pendens in rupe Prometheus
Diripitur ſacri præpetis vngue iecur.
Et nollet feciſſe hominem: figulosque peroſus
Accenſam rapto damnat ab igne facem.
Roduntur variis prudentum pectora curis,
Qui cœli affectant ſcire, deûmqúe vices._

“On the Caucasian rock Prometheus eternally suspended,
Has his liver torn in pieces by talons of an accursed bird.
And unwilling would he be to have made man; and hating the potters
Dooms to destruction the torch lighted from stolen fire.
Devoured by various cares are the bosoms of the wise,
Who affect to know secrets of heaven, and courses of gods.”

Similarly as a dissuasive from vain curiosity, Anulus, in his “PICTA
POESIS” (Lyons, 1555, p. 90), sets up the notice,—

CVRIOSITAS FVGIENDA.
“Curiosity must be shunned.”

[Illustration: _Aneau, 1555._]

MITTE _arcana Dei cœlumque inquirere quid ſit.
Nec ſapias pluſquàm debet homo ſapere.
Caucaſeo vinctus monet hoc in rupe Prometheus
Scrutator cœli, fur & in igne Iouis.
Cui cor edax Aquila in rediuiuo vulnere rodit.
Materia pœnis ſufficiente ſuis._

Ἣ δὲ προμηθέι’ ἂχ!ος! δάκνει κέαρ ἔντερον ἔνδον
Καρδιοβρόσκ!ος! ὃμως ἂετ!ος! ἐσθὶν ἂχ!ος!.

The device is almost the same with Alciat's,—the stanzas, however, are a
little different,—

“Forbear to inquire the secrets of God, and what heaven may be.
Nor be wise more than man ought to be wise.
Bound on Caucasian rock this does Prometheus warn,
Scrutator of heaven and thief in the fire of Jove.
His heart the voracious Eagle gnaws in ever reviving wound,
Material sufficient this for all his penalties.”—

“As for Prometheus pain gnaws his heart the bosom within,
So is pain the eagle that consumes the heart.”

The “MICROCOSME,” first published in 1579, fol. 5, celebrates in French
stanzas Prometheus and his cruel destiny; a fine device accompanies the
emblem, representing him bound not to Caucasus, but to the cross.

“Promethee s’ estant guindé iusques aux cieux
Pour desrober le feu des redoubables Dieux,
Pour retribution de ceste outrecuidance
Fut par eux poursuiui d’une rude vengeance.
Il fut par leur decret à la croix attaché,
La ou pour expier deuenant son peché,
L'Aigle de Iupiter le becquetoit sans cesse,
Si que ce patient estoit en grand oppressé.”

But Reusner’s _Emblems_ (bk. i. Emb. 27, p. 37, edition 1581), and
Whitney’s (p. 75), adopt the same motto, _O vita misero longa_,—“O life,
how long for the wretched.” The stanzas of the latter may be accepted as
being in some degree representative of those of the former,—

“To Caucasus, behoulde PROMETHEVS chain’de,
Whose liuer still, a greedie gripe dothe rente:
He neuer dies, and yet is alwaies pain’de,
With tortures dire, by which the Poëttes ment,
That hee, that still amid misfortunes standes,
Is sorrowes slaue, and bounde in lastinge bandes.

For, when that griefe doth grate vppon our gall,
Or surging seas, of sorrowes moste doe swell,
That life is deathe, and is no life at all,
The liuer rente, it dothe the conscience tell:
Which being launch’de, and prick’d, with inward care,
Although wee liue, yet still wee dyinge are.”

How Shakespeare applies this mythic story appears in the _Titus
Andronicus_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 14, vol. vi. p. 451), where Aaron,
speaking of his queen, Tamora, affirms of himself,—

“Whom thou in triumph long
Hast prisoner held, fetter’d in amorous chains,
And faster bound to Aaron’s charming eyes
Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.”

And still more clearly is the application made, _1 Henry VI._ (act iv.
sc. 3, l. 17, vol. v. p. 71), when Sir William Lucy thus urges York,—

“Thou princely leader of our English strength,
Never so needful on the earth of France,
Spur to the rescue of the noble Talbot,
Who now is girdled with a waist of iron
And hemm’d about with grim destruction:”

and at York’s inability, through “the vile traitor Somerset,” to render
aid, Lucy laments (l. 47, p. 72),—

“Thus, while the vulture of sedition
Feeds in the bosoms of such great commanders,
Sleeping neglection doth betray to loss
The conquest of our scarce cold conqueror,
That ever living man of memory,
Henry the Fifth.”

It may readily be supposed that in writing these passages Shakespeare
had in memory, or even before him, the delineations which are given of
Prometheus, for the vulture feeding on the heart belongs to them all,
and the allusion is exactly one of those which arises from a casual
glance at a scene or picture without dwelling on details.

This casual glance indeed seems to have been the way in which our
Dramatist appropriated others of the Emblem sketches. In the well-known
quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius, in _Julius Cæsar_ (act iv. sc.
3, l. 21, vol. vii. p. 389), Brutus demands,—

“What, shall one of us,
That struck the foremost man of all this world
But for supporting robbers, shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,
And sell the mighty space of our large honours
For so much trash as may be grasped thus?
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.”

The expression is the perfect counterpart of Alciat’s 164th Emblem (p.
571, edition Antwerp, 1581); the motto, copied by Whitney (p. 213), is,
_Inanis impetus_,—“A vain attack.”

“By night, as at a mirror, the dog looks at the lunar orb:
And seeing himself, believes another dog to be on high,
And barks: but in vain is his angry voice driven by winds,
The silent Diana ever onward goes in her course.”[132]

The device engraved on Alciat’s and Whitney’s pages depicts the full
moon surrounded by stars, and a large dog baying. Whitney’s stanzas give
the meaning of Alciat's, and also of Beza's, which follow below,—

“By shininge lighte, of wannishe CYNTHIAS raies,
The dogge behouldes his shaddowe to appeare:
Wherefore, in vaine aloude he barkes, and baies,
And alwaies thoughte, an other dogge was there:
But yet the Moone, who did not heare his queste,
Hir woonted course, did keep vnto the weste.

This reprehendes, those fooles which baule, and barke,
At learned men, that shine aboue the reste:
With due regarde, that they their deedes should marke,
And reuerence them, that are with wisedome bleste:
But if they striue, in vaine their winde they spende,
For woorthie men, the Lorde doth still defende.”

[Illustration: _Beza, ed. 1580._]

The same device to a different motto, “DESPICIT ALTA CANIS,”—_The dog
despises high things_,—is adopted by Camerarius, _Ex Anim. quadrup._, p.
63, edition 1595,—

“Why carest thou for the angry thorns of a vain speaking tongue?
Diana on high cares not for the loud-barking dog.”[133]

We will conclude our “baying” with Beza’s 22nd Emblem. The Latin stanza
is sufficiently severe,—

“_Luna velut toto collustrans lumine terras,
Frustra allatrantes despicit alta canes:
Sic quisquis Christum allatrat Christíve ministros,
Index stultitiæ? spernitor vsque suæ._”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“As the moon with full light shining over the lands,
From on high doth despise dogs barking in vain:
So whoso is barking at Christ or Christ’s ministers,
The scorner is the pointer out even of his own folly.”

In connection with the power of music Orpheus is named by many writers
of the sixteenth century; and among the Emblematists the lead may be
assigned to Pierre Coustau in “LE PEGME” (Lyons, 1560, p. 389),—

_Sur la harpe d’Orpheus._
La force d’Eloquence.

[Illustration: _Coustau, 1560._]

_De ſon gentil & fort melodieux
D'vn inſtrument, Orpheus feit mouuoir
Rocs & patitz de leur places & lieux.
C’eſt eloquence ayant force & pouuoir
D’ẽbler les cueurs de tous part son ſçavoir;
C’eſt l’orateur qui au fort d’eloquence,
Premierement ſouz méme demourance
Gens beſtiaulx, & par ferocité, &c._

“_On the Harp of Orpheus._
The Power of Eloquence.

“With sound gentle and very melodious
Of an instrument Orpheus caused to move
Rocks and pastures from their place and home.
It is eloquence having force and power
To steal the hearts of all his learning shows,
It is the orator who by strength of eloquence
First brings even under influence
Brutal people, and from fierceness
Gathers them; and who to benevolence
From fierceness then reclaims.

A _Narration Philosophique_ follows for three pages, discoursing on the
power of eloquence.

_Musicæ, & Poeticæ vis_,—“The force of Music and Poetry,”—occupies
Reusner’s 21st Emblem (bk. iii. p. 129), oddly enough dedicated to a
mathematician, David Nephelite. Whitney’s stanzas (p. 186), _Orphei
Musica_,—“The Music of Orpheus,”—bear considerable resemblance to those
of Reusner, and are sufficient for establishing the parallelism of
Shakespeare and themselves.

“LO, ORPHEVS with his harpe, that sauage kinde did tame:
The Lions fierce, and Leopardes wilde, and birdes about him came.
For, with his musicke sweete, their natures hee subdu’de:
But if wee thinke his playe so wroughte, our selues wee doe delude.
For why? besides his skill, hee learned was, and wise:
And coulde with sweetenes of his tonge, all sortes of men suffice.
And those that weare most rude, and knewe no good at all:
And weare of fierce, and cruell mindes, the worlde did brutishe call.
Yet with persuasions sounde, hee made their hartes relente,
That meeke, and milde they did become, and followed where he wente.
Lo, these, the Lions fierce, these, Beares, and Tigers weare:
The trees, and rockes, that lefte their roomes, his musicke for to
heare.
But, you are happie most, who in suche place doe staye:
You neede not THRACIA seeke, to heare some impe of ORPHEVS playe.
Since, that so neare your home, Apollos darlinge dwelles;
Who LINVS, & AMPHION staynes, and ORPHEVS farre excelles.
For, hartes like marble harde, his harmonie dothe pierce:
And makes them yeelding passions feele, that are by nature fierce.

But, if his musicke faile: his curtesie is suche,
That none so rude, and base of minde, but hee reclaimes them muche.
Nowe since you, by deserte, for both, commended are:
I choose you, for a Iudge herein, if truthe I doe declare.
And if you finde I doe, then ofte therefore reioyce:
And thinke, I woulde suche neighbour haue, if I might make my choice.”

In a similar strain, from the _Merchant of Venice_ (act v. sc. 1, l. 70,
vol. ii. p. 361), we are told of the deep influence which music
possesses over—

“a wild and wanton herd
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts.”

The poet declares,—

“If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn’d to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet[134]
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils:
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.”

And in the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ (act iii. sc. 2, l. 68, vol. i. p.
129), the method is developed by which Silvia, through the conversation
of Proteus, may be tempered “to hate young Valentine” and Thurio love.
Proteus says,—

“You must lay lime to tangle her desires
By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes
Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows.
_Duke._ Ay,
Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.
_Pro._ Say that upon the altar of her beauty
You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart:
Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears
Moist it again; and frame some feeling line
That may discover such integrity:
For Orpheus’ lute was strung with poets’ sinews;
Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones.
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.”[135]

Again, in proof of Music’s power, consult _Henry VIII._ (act iii. sc. 1,
l. 1, vol. vi. p. 56), when Queen Katharine, in her sorrowfulness, says
to one of her women who were at work around her,—

“Take thy lute, wench: my soul grows sad with troubles;
Sing and disperse ’em if thou canst: leave working.”

The sweet simple song is raised,—

“Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung, as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.

Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or hearing die.”

How splendidly does the dramatic poet’s genius here shine forth! It
pours light upon each Emblem, and calls into day the hidden glories. His
spirit breathes upon a dead picture, and rivalling Orpheus himself, he
makes the images breathe and glance and live.

The mythic tale of Actæon transformed into a stag, and hunted by hounds
because of his rudeness to Diana and her nymphs, was used to point the
moral of widely different subjects. Alciatus (Emb. 52, ed. 1551, p. 60)
applies it “_to the harbourers of assassins_” and makes it the occasion
of a very true but very severe reflection.

In receptatores ſicariorum.

[Illustration]

_Latronum furumque manus tibi Scæua per vrbem
It comes: & diris cincta cohors gladijs.
Atque ita te mentis generoſum prodige cenſes,
Quòd tua complurειs allicit olla malos.
En nouus Actæon, qui poſtquàm cornua ſumpſit
In prædam canibus se dedit ipſe ſuis._

_Alciat, 1551._

“Of thieves and robbers evil-omen’d bands the city through
Go thy companions; and a cohort girded with dreadful swords.
And so, O prodigal, thou thinkest thyself of generous mind,
Because thy cooking pot allures very many of the bad ones.
Lo, a new Actæon, who after he assumed the horns,
Himself gave himself a prey to his own dogs.”

The device is graphically drawn: Actæon is in part embruted; he is
fleeing with the dogs close upon him. Supposing Shakespeare to have seen
this print, it represents to the life Pistol’s words in the _Merry Wives
of Windsor_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 106, vol. i. p. 186),—

“Prevent, or go thou,
Like Sir Actæon he, with Ringwood at thy heels.”

“EX DOMINO SERVUS,”—_The slave out of the master_,—is another saying
which the tale of Actæon has illustrated. The application is from
Aneau’s “PICTA POESIS,” fol. 41. On the left hand of the tiny drawing
are Diana and her nymphs, busied in the bath, beneath the shelter of an
overhanging cliff,—on the right is Actæon, motionless, with a stag’s
head; dogs are around him. The verses translated read thus,—

“Horns being bestowed upon Actæon when changed to a stag,
Member by member his own dogs tore him to pieces.
Alas! wretched the Master who feeds wasteful parasites;
A ready prepared prey he is for his fawning dogs!
It suggests, he is mocked by them and devoured,
And out of a master is made a slave, bearing horns.”

But Sambucus in his _Emblems_ (edition 1564, p. 128), and Whitney after
him (p. 15)—making use of the same woodcut, only with a different
border—adapt the Actæon-tragedy to another subject and moral, and take
the words, _Pleasure purchased by anguish_.

Voluptas ærumnoſa.

[Illustration: _Sambucus, 1564._]

QVI _nimis exercet venatus, ac ſine fine
Haurit opes patrias, prodigit inque canes:
Tantus amor vani, tantus furor vſque recurſat,
Induat ut celeris cornua bina feræ.
Accidit Actæon tibi, qui cornutus ab ortu,
À canibus propriis dilaceratus eras.
Quàm multos hodie, quos paſcit odora canum vis.
Venandi ſtudium conficit, atque vorat.
Seria ne ludis poſtponas, commoda damnis,
Quod ſupereſt rerum ſic ut egenus habe.
Sæpe etiam propria qui interdum vxore relicta
Deperit externas corniger iſta luit._

Stanzas which may thus be rendered,—

“Whoever too eagerly hunting pursues, and without moderation
Drains paternal treasures and lavishes them on dogs:
So great the love of the folly, so strong does the passion return
That it clothes him in the twin horns of the swift stag.
It happened, Actæon, to thee, who though horned from thy birth,
By thy own dogs into pieces wast torn.
At this day how many, whom the dogs’ quick scent delights,
The strong passion for hunting wastes and devours.
Put not off serious things for sports,—advantages for losses:
As one in need so hold fast whatever things remain:
Often even the horn bearer, his own wife forsaken,
Loves desperately strangers, and pays penalties for crimes.”

We here see that Sambucus has adopted the theory of the old grammarian
or historian of Alexandria, Palæphatus, who informs us,—

“Actæon by race was an Arcadian, very fond of dogs. Many of them he
kept, and hunted in the mountains. But he neglected his own affairs, for
men then were all self-workers; they had no servants, but themselves
tilled the earth; and that man was the richest, who tilled the earth and
was the most diligent workman. But Actæon being careless of domestic
affairs, and rather going about hunting with his dogs, his substance was
wasted. And when he had nothing left, people kept saying: the wretched
Actæon was eaten up by his own dogs.”

A very instructive tale this for some of our Nimrods, mighty hunters and
racers in the land; but it is not to be pressed too strictly into the
service of the parsimonious.

From the same motto Whitney (p. 15) keeps much closer to the
mythological narrative,[136]—

“Actæon heare, vnhappie man behoulde,
When in the well, hee sawe Diana brighte,
With greedie lookes, hee waxed ouer boulde,
That to a stagge hee was transformed righte,
Whereat amasde, hee thought to runne awaie,
But straighte his howndes did rente hym, for their praie.

By which is ment, That those whoe do pursue
Theire fancies fonde, and thinges vnlawfull craue,
Like brutishe beastes appeare vnto the viewe,
And shall at lengthe, Actæons guerdon haue:
And as his houndes, soe theire affections base,
Shall them deuowre, and all their deedes deface.”

Very beautifully, in _Twelfth Night_ (act i. sc. 1, l. 9, vol. iii. p.
223), is this idea applied by Orsino, duke of Illyria,—

“O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou!
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe’er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.
_Cur._ Will you go hunt, my lord?
_Duke._ What, Curio?
_Cur._ The hart.
_Duke._ Why, so I do, the noblest that I have:
O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
Methought she purged the air of pestilence!
That instant was I turn’d into a hart;
And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
E’er since pursue me.”

The full force and meaning of the mythological tale is, however, brought
out in the _Titus Andronicus_ (act ii. sc. 3, l. 55, vol. vi. p. 459),
that fearful history of passion and revenge. Tamora is in the forest,
and Bassianus and Lavinia make their appearance,—

“_Bass._ Who have we here? Rome’s royal empress,
Unfurnish’d of her well-beseeming troop?
Or is it Dian, habited like her,
Who hath abandoned her holy groves,
To see the general hunting in this forest?
_Tam._ Saucy controller of my private steps!
Had I the power that some say Dian had,
Thy temples should be planted presently
With horns, as was Actæon’s, and the hounds
Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs,
Unmannerly intruder as thou art!”

Arion rescued by the Dolphin is another mythic tale in which poets may
well delight. Alciatus (Emblem 89, edition 1581), directs the moral,
“_against the avaricious, or those to whom a better condition is offered
by strangers_.” Contrary to the French writers of time and place, the
emblem presents in the same device the harpist both cast out of the ship
and riding triumphantly to the shore.

In auaros, vel quibus melior conditio ab
extraneis offertur.
_EMBLEMA LXXXIX._

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1581._]

DELPHINI _inſidens vada cærula ſulcat Arion,
Hocʠ_{3} aures mulcet, frenat & ora ſono.
Quàm ſit auari hominis, non tam mens dira ſerarũ est;
Quiʠ_{3} viris rapimur, piſcibus eripimur._

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“On the dolphin sitting Arion ploughs cerulean seas,
With a sound he soothes the ears, with a sound curbs the mouth.
Of wild creatures not so dreadful is the mind, as of greedy man;
We who by men are pillaged, are by fishes rescued.”

With this thought before him Whitney (p. 144) at the head of his stanzas
has placed the strong expression, “Man is a wolf to man.”[137] _Cave
canem_,—“Beware of the dog,”—is certainly a far more kindly warning; but
the motto, _Homo homini lupus_, tallies exactly with the conduct of the
mariners.

“NO mortall foe so full of poysoned spite,
As man, to man, when mischiefe he pretendes:
The monsters huge, as diuers aucthors write,
Yea Lions wilde, and fishes weare his frendes:
And when their deathe, by frendes suppos’d was sought,
They kindnesse shew’d, and them from daunger brought.

ARION lo, who gained store of goulde,
In countries farre: with harpe, and pleasant voice:
Did shipping take, and to CORINTHVS woulde,
And to his wishe, of pilottes made his choise:
Who rob’d the man, and threwe him to the sea,
A Dolphin, lo, did beare him safe awaie.”

A comment from St. Chrysostom, _super Matth._ xxii., is added,—

“As a king is honoured in his image, so God is loved and hated in
man. He cannot hate man, who loves God, nor can he, who hates God, love
men.”

Reference is also made to Aulus Gellius (bk. v. c. 14, vol. i. p. 408),
where the delightful story is narrated of the slave Androclus and the
huge lion whose wounded foot he had cured, and with whom he lived
familiarly for three years in the same cave and on the same food. After
a time the slave was taken and condemned to furnish sport in the circus
to the degraded Romans. That same lion also had been taken, a beast of
vast size, and power and fierceness. The two were confronted in the
arena.

“When the lion saw the man at a distance,” says the narrator,
“suddenly, as if wondering, he stood still; and then gently and placidly
as if recognising drew near. With the manner and observance of fawning
dogs, softly and blandly he wagged his tail and placed himself close to
the man’s body, and lightly with his tongue licked the legs and hands of
the slave almost lifeless from fear. The man Androclus during these
blandishments of the fierce wild creature recovered his lost spirits; by
degrees he directed his eyes to behold the lion. Then, as if mutual
recognition had been made, man and lion appeared glad and rejoicing one
with the other.”

Was it now, from having this tale in mind that, in the _Troilus and
Cressida_ (act v. sc. 3, l. 37, vol. vi. p. 247), these words were
spoken to Hector?—

“Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,
Which better fits a lion than a man.”

_Arion sauué par vn Dauphin_, is also the subject of a well executed
device in the “ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΣ” (edition Antwerp, 1592),[138] of which we
give the French version (p. 64),—

“Arion retournant par mer en sa patrie
Chargé de quelque argẽt, vid que les mariniers
Animéz contre luy d’une auare furie
Pretendoyent luy oster sa vie & ses deniers.

Pour eschapper leurs mains & changer leur courage,
Sur la harpe il chanta vn chant melodieux
Mais il ne peut fleschir la nature sauuage
De ces cruels larrons & meurtriers furieux.

Estant par eux ietté deans la mere profonde,
Vn Dauphin attiré au son de l’instrument,
Le chargea sur son dos, & au trauers de l’onde
Le portant, le sauua miraculeusement.

Maintes fois l’innocent à qui on fait offense
Trouue plus de faueur es bestes qu’es humains:
Dieu qui aime les bons les prend en sa defense,
Les gardant de l’effort des hommes inhumains.”

To the Emblems we have under consideration we meet with this coincidence
in _Twelfth Night_ (act i. sc. 2, l. 10, vol. iii. p. 225); it is the
Captain’s assurance to Viola,—

“When you and those poor number saved with you
Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,
Most provident in peril, bind himself,
Courage and hope both teaching him the practice,
To a strong mast that lived upon the sea;
Where, like Arion on the dolphin’s back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves
So long as I could see.”

As examples of a sentiment directly opposite, we will briefly refer to
Coustau’s _Pegma_ (p. 323, edition Lyons, 1555), where to the device of
a Camel and his driver, the noble motto is recorded and exemplified from
Plutarch, _Homo homini Deus_,—“Man is a God to man;” the reason being
assigned,—

“As the world was created for sake of gods and men, so man was
created for man’s sake;” and, “that the grace we receive from the
immortal God is to be bestowed on man by man.”

Reusner, too, in his _Emblemata_ (p. 142, Francfort, 1581), though
commenting on the contrary saying, _Homo homini lupus_, declares,—

“_Aut homini Deus est homo; si bonus: aut lupus hercle,
Si malus: ô quantum est esse hominem, atq. Deum._”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“Or man to man is God; if good: or a wolf in truth,
If bad: O how great it is to be man and God!”[139]

Was it in reference to these sentiments that Hamlet and Cerimon speak?
The one says (_Hamlet_, act iv. sc. 4, l. 33. vol. viii. p. 127),—

“What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused.”

And again (act ii. sc. 2, l. 295, vol. viii. p. 63),—

“What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in
faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how
like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!”

So in the _Pericles_ (act iii. sc. 2, l. 26, vol. ix. p. 366), the fine
thought is uttered,—

“I hold it ever,
Virtue and cunning were endowments greater
Than nobleness and riches: careless heirs
May the two latter darken and expend,
But immortality attends the former,
Making a man a god.”

The horses and chariot of Phœbus, and the presumptuous charioteer
Phaëton, who attempted to drive them, are celebrated with great
splendour of description in Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ (bk. ii. fab. 1),
that rich storehouse of Mythology. The palace of the god has lofty
columns bright with glittering gold; the roof is covered with pure
shining ivory; and the double gates are of silver. Here Phœbus was
throned, and clothed in purple;—the days and months and years,—the
seasons and the ages were seated around him; Phaëton appears, claims to
be his son, and demands for one day to guide the glorious steeds. At
this point we take up the narrative which Alciat has written (Emb. 56),
and inscribed, “_To the rash_.”[140]

In temerarios.

_Aſpicis aurigam currus Phaëtonta paterni
Igniuo mos auſum flectere Solis equos.
Maxima qui poſtquàm terris incendia ſparſit:
Eſt temerè inſeſſo lapſus ab axe miſer.
Sic plerique rotis Fortunæ ad ſydera Reges
Euecti: ambitio quos iuuenilis agit.
Poſt magnam humani generis cladémque, ſuamque,
Cunctorum pœnas denique dant ſcelerum._

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1551._]

“You behold Phaëton the driver of his father’s chariot,—
Who dared to guide the fire breathing horses of the sun.
After over the lands mightiest burnings he scattered,
Wretched he fell from the chariot where rashly he sat.
So many kings, whom youthful ambition excites,
On the wheels of Fortune are borne to the stars.
After great slaughter of the human race and their own,
For all their crimes at last the penalties they pay.”

Shakespeare’s notices of the attempted feat and its failure are
frequent. First, in the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ (act iii. sc. 1, l.
153, vol. i. p. 121), the Duke of Milan discovers the letter addressed
to his daughter Silvia, with the promise,—

“Silvia, this night will I enfranchise thee,”—

and with true classic force denounces the folly of the attempt,—

“Why, Phaethon,—for thou art Merops’ son,—
Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,
And with thy daring folly burn the world?
Wilt thou reach stars because they shine on thee?”

In her impatience for the meeting with Romeo (_Romeo and Juliet_, act
iii. sc. 2, l. 1, vol. vii. p. 72), Juliet exclaims,—

“Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phœbus’ lodging: such a waggoner
As Phaethon would whip you to the west
And bring in cloudy night immediately.”

The unfortunate Richard II. (act iii. sc. 3, l. 178, vol. iv. p. 179),
when desired by Northumberland to meet Bolingbroke in the courtyard
(“may’t please you to come down”), replies,—

“Down, down, I come; like glistering Phaeton
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.”

And he too, in _3 Henry VI._ (act i. sc. 4, l. 16, vol. v. p. 244),
Richard, Duke of York, whose son cried,—

“A crown, or else a glorious tomb!
A sceptre or an earthly sepulchre!”—

when urged by Northumberland (l. 30),—

“Yield to our mercy, proud Plantagenet;”

had this answer given for him by the faithful Clifford,—

“Ay, to such mercy, as his ruthless arm,
With downright payment, shew’d unto my father.
Now Phaethon hath tumbled from his car,
And made an evening at the noontide prick.”

That same Clifford (act ii. sc. 6, l. 10, vol. v. p. 271), when wounded
and about to die for the Lancastrian cause, makes use of the allusion,—

“And who shines now but Henry’s enemy?
O Phœbus! hadst thou never given consent
That Phaëthon should check thy fiery steeds,
Thy burning car had never scorch’d the earth!
And, Henry, hadst thou sway’d as kings should do,
Or as thy father and his father did,
Giving no ground unto the house of York,
They never then had sprung like summer flies;
I and ten thousand in this luckless realm
Had left no mourning widows for our death;
And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.”

In the early heroic age, when Minos reigned in Crete and Theseus at
Athens, just as Mythology was ripening into history, the most celebrated
for mechanical contrivance and for excellence in the arts of sculpture
and architecture were Dædalus and his sons Talus and Icarus. To them is
attributed the invention of the saw, the axe, the plumb-line, the auger,
the gimlet, and glue; they contrived masts and sailyards for ships; and
they discovered various methods of giving to statues expression and the
appearance of life. Chiefly, however, are Dædalus and Icarus now known
for fitting wings to the human arms, and for attempting to fly across
the sea from Crete to the shore of Greece. Dædalus, hovering just above
the waves, accomplished the aërial voyage in safety; but Icarus, too
ambitiously soaring aloft, had his wings injured by the heat of the sun,
and fell into the waters, which from his death there were named the
Icarian sea.

From the edition of Alciat’s _Emblems_, 1581, we select a drawing which
represents the fall of Icarus; it is dedicated “To Astrologers,” or
fortune tellers. The warning in the last two lines is all we need to
translate,—

“Let the Astrologer take heed what he foretells; for headlong
The impostor will fall though he fly the stars above.”

In aſtrologos.

_EMBLEMA CIII._

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1581._]

ICARE, _per ſuperos qui raptus & aëra, donec
In mare præcipitem cera liquata daret,
Nunc te cera eadem, feruensque reſuſcitat ignis,
Exemplo vt doceas dogmata certa tuo.
Aſtrologus caueat quicquam prædicere: præceps
Nam cadet impoſtor dum ſuper aſtra volat._

Whitney, however (p. 28), will supply the whole,—

“HEARE, ICARVS with mountinge vp alofte,
Came headlonge downe, and fell into the Sea:
His waxed winges, the sonne did make so softe,
They melted straighte, and feathers fell awaie:
So, whilste he flewe, and of no dowbte did care,
He moou’de his armes, but loe, the same were bare.

Let suche beware, which paste theire reache doe mounte,
Whoe seeke the thinges, to mortall men deny’de,
And searche the Heauens, and all the starres accoumpte,
And tell therebie, what after shall betyde:
With blusshinge nowe, theire weakenesse rightlie weye,
Least as they clime, they fall to theire decaye.”

Faire tout par moyen.

[Illustration]

Qui trop ſ’ exalte trop ſe priſe,
Qui trop ſ’abaiſſ[e/] il se deſpriſe,
Mais celluy qui veult faire bien
Il se gouuerne par moyen.

_Corrozet, 1540._

Fol Icarus que t’eſt il aduenu?
Tu as treſmal le conſeil retenu
De Dedalus ton pere qui t’apprint
L’art de voler, lequel il entreprint
Pour eſchapper de Minos la priſon
Ou vous eſtiez enfermez, pour raiſon
Qu’il auoit faict & baſty vne vache
D’ung boys leger ou Paſiphe ſe cache.
Ce Dedalus nature ſurmonta
A toy & luy des ælles adiouſta
Aux bras & piedz, tant que pouiez voler
Et en volant il ſe print à parler
A toy diſant: mon filz qui veulx pretendre
De te ſauluer, vng cas tu doibs entendre
Que ſi tu veulx à bon port arriuer
Il ne te fault vers le ciel eſleuer.
Car le Soleil la cire fonderoit,
Et par ainſi ta plume tomberoit,
Sy tu vas bas l’humidité des eaulx
Te priuera du pouoir des oyſeaulx,
Mais ſi tu vas ne hault ne bas, adoncques
La voy[e/] eſt ſeur[e/] & ſans dangers quelzconques:
O pauure ſot le hault chemin tu prins
Trop hault pour toy car mal il t’en eſt prins
La cire fond, & ton plumage tumbe
Et toy auſſi preſt à mettre ſoubz tumbe.

We use this opportunity to present two consecutive pages of Corrozet’s
“HECATOMGRAPHIE” (Emb. 67), that the nature of his

devices, and of their explanations may be seen. There is a motto,—“To
take the middle way,”—and these lines follow—

“Who too much exalts himself too much values himself,
Who too much abases himself, he undervalues himself,
But that man who wills to do well,
He governs himself the medium way.”

In the page of metrical explanation subjoined, the usual mythic
narrative is closely followed.

The full idea is carried out in _3 Henry VI._ (act v. sc. 6, l. 18, vol.
v. p. 332), Gloucester and King Henry being the speakers,—

“_Glou._ Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete,
That taught his son the office of a fowl!
And yet for all his wings, the fool was drown’d.
_K. Hen._ I, Dædalus; my poor boy, Icarus;
Thy father, Minos, that denied our course;
The sun that sear’d the wings of my sweet boy
Thy brother Edward, and thyself the sea
Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.
Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!
My breast can better brook thy dagger’s point
Than can my ears that tragic history.”

In the 1st part also of the same dramatic series (act iv. sc. 6, l. 46,
vol. v. p. 78), John Talbot, the son, is hemmed about in the battle near
Bourdeaux. Rescued by his father, he is urged to escape, but the young
hero replies,—

“Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,
The coward horse that bears me fall and die!
And like me to the peasant boys of France,
To be shame’s scorn and subject of mischance!
Surely, by all the glory you have won,
An if I fly, I am not Talbot’s son:
Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot;
If son to Talbot, die at Talbot’s foot.

_Tal._ Then follow thou thy desperate sire of Crete,
Thou Icarus; thy life to me is sweet:
If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father’s side;
And, commendable proved, let’s die in pride.”

The tearful tale of Niobe, who that has read Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ (bk.
vi. fab. 5) could not weep over it! Seven stalwart sons and seven fair
daughters clustered round the haughty dame, and she gloried in their
attendance upon her; but at an evil hour she dared to match herself with
Latona, and at a public festival in honour of the goddess to be the only
one refusing to offer incense and prayers. The goddess called her own
children to avenge the affront and the impiety; and Apollo and Diana,
from the clouds, slew the seven sons as they were exercising on the
plain near Thebes. Yet the pride of Niobe did not abate, and Diana in
like manner slew also the seven daughters. The mother’s heart was
utterly broken; she wept herself to death, and was changed to stone.
Yet, says the poet, _Flet tamen_,—“ Yet she weeps,”—

_Liquitur, et lacrymas etiam nunc marmora manant,—_

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“It melts, and even now the marble trickles down tears.”

Alciat adopts the tale as a warning; _Pride_ he names his 67th Emblem.

Superbia.
_EMBLEMA LXVII_

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1581_]

EN _ſtatuæ ſtatua, & ductum de marmore marmor,
Se conferre Deis auſa procax Niobe.
Eſt vitium muliebre ſuperbia, & arguit oris
Duritiem, ac ſenſus, qualis ineſt lapidi_.

As we look at the device we are sensible to a singular incongruity
between the subject and the droll, _Punch_-like figures, which make up
the border. The sentiment, too, is as incongruous, that “Pride is a
woman’s vice and argues hardness of look and of feeling such as there is
in stone.”

Making a slight change in the motto, Whitney (p. 13) writes. _Superbiæ
vltio_,—“Vengeance upon pride,”—

“OF NIOBE, behoulde the ruthefull plighte,
Bicause shee did dispise the powers deuine:
Her children all, weare slaine within her sighte,
And, while her selfe with tricklinge teares did pine,
Shee was transform’de, into a marble stone,
Which, yet with teares, dothe seeme to waile, and mone.

This tragedie, thoughe Poëtts first did frame,
Yet maie it bee, to euerie one applide:
That mortall men, shoulde thinke from whence they came,
And not presume, nor puffe them vp with pride,
Leste that the Lorde, whoe haughty hartes doth hate,
Doth throwe them downe, when sure they thinke theyr state.”

Shakespeare’s notices of Niobe are little more than allusions; the mode
in which Apollo and Diana executed the cruel vengeance may be glanced at
in _All’s Well_ (act v. sc. 3, l. 5, vol. iii. p. 201), when the
Countess of Rousillon pleads for her son to the King of France,—

“_Count._ ’Tis past, my liege;
And I beseech your majesty to make it
Natural rebellion, done i’ the blaze of youth;
When oil and fire, too strong for reason’s force,
O’erbears it and burns on.
_King._ My honour’d lady,
I have forgiven and forgotten all;
Though my revenges were high bent upon him,
And watch’d the time to shoot.”

Troilus (act v. sc. 10, l. 16, vol. vi. p. 261), anticipating Priam’s
and Hecuba’s mighty grief over the slain Hector, speaks thus of the
fact,—

“Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call’d
Go into Troy, and say there, ‘Hector’s dead:’
There is a word will Priam turn to stone,
Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,
Cold statues of the youth, and in a word,
Scare Troy out of itself.”

Hamlet, too (act i. sc. 2, l. 147, vol. viii. p. 17), in his bitter
expressions respecting his mother’s marriage, speaks thus severely of
the brevity of her widowhood,—

“A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow’d my poor father’s body.
Like Niobe, all tears:—why she, even she,—
O God! a beast that wants discourse of reason.
Would have mourn’d longer;—within a month;
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married.”

Tiresias, the blind soothsayer of Thebes, had foretold that the comely
Narcissus would live as long as he could refrain from the sight of his
own countenance,—

“But he, ignorant of his destiny,” says Claude Mignault, “grew so
desperately in love with his own image seen in a fountain, that he
miserably wasted away, and was changed into the flower of his own name,
which is called _Narce_, and means drowsiness or infatuation, because
the smell of the Narcissus affects the head.”

However that may be, Alciatus, edition Antwerp, 1581, exhibits the youth
surveying his features in a running stream; the flower is behind him,
and in the distance is Tiresias pronouncing his doom. “Self love” is the
motto.

Φιλαυτία
_EMBLEMA LXIX._

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1581._]

QVOD _nimium tua forma tibi Narciſſe placebat,
In florem, & noti eſt verſa ſtuporis olus.
Ingenij eſt marcor, cladesque. Φιλαυτία, doctos
Quæ peſſum plures datque, deditque viros:
Qui veterum abiecta methodo, noua dogmata quærunt,
Nilque ſuas præter tradere phantaſias._

Anulus also, in the “PICTA POESIS” (p. 48), mentions his foolish and
vain passion,—

_Contemnens alios, arsit amore sui,—_

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“Despising others, inflamed he was with love of himself.”

From Alciat and Anulus, Whitney takes up the fable (p. 149), his printer
Rapheleng using the same wood-block as Plantyn did in 1581. Of the three
stanzas we subjoin one,—

“Narcissvs lou’de, and liked so his shape,
He died at lengthe with gazinge there vppon:
Which shewes selfe loue, from which there fewe can scape,
A plague too rife: bewitcheth manie a one.
The ritche, the pore, the learned, and the sotte,
Offende therein: and yet they see it not.”

It is only in one instance, _Antony and Cleopatra_ (act ii. sc. 5, l.
95, vol. ix. p. 48), and very briefly, that Shakespeare names Narcissus;
he does this when the Messenger repeats to Cleopatra that Antony is
married, and she replies,—

“The Gods confound thee!...
... Go, get thee hence:
Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me
Thou wouldst appear most ugly.”

[Illustration: _Aneau, 1551._]

_Ille amat, hæc odit, fugit hæc: ſectatur at ille
Dúmque fugit: Laurus facta repentè ſtetit.
Sic amat, & fruſtra, nec Apollo potitus amore eſt.
Vltus Apollinis eſt, ſic Amor opprobrium.
HAECINE doctorum ſors eſt inimica virorum,
Vt iuuenes quamuis non redamentur ament?
Exoſoſque habeat prudentes ſtulta iuuentus
His ne iungatur ſtipes vt eſſe velit._

The most beautiful of the maidens of Thessaly, Daphne, the daughter of
the river-god Peneus, was Apollo’s earliest love. He sought her in
marriage, and being refused by her, prepared to force consent. The
maiden fled, and was pursued, and, at the very moment of her need
invoked her father’s aid, and was transformed into a laurel.

At this instant the device of Anulus represents her, in the “PICTA
POESIS” (P. 47).[141]

“He loves, she hates; she flees, but he pursues,
And while she flees, stopped suddenly, to laurel changed.
So loves Apollo, and in vain; nor enjoys his love.
So love has avenged the reproach of Apollo.
This very judgment of learned men is it not hostile,
That youths should love though not again be loved?
Hated should foolish youth account the wise
Lest by these the log be not joined as it wishes to be.”

The _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 227, vol. ii. p. 218)
reverses the fable; Demetrius flees and Helena pursues,—

“_Dem._ I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
_Hel._ The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will, the story shall be changed:
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase:
The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,
When cowardice pursues, and valour flies.”

There is, too, the quotation already made for another purpose (p. 115)
from the _Taming of the Shrew_ (Introd. sc. 2, l. 55),—

“Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.”

And Troilus (act i. sc. 1, l. 94, vol. vi. p. 130) makes the
invocation,—

“Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne’s love
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?”

Among Mythological Characters we may rank Milo, “of force unparalleled;”
to whom with crafty words of flattery Ulysses likened Diomed; _Troilus
and Cressida_ (act ii. sc. 3, l. 237),—

“But he that disciplined thine arms to fight,
Let Mars divide eternity in twain,
And give him half: and for thy vigour,
Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield
To sinewy Ajax.”

Milo’s prowess is the subject of a fine device by Gerard de Jode, in the
“ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΣ” (p. 61), first published in 1579, with Latin verses.
Respecting Milo the French verses say,—

“La force de Milon a esté nompareille,
Et de ses grands efforts on raconte merueille:
S’il se tenoit debout, il ne se trouuoit pas
Homme aucun qui le peust faire bouger d’un pas.

A frapper il estoit si fort & si adestre
Que d’un seul coup de poing il tua de sa dextre
Vn robuste taureau, & des ses membres forts
Vne lieue le porta sans se greuer le corps.

Mais se fiant par trop en ceste grande force,
Il fut en fin saisi d’une mortelle entorce:
Car il se vid manger des bestes, estant pris
A l’arbre qu’il auoit de desioindre entrepris.

Qui de sa force abuse en chase non faisable
Se rend par son effort bien souuent miserable,
Le fol entrepreneur tombe en confusion
Et s’expose à chacun en grand derision.”

The famous winged horse, Pegasus, heroic, though not a hero, has a right
to close in our array of mythic characters. Sprung from the blood of
Medusa when Perseus cut off her head, Pegasus is regarded sometimes as
the thundering steed of Jove, at other times as the war-horse of
Bellerophon; and in more modern times, under a third aspect, as the
horse of the Muses. Already (at p. 142) we have spoken of some of the
merits attributed to him, and have presented Emblems in which he is
introduced. It will be sufficient now to bring forward the device and
stanza of Alciat, in which he shows us how “by prudence and valour to
overcome the Chimæra, that is, the stronger and those using stratagems.”

Conſilio & virtute Chimæram ſuperari, id est,
fortiores & deceptores.

_EMBLEMA XIIII._

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1581._]

BELLEROPHON _ut fortis eques ſuperare Chimæram,
Et Lycij potuit ſternere monſtra ſoli:
Sic tu Pegaſeis vectus petis æthera pennis,
Conſilioque animi monſtra ſuperba domas_.

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“As the brave knight Bellerophon could conquer Chimæra,
And the monsters of the Lycian shore stretch on the ground:
So thou borne on the wings of Pegasus seekest the sky,
And by prudence dost subdue proud monsters of the soul.”

Shakespeare recognises neither Bellerophon nor the Chimæra, but Pegasus,
the wonderful creature, and Perseus its owner.

The dauphin Lewis (see p. 141) likens his own horse to Pegasus, “with
nostrils of fire,”—

It is a beast for Perseus: he is pure air and fire ... he is indeed
a horse.

In the Grecian camp (see _Troilus and Cressida_, act i. sc. 3, l. 33,
vol. vi. p. 142), Nestor is urging the worth of dauntless valour, and
uses the apt comparison,—

The last lines are descriptive of Alciat’s device, on p. 299.

It is the same Nestor (act iv. sc. 5, l. 183), who so freely and
generously compliments Hector, though his enemy,—

“I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft,
Labouring for destiny, make cruel way
Through ranks of Greekish youth; and I have seen thee,
As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed,
Despising many forfeits and subduements,
When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i’ the air,
Nor letting it decline on the declined,
That I have said to some my standers by,
‘Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!’”

Young Harry’s praise, too, in _1 Henry IV._, act iv. sc. 1. l. 109, vol.
iv. p. 318, is thus celebrated by Vernon,—

“As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.”

For nearly all the personages and the tales contained in this section,
authority may be found in Ovid, and in the various pictorially
illustrated editions of the _Metamorphoses_ or of portions of them,
which were numerous during the actively literary life of Shakespeare. It
is, I confess, very questionable, whether for his classically mythic
tales he was indeed indebted to the Emblematists; yet the many parallels
in mythology between him and them justify the pleasant labour of setting
both side by side, and, by this means, of facilitating to the reader the
forming for himself an independent judgment.

[Illustration: _David, ed. 1601._]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION IV.
_EMBLEMS ILLUSTRATIVE OF FABLES._

SIMILITUDES and, in cases not a few, identities have often been detected
between the popular tales of widely distant nations, intimating either a
common origin, or a common inventive power to work out like results.
Fables have ever been a floating literature,—borne hither and thither on
the current of Time,—used by any one, and properly belonging to no one.
How they have circulated from land to land, and from age to age, we
cannot tell; whence they first arose it is impossible to divine. There
exist, we are told, fables collected by Bidpai in Sanscrit, by Lokman in
Arabic, by Æsop in Greek, and by Phædrus in Latin; and they seem to have
been interchanged and borrowed one from the other as if they were the
property of the world,—handed down from the ancestorial times of a
remote antiquity.

Shakespeare’s general estimation of fables, and of those of Æsop in
particular, may be gathered from certain expressions in two of the
plays,—in the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (act v. sc. 1, l. 1, vol. ii. p.
258) and in _3 Henry VI_. (act v. sc. 5, l. 25, vol. v. p. 329). In the
_former_ the speakers are Hippolyta and Theseus,—

“_Hip._ ’Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.
_The._ More strange than true: I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.”

In the _latter_ Queen Margaret’s son in reproof of Gloucester,
declares,—

“Let Æsop fable in a winter’s night;
His currish riddles sort not with this place.”

The year of Shakespeare’s birth, 1564, saw the publication, at Rome, of
the Latin Fables of Gabriel Faerni; they had been written at the request
of Pope Pius IV., and possess a high degree of excellence, both for
their correct Latinity and for the power of invention which they
display. Roscoe, in his _Life of Leo X._ (Bohn’s ed. ii. p. 172), even
avers that they “are written with such classical purity, as to have
given rise to an opinion that he had discovered and fraudulently availed
himself of some of the unpublished works of Phædrus.” This opinion,
however, is without any foundation.

The _Dialogues of Creatures moralised_ preceded, however, the _Fables_
of Faerni by above eighty years. “In the Latin and Dutch only there were
not less than fifteen known editions before 1511.”[142] An edition in
Dutch is named as early as 1480, and one in French in 1482; and the
English version appeared, it is likely, at nearly as early a date. These
and other books of fables, though by a contested claim, are often
regarded as books of Emblems. The best Emblem writers, even the purest,
introduce fables and little tales of various kinds; as _Alciat_, Emb. 7,
The Image of Isis, the Ass and the Driver; Emb. 15, The Cock, the Lion,
and the Church; Emb. 59, The Blackamoor washed White, &c.: _Hadrian
Junius_, Emb. 4, The caged Cat and the Rats; Emb. 19, The Crocodile and
her Eggs: _Perriere_, Emb. 101, Diligence, Idleness, and the Ants. They
all, in fact, adopted without scruple the illustrations which suited
their particular purpose; and Whitney, in one part of his _Emblemes_,
uses twelve of Faerni’s fables in succession.

Of the fables to which Shakespeare alludes some have been quoted in the
former part of this work;—as The Fly and the Candle; The Sun, the Wind,
and the Traveller; The Elephant and the undermined Tree; The Countryman
and the Serpent. Of others we now proceed to give examples.

The Hares biting the dead Lion had, perhaps, one of its earliest
applications, if not its origin, in the conduct of Achilles and his
coward Greeks to the dead body of Hector, which Homer thus records
(_Iliad_, xxii. 37),—

“The other sons of the Greeks crowded around;
And admired Hector’s stature and splendid form;
Nor was there one standing by who did not inflict a wound.”

Claude Mignault, in his notes to Alciatus (Emb. 153), quotes an epigram,
from an unknown Greek author, which Hector is supposed to have uttered
as he was dragged by the Grecian chariot,—

“Now after my death ye pierce my body;
The very hares are bold to insult a dead lion.”

The _Troilus and Cressida_ (act v. sc. 8, l. 21, vol. vi. p. 259)
exhibits the big, brutal Achilles exulting over his slain enemy, and
giving the infamous order,—

“Come, tie his body to my horse’s tail;
Along the field I will the Trojan trail.”

And afterwards (act v. sc. 10, l. 4, vol. vi. p. 260) the atrocities are
recounted to which Hector’s body was exposed,—

“He’s dead, and at the murderer’s horse’s tail
In beastly sort dragg’d through the shameful field.”

The description thus given accords with that of Alciatus, Reusner, and
Whitney, in reference to the saying, “We must not struggle with
phantoms.” Alciat’s stanzas (Emb. 153) are,—

Cum laruis non luctandum.

ÆACIDÆ _moriens percussu cuspidis Hector
Qui toties hosteis vicerat ante suos;
Comprimere haud potuit vocem, insultantibus illis,
Dum curru & pedibus nectere vincla parant.
Distrahite vt libitum est: sic cassi luce leonis
Conuellunt barbam vel timidi lepores_.

Thus rendered by Whitney (p. 127), with the same device,—

_Cùm laruis non luctandum._

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

“When Hectors force, throughe mortall wounde did faile,
And life beganne, to dreadefull deathe to yeelde:
The Greekes moste gladde, his dyinge corpes assaile,
Who late did flee before him in the fielde:
Which when he sawe, quothe hee nowe worke your spite,
For so, the hares the Lion dead doe byte.

Looke here vpon, you that doe wounde the dead,
With slaunders vile, and speeches of defame:
Or bookes procure, and libelles to be spread,
When they bee gone, for to deface theire name:
Who while they liu’de, did feare you with theire lookes,
And for theire skill, you might not beare their bookes.”

Reusner’s lines, which have considerable beauty, may thus be rendered,—

“Since man is mortal, the dead it becomes us
Neither by word nor reproachful writing to mock at.
Theseus, mindful of mortal destiny, the bones of his friends
Both laves, and stores up in the tomb, and covers with earth.
’Tis the mark of a weak mind, to wage war with phantoms,
And after death to good men insult to offer.
So when overcome by the strength of Achilles
The scullions of the camp struck Hector with darts.
So whelps bite the lion laid prostrate by death;
So his weapon any one bloods in the boar that is slain.
Better ’tis, ye gods, well to speak, of those deserving well;
And wickedness great indeed, to violate sacred tombs.”

The device itself, in these three authors, is a representation of Hares
biting a dead Lion; and in this we find an origin for the words used in
_King John_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 134, vol. iv. p. 17), to reprove the
Archduke of Austria. Austria demands of Philip Faulconbridge, “What the
devil art thou?” and Philip replies,—

“One that will play the devil, sir, with you,
An a’ may catch your hide and you alone:
You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,
Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard.”

Immediately references follow to other fables, or to their pictorial
representations,—

“I’ll smoke your skin-coat, an I catch you right:”

in allusion to the fable of the fox or the ass hunting in a lion’s skin.
Again (l. 141),—

“_Blanch._ O, well did he become that lion’s robe
That did disrobe the lion of that robe.

_Bast._ It lies as sightly on the back of him
As great Alcides’ shows upon an ass:”

a sentiment evidently suggested to the poet’s mind by some device or
emblem in which the incongruity had found a place. Farther research
might clear up this and other unexplained allusions in Shakespeare to
fables or proverbs; but there is no necessity for attempting this in
every instance that occurs.

“_Friendship enduring even after death_,” might receive a variety of
illustrations. The conjugal relation of life frequently exemplifies its
truth; and occasionally there are friends who show still more strongly
how death hallows the memory of the departed, and makes survivors all
the more faithful in their love. As the emblem of such fidelity and
affection Alciat (Emb. 159) selects the figures of the elm and the
vine.[143]

Amicitia etiam poſt mortem durans.
_EMBLEMA CLIX._

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1581._]

The consociation in life is not forgotten; and though the supporting
tree should die, the twining plant still grasps it round and adorns it
with leaves and fruit.

ARENTEM _ſenio, nudam quoque frondibus vlmum,
Complexa eſt viridi vitis opaca coma:
Agnoſcitque vices naturæ, & grata parenti
Officij; reddit mutua iura ſuo.
Exemploque monet, tales nos quærere amicos,
Quos neque disſiungat fædere summa dies._

To which lines Whitney (p. 62) gives for interpretation the two
stanzas,—

“A Withered Elme, whose boughes weare bare of leaues
And sappe, was sunke with age into the roote:
A fruictefull vine, vnto her bodie cleaues,
Whose grapes did hange, from toppe vnto the foote:
And when the Elme, was rotten, drie, and dead,
His braunches still, the vine abowt it spread.

Which showes, wee shoulde be linck’de with such a frende,
That might reuiue, and helpe when wee bee oulde:
And when wee stoope, and drawe vnto our ende,
Our staggering state, to helpe for to vphoulde:
Yea, when wee shall be like a sencelesse block,
That for our sakes, will still imbrace our stock.”

The Emblems of Joachim Camerarius,—_Ex Re Herbaria_ (edition 1590, p.
36),—have a similar device and motto,—

“_Quamlibet arenti vitis tamen hæret in ulmo,
Sic quoque post mortem verus amicus amat._”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“Yet as it pleases the vine clings to the withered elm,
So also after death the true friend loves.”

And in the Emblems of Otho Vænius (Antwerp, 1608, p. 244), four lines of
Alciat being quoted, there are both English and Italian versions, to—

“_Loue after death._”

“The vyne doth still embrace the elme by age ore-past,
Which did in former tyme those feeble stalks vphold,
And constantly remaynes with it now beeing old,
Loue is not kil’d by death, that after death doth last.”

And,—

“Ne per morte muore.”

“_s’Auiticchia la vite, e l’olmo abbraccia,
Anchor che il tempo secchi le sue piante;
Nopo morte l’Amor tiensi constante.
Non teme morte Amore, anzi la scaccia._”

It is in the _Comedy of Errors_ (act ii. sc. 2, l. 167, vol. i. p. 417)
that Shakespeare refers to this fable, when Adriana addresses Antipholus
of Syracuse,—

“How ill agrees it with your gravity
To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,
Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!
Be it my wrong, you are from me exempt,
But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.
Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine:
Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,
Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,
Makes me with thy strength to communicate.”

With a change from the vine to the ivy a very similar comparison occurs
in the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (act iv. sc. 1, l. 37, vol. ii. p.
250). The infatuated Titania addresses Bottom the weaver as her dearest
joy,—

“Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
Fairies begone, and be all ways away.
So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
Gently entwist; the female ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!”

The fable of the Fox and the Grapes is admirably represented in
Freitag’s _Mythologia Ethica_ (p. 127), to the motto, “Feigned is the
refusal of that which cannot be had,”—

Ficta eius quod haberi nequit
recuſatio.

[Illustration: _Freitag, 1579._]

_Fatuus ſtatim indicat iram ſuam: qui autem diſſimulat iniuriam,
callidus eſt._
_Prouerb._ 12, 16.

“A fool’s wrath is presently known: but a prudent man covereth shame.”

The fable itself belongs to an earlier work by Gabriel Faerni, and there
exemplifies the thought, “to glut oneself with one’s own folly,”—

“_Stultitia sua seipsum saginare._”

“VULPES esuriens, alta de vite racemos
Pendentes nulla quum prensare arte valeret,
Nec pedibus tantum. aut agili se tollere saltu.
Re infecta abscedens, hæc secum, Age, desine, dixit.
Immatura vva est, gustuque insuavis acerbo.
Consueuere homines, eventu si qua sinistro
Vota cadunt, iis sese alienos velle videri.”

Whitney takes possession of Faerni’s fable, and gives the following
translation (p. 98), though by no means a literal one,—

“The Foxe, that longe for grapes did leape in vayne,
With wearie limmes, at lengthe did sad departe:
And to him selfe quoth hee, I doe disdayne
These grapes I see, bicause their taste is tarte:
So thou, that hunt’st for that thou longe hast mist,
Still makes thy boast, thou maist if that thou list.”

Plantin, the famed printer of Antwerp, had, in 1583, put forth an
edition of Faerni’s fables,[144] and thus undoubtedly it was that
Whitney became acquainted with them; and from the intercourse then
existing between Antwerp and London it would be strange if a copy had
not fallen into Shakespeare’s hands.

Owing to some malady, the King of France, in _All’s Well that Ends Well_
(act ii. sc. 1, l. 59, vol. iii. p. 133), is unable to go forth to the
Florentine war with those whom he charges to be “the sons of worthy
Frenchmen.” Lafeu, an old lord, has learned from Helena some method of
cure, and brings the tidings to the king, and kneeling before him is
bidden to rise,—

“_King._ I’ll fee thee to stand up.
_Laf._ Then here’s a man stands, that has brought his pardon.
I would you had kneel’d, my lord, to ask me mercy;
And that at my bidding you could so stand up.
_King._ I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,
And ask’d thee mercy for’t.
_Laf._ Good faith, across: but, my good lord, ’tis thus;
Will you be cured of your infirmity?
_King._ No.
_Laf._ O, will you eat no grapes, my royal fox?
Yes, but you will my noble grapes, an if
My royal fox could reach them: I have seen a medicine
That’s able to breathe life into a stone,
Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary
With spritely fire and motion.”

The fox, indeed, has always been a popular animal, and is the subject of
many fables which are glanced at by Shakespeare;—as in the _Two
Gentlemen of Verona_ (act iv. sc. 4, l. 87, vol. i. p. 143), when Julia
exclaims,—

“Alas, poor Proteus! thou hast entertained
A fox to be the shepherd of thy lambs.”

Or in _2 Henry VI._ (act iii. sc. 1, l. 55, vol. v. p. 153), where
Suffolk warns the king of “the bedlam brain-sick duchess” of
Gloucester,—

“Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.”
“The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb.”

And again, in _3 Henry VI._ (act iv. sc. 7, l. 24, vol. v. p. 312), the
cunning creature is praised by Gloucester in an “_aside_,”—

“But when the fox hath once got in his nose,
He’ll soon find means to make the body follow.”

The bird in borrowed plumes, or the Jackdaw dressed out in Peacock’s
feathers, was presented, in 1596, on a simple device, not necessary to
be produced, with the motto, “QVOD SIS ESSE VELIS,”—_Be willing to be
what thou art._

“_Mutatis de te narratur fabula verbis,
Qui ferre alterius parta labore ſtudes._”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“By a change in the words of thyself the fable is told,
Who by labour of others dost seek to bear off the gold.”

It is in the _Third_ Century of the Symbols and Emblems of Joachim
Camerarius (No. 81), and by him is referred to Æsop,[145] Horace, &c.;
and the recently published _Microcosm_, the 1579 edition of which
contains Gerard de Jode’s fine representation of the scene.

Shakespeare was familiar with the fable. In _2 Henry VI._ (act iii. sc.
1, l. 69, vol. v. p. 153), out of his simplicity the king affirms,—

“Our kinsman Gloucester is as innocent
From meaning treason to our royal person
As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove.”

But Margaret, his strong-willed queen, remarks (l. 75),—

“Seems he a dove? his feathers are but borrow’d,
For he’s disposed as the hateful raven.
Is he a lamb? his skin is surely lent him,
For he’s inclined as is the ravenous wolf.”

In _Julius Cæsar_ (act i. sc. 1, l. 68, vol. vii. p. 322), Flavius, the
tribune, gives the order,—

“Let no images
Be hung with Cæsar’s trophies;”

and immediately adds (l. 72),—

“These growing feathers pluck’d from Cæsar’s wing
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,
Who else would soar above the view of men
And keep us all in servile fearfulness.”

But more forcibly is the spirit of the fable expressed, when of Timon of
Athens (act ii. sc. 1, l. 28, vol. vii. p. 228) a Senator, who was one
of his importunate creditors, declares,—

“I do fear,
When every feather sticks in his own wing,
Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,
Which flashes now a phœnix.”

The fable of the Oak and the Reed, or, the Oak and the Osier, has an
early representation in the Emblems of Hadrian Junius, Antwerp, 1565,
though by him it is applied to the ash. “Εἴξας νικᾶ,” or, _Victrix animi
equitas_,—“By yielding conquer,” or, “Evenness of mind the victrix,”—are
the sentiments to be pictured forth and commented on. The device we
shall take from Whitney; but the comment of Junius runs thus (p. 49),—

“_Ad Victorem Giselinum._”

“Vis Boreæ obnixas violento turbine sternit
Ornos: Arundo infracta eandem despicit.
Fit victor patiens animus cedendo furori:
Insiste, Victor, hanc viam & re, & nomine.”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“The stout ash trees, with violent whirl
The North-wind’s force is stretching low;
The reeds unbroken rise again
And still in full vigour grow.
Yielding to rage, the patient mind
Victor becomes with added fame;
That course, my Victor, thou pursue
Reality, as well as name.”

Whitney adopts the same motto (p. 220), “He conquers who endures;” but
while retaining from Junius the ash-tree in the pictorial illustration,
he introduces into his stanzas “the mightie oke,” instead of the “stout
ash.” From Erasmus (_in Epist._) he introduces an excellent quotation,
that “it is truly the mark of a great mind to pass over some injuries,
nor to have either ears or tongue ready for certain revilings.”

_Vincit qui patitur._

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

“The mightie oke, that shrinkes not with a blaste.
But stiflie standes, when Boreas moste doth blowe,
With rage thereof, is broken downe at laste,
When bending reedes, that couche in tempestes lowe
With yeelding still, doe safe, and sounde appeare:
And looke alofte, when that the cloudes be cleare.

When Enuie, Hate, Contempte, and Slaunder, rage:
Which are the stormes, and tempestes, of this life;
With patience then, wee must the combat wage,
And not with force resist their deadlie strife:
But suffer still, and then wee shall in fine,
Our foes subdue, when they with shame shall pine.”

On several occasions Shakespeare introduces this fable, and once
moralises on it quite in Whitney’s spirit, if not in his manner. It is
in the song of Guiderius and Arviragus from the _Cymbeline_ (act iv. sc.
2, l. 259, vol. ix. p. 257),—

“_Gui._ Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
_Arv._ Fear no more the frown o’ the great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this and come to dust.”

Less direct is the reference in the phrase from _Troilus and Cressida_
(act i. sc. 3, l. 49, vol. vi. p. 143),—

“when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks.”

To the same purport are Cæsar’s words (_Julius Cæsar_, act i. sc. 3, l.
5, vol. vii. p. 334),—

“I have seen tempests, when the scolding wings
Have rived the knotty oaks.”

In _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ (act iv. sc. 2, l. 100, vol. ii. p. 138), the
Canzonet, which Nathaniel reads, recognises the fable itself,—

“If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow’d!
Though to myself forsworn, to thee I’ll faithful prove;
Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bow’d.”

We have, too, in _Coriolanus_ (act v. sc. 2, l. 102, vol. vi. p. 403)
the lines, “The worthy fellow is our general: He is the rock; the oak
not to be wind shaken.”

This phrase is to be exampled from Otho Vænius (p. 116), where occur the
English motto and stanza, “Strengthened by trauaile,”—

“Eu’n as the stately oke whome forcefull wyndes do moue,
Doth fasten more his root the more the tempest blowes,
Against disastres loue or firmness greater growes,
And makes each aduers change a witness to his loue.”

In several instances it is difficult to determine whether expressions
which have the appearance of glancing at fables really do refer to them,
or whether they are current sayings, passing to and fro without any
defined ownership. Also it is difficult to make an exact classification
of what belongs to the fabulous and what to the proverbial. Of both we
might collect many more examples than those which we bring forward; but
the limits of our subject remind us that we must, as a general rule,
confine our researches and illustrations to the Emblem writers
themselves. We take this opportunity of saying that we may have arranged
our instances in an order which some may be disposed to question; but
mythology, fable, and proverb often run one into the other, and the
knots cannot easily be disentangled. Take a sword and cut them; but the
sword though sharp is not convincing.

[Illustration: _Horapollo, ed. 1551._]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION V.
_EMBLEMS IN CONNEXION WITH PROVERBS._

PROVERBS are nearly always suggestive of a little narrative, or of a
picture, by which the sentiment might be more fully developed. The brief
moral reflections appended to many fables partake very much of the
nature of proverbs. Inasmuch, then, as there is this close alliance
between them, we might consider the Proverbial Philosophy of Shakespeare
only as a branch of the Philosophy of Fable; still, as there are in his
dramas many instances of the use of the pure proverb, and instances too
of the same kind in the Emblem writers, we prefer making a separate
Section for the proverbs or wise sayings.

Occasionally, like the Sancho Panza of his renowned contemporary,
Michael de Cervantes Saavedra, 1549–1616,[146] Shakespeare launches “a
leash of proverbial philosophies at once;” but with this difference,
that the dramatist’s application of them is usually suggestive either of
an Emblem-book origin, or of an Emblem-book destination. The example
immediately in view is from the scene (_3 Henry VI._, act i. sc. 4, l.
39, vol. v. p. 245) in which Clifford and Northumberland lay hands of
violence on Richard Plantagenet, duke of York; the dialogue proceeds in
the following way, York exclaiming,—

“Why come you not? what! multitudes, and fear?
_Clif._ So cowards fight, when they can fly no further.
So doves do peck the falcon’s piercing talons.”

The queen entreats Clifford, “for a thousand causes,” to withhold his
arm, and Northumberland joins in the entreaty,—

“_North._ Hold, Clifford! do not honour him so much,
To prick thy finger, though to wound his heart:
What valour were it, when a cur doth grin,
For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,
When he might spurn him with his foot away?”

Clifford and Northumberland seize York, who struggles against them (l.
61),—

“_Clif._ Ay, ay, so strives the woodcock with the gin.[147]
_North._ So doth the cony struggle in the net.”

York is taken prisoner, as he says (l. 63),—

“So triumph thieves upon their conquer’d booty;
So true men yield, with robbers so o’ermatch’d.”

The four or five notions or sayings here enunciated a designer or
engraver could easily translate into as many Emblematical devices, and
the mind which uses them, as naturally as if he had invented them, must
surely have had some familiarity with the kind of writing of which
proverbs are the main source and foundation.

In this connection we will quote the proverb which “Clifford of
Cumberland” (_2 Henry VI._, act v. sc. 2, l. 28, vol. vi. p. 217) utters
in French at the very moment of death, and which agrees very closely
with similar sayings in Emblem-books by French authors,—Perriere and
Corrozet,—and still more in suitableness to the occasion on which it was
spoken, the end of life.

York and Clifford,—it is the elder of that name,—engage in mortal combat
(l. 26),—

“_Clif._ My soul and body on the action both!
_York._ A dreadful lay! address thee instantly.”
[_They fight, and_ CLIFFORD _falls._

At the point of death Clifford uses the words (l. 28), _La fin couronne
les œuvres_.[148]—“The end crowns the work.” It was, no doubt, a common
proverb; but it is one which would suggest to the Emblem writer his
artistic illustration, and, with a little change, from some such
illustration it appears to have been borrowed. Whitney (p. 130) records
a resemblance to it among the sayings of the Seven Sages, dedicated “_to
Sir_ HVGHE CHOLMELEY _Knight_,”—

“And SOLON said, _Remember still thy ende_.”

[Illustration: _Perriere, 1539._]

The two French Emblems alluded to above are illustrative of the proverb,
“The end makes us all equal,” and both use a very appropriate and
curious device from the game of chess. Take, first, Emb. 27 from
Perriere’s _Theatre des Bons Engins_: Paris, 1539,—

XXVII.

Le Roy d’eſchez, pendant que le ieu dure,
Sur ses ſubiectz ha grande preference,
Sy l’on le matt[e/], il conuiẽt qu’il endure
Que l’on le mett[e/] au ſac ſans difference.
Cecy nous faict notable demonſtrance,
Qu’ apres le ieu de vie tranſitoire,
Quãd mort nous a mis en ſõ repertoire,
Les roys ne ſõt pluſgrãs que les vaſſaulx;
Car dans le ſac (cõm[e/] à tous eſt notoire),
Roys & pyons en hõneur ſont eſgaulx.

The other, from Corrozet, is in his “HECATOMGRAPHIE:” Paris, 1540,—

La fin nous faict tous egaulx.

La terr[e/] eſt egual[e/] à chaſcun,
Par tous les pays & prouinces,
Auſſi toſt faict pourrir les princes,
Que les corps du pauure commun.

[Illustration: _Corrozet, 1540._]

Svr l’eſchiquier ſont les eſchez aſſis,
Tous en leur rẽg par ordre biẽ raſſis,
Les roys en hault pour duyre les combatz,
Les roynes pres, les cheualiers plus bas,
Les folz deſſoubz, puis apres les pions,
Les rocz auſſy de ce ieu champions.
Et quand le tout eſt aſſis en ſon lieu
Subtilement ou commence le ieu.
* Or vault le roy au ieu de l’eſchiquier,
Mieulx que la royn[e/] & moins le cheualier.
Chaſcun pion de tous ceulx la moins vault,
Mais quand c’eſt faict & que le ieu deffault
Il n’ya roy, ne royne, ne le roc,
Qu’ enſemblement tout n[e/] ſoit à vng bloc,
Mis dans vng ſac, ſans ordre ne degré,
Et ſans auoir l’ung plus que l’aultre à gré.
Ainſi eſt il de nous pauures humains,
Aulcuns ſont grands Empereurs des Romains,
Les aultres roys, les aultres ducz & comtes,
Aultres petis dont on ne faict grandz comptes.
Nous iouons tons aux eſchez en ce monde,
Entre les biens ou l’ung plusqu’ aultr[e/] abonde,
Mais quand le iour de la vié eſt paſſe,
Tout corps humain eſt en terre muſſé,
Autant les grands que petis terre cœurre,
Tant ſeulement nous reſte la bonn[e/] œuure.

Corrozet’s descriptive verses conclude with thoughts to which old
Clifford’s dying words might well be appended: “When the game of life is
over,[149] every human body is hidden in the earth; as well great as
little the earth covers; what alone remains to us is the good deed.” “LA
FIN COURONNE LES ŒUVRES.”

But Shakespeare uses the expression, “the end crowns all,” almost as
Whitney (p. 230) does the allied proverb, “Time terminates all,”—

Tempus omnia terminat.

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

The longeſt daye, in time reſignes to nighte.
The greateſt oke, in time to duſte doth turne:
The Rauen dies, the Egle failes of flighte.
The Phœnix rare, in time her ſelfe doth burne.
The princelie stagge at lengthe his rave doth ronne.
And all muſt ende, that euer was begonne.

A sentiment this corresponding nearly with Hector’s words, in the
_Troilus and Cressida_ (act iv. sc. 5, l. 223, vol. vi. p. 230),—

“The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost
A drop of Grecian blood: the end crowns all,
And that old common arbitrator, Time,
Will one day end it.”

Prince Henry (_2 Henry IV._, act ii. sc. 2, l. 41, vol. iv. p. 392), in
reply to Poins, gives yet another turn to the proverb: “By this hand,
thou thinkest me as far in the devil’s books as thou and Falstaff for
obduracy and persistency; let the end try the man.”

In Whitney’s address “to the Reader,” he speaks of having collected
“sondrie deuises” against several great faults which he names, “bycause
they are growẽ so mightie that one bloe will not beate them downe, but
newe headdes springe vp like _Hydra_, that _Hercules_ weare not able to
subdue them.” “But,” he adds, using an old saying, “manie droppes pierce
the stone, and with manie blowes the oke is ouerthrowen.”

Near Mortimer’s Cross, in Herefordshire, a messenger relates how “the
noble Duke of York was slain” (_3 Henry VI._, act ii. sc. 1, l. 50, vol.
v. p. 252), and employs a similar, almost an identical, proverb,—

“Environed he was with many foes,
And stood against them, as the hope of Troy
Against the Greeks that would have enter’d Troy.
But Hercules himself must yield to odds;
And many strokes, though with a little axe,
Hew down and fell the hardest-timber’d oak.”

This is almost the coincidence of the copyist, and but for the
necessities of the metre, Whitney’s words might have been literally
quoted.

“Manie droppes pierce the stone,” has its parallel in the
half-bantering, half-serious, conversation between King Edward and Lady
Grey (_3 Henry VI._, act iii. sc. 2, l. 48, vol. v. p. 280). The lady
prays the restoration of her children’s lands, and the king intimates he
has a boon to ask in return,—

“_King Edw._ Ay, but thou canst do what I mean to ask.
_Grey._ Why then I will do what your grace commands.
_Glou._ [_Aside to_ CLAR.] He plies her hard; and much rain wears the
marble.
_Clar._ [_Aside to_ GLOU.] As red as fire! nay, then her wax must melt.”

In Otho Vænius (p. 210), where Cupid is bravely working at felling a
tree, to the motto, “By continuance,” we find the stanza,—

“Not with one stroke at first the great tree goes to grownd,
But it by manie strokes is made to fall at last,
The drop doth pierce the stone by falling long and fast,
So by enduring long long sought-for loue is found.”

“To clip the anvil of my sword,” is an expression in the _Coriolanus_
(act iv. sc. 5, lines 100–112, vol. vi. p. 380) very difficult to be
explained, unless we regard it as a proverb, denoting the breaking of
the weapon and the laying aside of enmity. Aufidius makes use of it in
his welcome to the banished Coriolanus,—

“O Marcius, Marcius!
Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart
A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter
Should from yond cloud speak divine things,
And say ‘’Tis true,’ I’d not believe them more
Than thee, all noble Marcius. Let me twine
Mine arms about that body, where against
My grained ash an hundred times hath broke,
And scarr’d the moon with splinters: here I clip
The anvil of my sword, and do contest
As hotly and as nobly with thy love
As ever in ambitious strength I did
Contend against thy valour.”

To clip, or cut, _i.e._, strike the anvil with a sword, is exhibited by
more than one of the Emblem writers, whose stanzas are indeed to the
same effect as those of Massinger in his play, _The Duke of Florence_
(act ii. sc. 3),—

“Allegiance
Tempted too far is like the trial of
A good sword on an anvil; as that often
Flies in pieces without service to the owner;
So trust enforced too far proves treachery,
And is too late repented.”

In his 31st Emblem, Perriere gives the device, and stanzas which
follow,—

[Illustration: _Perriere, 1539._]

XXXI.

En danger eſt de rompre ſon eſpée
Qui ſur l’enclum[e/] en frappe rudement.
Auſſi l’amour eſt bien toſt ſincoppée,
Quand ſon amy on preſſe follement.
Qui le fera, perdra ſubitement
Ce qu’il deburoit bien cheremẽt garder
De tel abus, ſe fault contregarder,
Cõm[e/] en ce lieu auõs doctrin[e/] expreſſe.
A tel effort, ne te fault hazarder
De perdr[e/] amy, quãd ſouuẽt tu le preſſe.

But the meaning is, the putting of friendship to too severe a trial: “As
he is in danger of breaking his sword who strikes it upon an anvil, so
is love very soon cut in pieces when foolishly a man presses upon his
friend.” So Whitney (p. 192), to the motto, _Importunitas
euitanda_,—“Want of consideration to be avoided,”—

“Who that with force, his burnish’d blade doth trie
On anuill harde, to prooue if it be sure:
Doth Hazarde muche, it shoulde in peeces flie,
Aduentring that, which else mighte well indure:
For, there with strengthe he strikes vppon the stithe,
That men maye knowe, his youthfull armes have pithe.

Which warneth those, that louinge frendes inioye,
With care, to keepe, and frendlie them to treate,
And not to trye them still, with euerie toye,
Nor presse them doune, when causes be too greate,
Nor in requests importunate to bee:
For ouermuche, dothe tier the courser free?”

Touchstone, the clown, in _As You Like It_ (act ii. sc. 4, l. 43, vol.
ii. p. 400), names the various tokens of his affections for Jane Smile,
and declares, “I remember, when I was in love I broke my sword upon a
stone and bid him take that for coming a-night to Jane Smile: and I
remember the kissing of her batlet and the cow’s-dugs that her pretty
chopt hands had milked.”

It may, however, from the general inaccuracy of spelling in the early
editions of Shakespeare, be allowed to suppose a typographical error,
and that the phrase in question should read, not “anvil of my sword,”
but “handle;”—I clip, or embrace the handle, grasp it firmly in token of
affection.

The innocence of broken love-vows is intimated in _Romeo and Juliet_
(act ii. sc. 2, l. 90, vol. vii. p. 42),—

“Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say ‘Ay,’
And I will take thy word: yet if thou swear’st,
Thou mayst prove false: at lovers’ perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs.”

And most closely is the sentiment represented in the design by Otho van
Veen (p. 140), of Venus dispensing Cupid from his oaths, and of Jupiter
in the clouds smiling benignantly on the two. The mottoes are, “AMORIS
IVSIVRANDVM PŒNAM NON HABET,”—_Love excused from periurie_,—and
“Giuramento sparso al vento.”

In Callimachus occurs Juliet’s very expression, “at lovers’ perjuries
Jove laughs,”—

“_Nulla fides inerit: periuria ridet amantum
Juppiter, & ventis irrita ferre iubet:_”

and from Tibullus we learn, that whatever silly love may have eagerly
sworn, Jupiter has forbidden to hold good,—

“_Gratia magna Ioui: vetuit pater ipse valere,
Iurasset cupidè quidquid ineptus Amor._”

The English lines in Otho van Veen are,—

“The louer freedome hath to take a louers oth,
Whith if it proue vntrue hee is to be excused,
For venus doth dispence in louers othes abused,
And loue no fault comitts in swearing more than troth.”

The thoughts are, as expressed in Italian,—

“_Se ben l’amante assai promette, e giura,
Non si da pena à le sue voci infide,
Anzi Venere, e Giove se ne ride.
l’Amoroso spergiuro non si cura._”

To such unsound morality, however, Shakespeare offers strong objections
in the Friar’s words (_Romeo and Juliet_, act iii. sc. 3, l. 126),—

“Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man;
Thy dear love sworn, but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish.”

“Labour in vain,”—pouring water into a sieve, is shown by Perriere in
his 77th Emblem,—

[Illustration: _Perriere, 1539._]

where however it is a blind Cupid that holds the sieve, and lovers’
gifts are the waters with which the attempt is made to fill the vessel.

LXXVII.

Qvi plus mettra dans le crible d’amours,
Plus y perdra, car choſe n’y profitte:
Le temps ſi pert, biens, bagues & atours,
Sa douleur eſt en tout amer confitte.
Folle ieuneſſ[e/] & franc vouloir incite
A tel deſduict deſpendre groſſe ſomme:
Sur ce pẽser doibuent biẽ ieunes hõmes,
Que de ce fait meilleurs n’ẽ peuuẽt eſtre:
Et quãd naurõt le vaillãt de deux põmes,
Ne ſera temps leur erreur recognoiſtre.

We have endeavoured to interpret the old French stanza into English
rhyme,—

“Who in love’s tempting sieve shall place his store,
Since nothing profits there, will lose the more;
Lost are his time, goods, rings and rich array,
Till grief in bitterness complete his day.
Folly of youth and free desire incite
Great sums to lavish on each brief delight.
Surely young men on this ought well to ponder,
That better cannot be, if thus they wander;
And when remains two apples’ worth alone,
’Twill not the time be their mistake to own.”

Shakespeare presents the very same thought and almost the identical
expressions. To the Countess of Rousillon, Bertram’s mother, Helena
confesses love for her son, _All’s Well that Ends Well_ (act i. sc. 3,
l. 182, vol. iii. p. 127),—

“Then, I confess,
Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your son.
My friends were poor, but honest; so’s my love:
Be not offended; for it hurts not him
That he is loved of me: I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit;
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
Yet, in this captious and intenible sieve,
I still pour in the waters of my love,
And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like,
Religious in my error, I adore
The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,
But knows of him no more.”

How probable do the turns of thought, “captious and intenible sieve,”
“the waters of my love,” render the supposition that Perriere’s Emblem
of Love and the Sieve had been seen by our dramatist. Cupid appears
patient and passive, but the Lover in very evident surprise sees “the
rings and rich _array_” flow through “le crible d’amours.” Cupid’s eyes,
in the device, are bound, and the method of binding them corresponds
with the lines, _Romeo and Juliet_(act i. sc. 4, l. 4, vol. vii. p.
23),—

“We’ll have no Cupid hoodwink’d with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar’s painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper.”

Again, though not in reference to the same subject, there is in _Much
Ado About Nothing_ (act v. sc. 1, l. 1, vol. ii. p. 69), the comparison
of the sieve to labour in vain. Antonio is giving advice to Leonato when
overwhelmed with sorrows,—

“_Ant._ If you go on thus you will kill yourself;
And ’tis not wisdom thus to second grief
Against yourself.
_Leon._ I pray thee, cease thy counsel,
Which falls into mine ears as profitless
As water in a sieve: give not me counsel;
Nor let no comforter delight mine ear
But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.”

By way of variation we consult Paradin’s treatment of the same thought
(fol. 88_v_), in which he is followed by Whitney (p. 12), with the motto
_Frustrà_.

Hac illac perfluo.

[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]

“The Poëttes faine, that DANAVS daughters deare,
Inioyned are to fill the fatall tonne:
Where, thowghe they toile, yet are they not the neare,
But as they powre, the water forthe dothe runne:
No paine will serue, to fill it to the toppe,
For, still at holes the same doth runne, and droppe.”

“Every rose has its thorn,” or “No pleasure without pain,” receives
exemplification from several sources. Perriere (Emb. 30) and Whitney (p.
165) present us with a motto implying _No bitter without its sweet_, but
giving the gathering of a rose in illustration; thus the former writer,—

“_Post amara dulcia._”
“Qvi veult la ros[e/] au vert buysson saisir
Esmerueiller ne se doibt s’il se poinct.
Grãd biẽ na’uõs, sãs quelque desplaisir,
Plaisir ne vient sans douleur, si apoint.
Conclusion sommaire, c’est le point,
Qu’ apres douleur, on ha plaisir: souuẽt
Beau tẽps se voit, tost apres le grãt vẽt,
Grãd biẽ suruiẽt apres quelque maleur.
Parquoy pẽser doibt tout hõme scauãt,
Que volupté n’est iamais sans douleur.”

So Whitney (p. 165),—

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

“Sharpe prickes preserue the Rose, on euerie parte,
That who in haste to pull the same intendes,
Is like to pricke his fingers, till they smarte?
But being gotte, it makes him straight amendes
It is so freshe, and pleasant to the smell,
Thoughe he was prick’d, he thinkes he ventur’d well.

And he that faine woulde get the gallant rose,
And will not reache, for feare his fingers bleede;
A nettle, is more fitter for his nose?
Or hemblocke meete his appetite to feede?
None merites sweete, who tasted not the sower,
Who feares to climbe, deserues no fruicte, nor flower.”

In the Emblems of Otho Vænius (p. 160), Cupid is plucking a rose, to the
motto from Claudian, “ARMAT SPINA ROSAS, MELLA TEGUNT APES,”—Englished,
“_No pleasure without payn_.”

“In plucking of the rose is pricking of the thorne,
In the attayning sweet, is tasting of the sowre,
With ioy of loue is mixt the sharp of manie a showre,
But at the last obtayned, no labor is forlorne.”

The pretty song from _Love’s Labours Lost_ (act iv. sc. 3, l. 97, vol.
ii. p. 144), alludes to the thorny rose,—

“On a day—alack the day!
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind.
All unseen, can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish himself the heaven’s breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But, alack, my hand is sworn
Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn.”

The scene in the Temple-garden; the contest in plucking roses between
Richard Plantagenet and the Earls of Somerset, Suffolk, and Warwick (_1
Henry VI._, act ii. sc. 4, lines 30–75, vol. v. pp. 36, 37), continually
alludes to the thorns that may be found. We may sum the whole “brawl,”
as it is termed, into a brief space (l. 68),—

“_Plan._ Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset?
_Som._ Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?
_Plan._ Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth;
Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.”

“True as the needle to the pole,” is a saying which of course must have
originated since the invention of the mariner’s compass. Sambucus, in
his _Emblems_ (edition 1584, p. 84, or 1599, p. 79), makes the property
of the loadstone his emblem for the motto, _The mind remains unmoved_.

Mens immota manet.

[Illustration: _Sambucus, 1584._]

DICITVR _interna vi Magnes ferra mouere:
Perpetuò nautas dirigere inque viam.
Semper enim ſtellam firmè aſpicit ille polærem.
Indicat hac horas, nos variéque monet.
Mens vtinam in cælum nobis immota maneret,
Nec ſubitò dubiis fluctuet illa malis.
Pax coëat tandem, Chriſte, vnum claudat ouile,
Liſque tui verbi iam dirimatur ope.
Da, ſitiens anima excelſas ſic appetat arces:
Fontis vt ortiui ceruus anhelus aquas_.

In the latter part of his elegiacs Sambucus introduces another subject,
and gives a truly religious turn to the device,—

“Gather’d one fold, O Christ, let peace abound,
Be vanquish’d by thy word, our jarring strife;
Then thirsting souls seek towers on heavenly ground,
As pants the stag for gushing streams of life.”

The magnet’s power alone is kept in view by Whitney (p. 43),—

“By vertue hidde, behoulde, the Iron harde,
The loadestone drawes, to poynte vnto the starre:
Whereby, wee knowe the Seaman keepes his carde,
And rightlie shapes, his course to countries farre:
And on the pole, dothe euer keepe his eie,
And withe the same, his compasse makes agree.

Which shewes to vs, our inward vertues shoulde,
Still drawe our hartes, althoughe the iron weare:
The hauenlie starre, at all times to behoulde,
To shape our course, so right while wee bee heare:
That Scylla, and Charybdis, wee maie misse,
And winne at lengthe, the porte of endlesse blisse.”

The pole of heaven itself, rather than the magnetic needle, is in
Shakespeare’s dramas the emblem of constancy. Thus in the _Julius Cæsar_
(act iii. sc. 1, l. 58, vol. vii. p. 363), Metellus, Brutus, and Cassius
are entreating pardon for Publius Cimber, but Cæsar replies, in words
almost every one of which is an enforcement of the saying, “Mens immota
manet,”—

“I could be well moved, if I were as you;
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me:
But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fix’d and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumber’d sparks;
They are all fire and every one doth shine;
But there’s but one in all doth hold his place:
So in the world; ’tis furnish’d well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;
Yet in the number I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his rank.
Unshak’d of motion: and that I am he,
Let me a little show it, even in this;
That I was constant Cimber should be banish’d,
And constant do remain to keep him so.”

The _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (act i. sc. I, l. 180, vol. ii. p. 205),
introduces Hermia greeting her rival Helena,—

“_Her._ God speed fair Helena! whither away?
_Hel._ Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.
Demetrius loves you fair: O happy fair!
Your eyes are lode-stars.”

The scene changes, Helena is following Demetrius, but he turns to her
and says (act ii. sc. 1, l. 194, vol. ii. p. 217),—

“Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
_Hel._ You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
Is true as steel: leave but your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you.”

The averment of his fidelity is thus made by Troilus to Cressida (act
iii. sc. 2, l. 169. vol. vi. p. 191),—

“As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant, as earth to the centre.
Yet after all comparisons of truth,
As truth’s authentic author to be cited,
‘As true as Troilus’ shall crown up the verse
And sanctify the numbers.”

So Romeo avers of one of his followers (act ii. sc. 4, l. 187, vol. vii.
p. 58),—

“I warrant thee, my man’s as true as steel.”

“EX MAXIMO MINIMVM,”—_Out of the greatest the least_,—is a saying
adopted by Whitney (p. 229), from the “PICTA POESIS” (p. 55) of Anulus,—

EX MAXIMO MINIMVM.

[Illustration: _Aneau, 1555._]

HAE _Sunt Relliquiæ Sacrarij, in quo
Fertur viua Dei fuiſse imago.
Hæc eſt illius, & domus ruina,
In qua olim Ratio tenebat arcem.
At nunc horribilis figura Mortis.
Ventoſum caput, haud habens cerebrum_.

Both writers make the proverb the groundwork of reflexions on a human
skull. According to Anulus, “the relics of the charnel house were once
the living images of God,”—“that ruin of a dome was formerly the citadel
of reason.” Whitney thus moralizes,—

“WHERE liuely once, GODS image was expreste,
Wherin, sometime was sacred reason plac’de,
The head, I meane, that is so ritchly bleste,
With sighte, with smell, with hearinge, and with taste.
Lo, nowe a skull, both rotten, bare, and drye,
A relike meete in charnell house to lye.”

The device and explanatory lines may well have given suggestion to the
half-serious, half-cynical remarks by Hamlet in the celebrated
grave-yard scene (_Hamlet_, act v. sc. 1, l. 73, vol. viii. p. 153). A
skull is noticed which one of the callous grave-diggers had just thrown
up upon the sod, and Hamlet says (l. 86),—

“That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave
jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain’s jaw-bone, that did the
first murder!”

And a little further on,—

“Here’s a fine revolution, an we had the trick to see’t. Did these
bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with ’em? mine
ache to think on’t.”[150]

And when Yorick’s skull is placed in his hand, how the Prince moralizes!
(l. 177),—

“Here hung those lips, that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where
be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own
grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell
her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her
laugh at that.”

And again (lines 191 and 200),—

“To what base uses we may return. Horatio!
. . . . . . .
Imperial Cæsar, dead, and turn’d to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.”

Of the skull Anulus says, “Here reason held her citadel;” and the
expression has its parallel in Edward’s lament (3 _Henry VI._, act ii.
sc. 1, l. 68, vol. v. p. 252),—

“Sweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon;”

when he adds (l. 74),—

“Now my soul’s palace is become a prison;”

to which the more modern description corresponds,—

“The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.”

A far nobler emblem could be made, and I believe has been made, though I
cannot remember where, from those lines in _Richard II._ (act ii. sc. 1,
l. 267, vol. iv. p. 145), which allude to the death’s head and the light
of life within. Northumberland, Ross and Willoughby are discoursing
respecting the sad state of the king’s affairs, when Ross remarks,—

“We see the very wreck that we must suffer:
And unavoided is the danger now,
For suffering so the causes of our wreck.”

And Northumberland replies in words of hope (l. 270),—

“Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death
I spy life peering.”

It is a noble comparison, and most suggestive,—but of a flight higher
than the usual conceptions of the Emblem writers. Supplied to them they
could easily enough work it out into device and picture, but possess
scarcely power enough to give it origin.[151]

“A snake lies hidden in the grass,” is no unfrequent proverb; and
Paradin’s “DEVISES HEROIQVES” (41) set forth both the fact and the
application.

Latet anguis in herba.

[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]

_En cueillant les Fleurs, & les Fraizes des champs, ſe faut d’autant
garder du dangereus Serpent, qu’il nous peut enuenimer, & faire mourir
nos corps. Et auſsi en colligeant les belles autoritez, & graues
ſentences des liures, faut euiter d’autant les mauuaiſes opinions,
qu’elles nous peuuent peruertir, damner, & perdre nos ames._

From the same motto and device Whitney (p. 24) makes the application to
flatterers,—

“Of flattringe speeche, with sugred wordes beware,
Suspect the harte, whose face doth fawne, and smile,
With trusting theise, the worlde is clog’de with care,
And fewe there bee can scape theise vipers vile:
With pleasinge speeche they promise, and proteste,
When hatefull hartes lie hidd within their brest.”

According to the 2nd part of _Henry VI._ (act iii. sc. 1, l. 224, vol.
v. p. 158), the king speaks favourably of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester,
and Margaret the queen declares to the attendant nobles,—

“Henry my lord is cold in great affairs,
Too full of foolish pity, and Gloucester’s show
Beguiles him as the mournful crocodile
With sorrow snares relenting passengers,
Or as the snake roll’d in a flowering bank,
With shining checker’d slough, doth sting a child,
That for the beauty thinks it excellent.”

In Lady Macbeth’s unscrupulous advice to her husband (_Macbeth_, act i.
sc. 5, l. 61, vol. vii. p. 438), the expressions occur,—

“Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under’t.”

Romeo slays Tybalt, kinsman to Julia, and the nurse announces the deed
to her (_Romeo and Juliet_, act iii. sc. 2, l. 69, vol. vii. p. 75),—

“_Nurse_. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;
Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished.
_Jul_. O God! did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?
_Nurse_. It did, it did; alas the day, it did!
_Jul_. O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
Dove-feather’d raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!”

Though not illustrative of a Proverb, we will here conclude what has to
be remarked respecting Serpents. An Emblem in Paradin’s “DEVISES
HEROIQVES” (112) and in Whitney (p. 166), represents a serpent that has
fastened on a man’s finger, and that is being shaken off into a fire,
while the man remains unharmed; the motto, “Who against us?”—

Quis contra nos?

[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]

The scene described in the _Acts of the Apostles_, chap, xxviii. v. 3–6,
Paradin thus narrates,—

“_Saint Paul, en l’ iſle de Malte fut mordu d’vn Vipere: ce
neantmoins (quoi que les Barbares du lieu le cuidaſſent autrement) ne
valut pis de la morsure, secouant de sa main la Beste dans le feu: car
veretablement à qui Dieu veut aider, il n’y a rien que puiſse nuire._”

Whitney, along with exactly the same device, gives the full motto,—

“_Si Deus nobiscum, quis contra nos?_”

“His seruantes GOD preserues, thoughe they in danger fall:
Euen as from vipers deadlie bite, he kept th’ Appostle Paule.”

The action figured in this Emblem is spoken of in the _Midsummer Night’s
Dream_ (act iii. sc. 2, l, 254, vol. ii. p. 241). Puck has laid the
“love-juice” on the wrong eyes, and in consequence Lysander avows his
love for Helen instead of for Hermia; and the dialogue then proceeds,—

_Dem._ I say I love thee more than he can do.
_Lys._ If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.
_Dem._ Quick, come!
_Her._ Lysander, whereto tends all this?
_Lys._ Away, you Ethiope!
_Dem._ No, no; he’ll ...
Seem to break loose; take on as you would follow,
But yet come not: you are a tame man, go!
_Lys._ Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! vile thing, let loose,
Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent!”

Cardinal Pandulph, the Pope’s legate, in _King John_ (act iii. sc. 1, l.
258, vol. iv. p. 42), urges King Philip to be champion of the Church,
and says to him,—

“France, thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue,
A chafed lion by the mortal paw,
A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,
Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.”

King Richard’s address to the “gentle earth,” when he landed in Wales
(_Richard II._, act iii. sc. 2, l. 12, vol. iv. p. 164), calls us to the
Emblem of the snake entwined about the flower,—

“Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth,
Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;
But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,
And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,
Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet
Which with usurping steps do trample thee:
Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;
And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,
Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon thy sovereign’s enemies.”

“The Engineer hoist with his own petar” may justly be regarded as a
proverbial saying. It finds its exact correspondence in Beza’s 8th
Emblem (edition 1580), in which for device is a cannon bursting, and
with one of its fragments killing the cannonier.

[Illustration: _Beza_, 1580.]

“_Cernis ut in cœlum fuerat quæ machina torta,
Fit iaculatori mors properata suo?
In sanctos quicunque Dei ruis impie seruos,
Conatus merces hæc manet vna tuas._”

Thus rendered into French in 1581,—

“Vois tu pas le canon braqué contre les cieux,
En se creuant creuer celui la qui le tire?
Le mesme t’aduiendra, cruel malicieux,
Qui lasches sur les bons les balles de ton ire.”

The sentiment is the same as that of the proverb in the motto which
Lebeus-Batillius prefixes to his 18th Emblem (edition 1596), “QVIBVS
REBVS CONFIDIMVS, IIS MAXIME EVERTIMVS,”—_To whatever things we trust,
by them chiefly are we overthrown_. The subject is Milo caught in the
cleft of the tree which he had riven by his immense strength; he is held
fast, and devoured by wolves.

The application of Beza’s Emblem is made by Hamlet (act iii. sc. 4, l.
205, vol. viii. p. 117), during the long interview with his mother, just
after he had said,—

“No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house’s top,[152]
Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.”

Then speaking of his plot and of the necessity which marshals him to
knavery, he adds,—

“Let it work;
For ’tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petar: and ’t shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon: O, ’tis most sweet
When in one line two crafts directly meet.”

[Illustration: _Horapollo, ed. 1551._]

-----

Footnote 108:

“Swallows have built
In Cleopatra’s sails their nests: the augurers
Say they know not, they cannot tell; look grimly
And dare not speak their knowledge.”
_Ant. & Cleop._, act 4, sc. 12, l. 3.

Footnote 109:

“Nec, si miserum fortuna Sinonem
Finxit, vanum etiam mendacemque improba finget.”

“Talibus insidiis, perjurique arte Sinonis,
Credita res: captique dolis, lachrymisque coactis,
Quos neque Tydides, nec Larissæus Achilles,
Non anni domuêre decem, non mille carinæ.”

“fatisque Deûm defensus iniquis,
Inclusos utero Danaos et pinea furtim
Laxat claustra Sinon.”

Footnote 110:

The text of Sambucus is dedicated to his father, Peter Sambukius.

“DVM _rigidos artus elephas, dum membra quiete
Subleuat, assuetis nititur arboribus:
Quas vbi venator didicit, succidit ab imo,
Paulatim vt recubans belua mole ruat.
Tam leuiter capitur duri qui in prœlia Martis
Arma, viros, turrim, tergore vectat opes.
Nusquam tuta fides, nimium ne crede quieti,
Sæpius & tutis decipiere locis.
Hippomenes pomis Schœneïda vicit amatam,
Sic Peliam natis Colchis acerba necat.
Sic nos decipiunt dedimus quibus omnia nestra:
Saltem conantur deficiente fide._”

Footnote 111:

“A snake worn out with cold a rustic found,
And cherished in his breast doth rashly warm;
Thankless the snake inflicts a fatal wound,
And life restored requites with deadly harm.
If badly benefits thou dost intend,
Simple of heart and good within thy mind,—
No benefits suppose them in their end,
But deeds of evil and of evil kind.
To serve the thankless is a sinful thing,
And wicked they who wilfully give pain;
Whatever with free soul of good thou bring,
This rightfully thou may’st account true gain.”

Footnote 112:

_Schiller’s Werke_, band 8, pp. 426–7. “Die Regierung dieser Stadt war
in allzu viele Hände vortheilt, und der stürmischen Menge ein viel zu
grossen Antheil daran gegeben, als dasz man mit Ruhe hätte überlegen
mit Einsieht wählen und mit Festigkeit ausführenkönnen.”

Footnote 113:

As Whitney describes him (p. 110, l. 27),—

“_Augustus_ eeke, that happie most did raigne,
The scourge to them, that had his vnkle slaine.”

Footnote 114:

“His soldiers spying his undaunted spirit,
A Talbot! a Talbot! cried out amain,
And rush’d into the bowels of the battle.”

_1 Henry VI._, act. i. sc. 1, l. 127.

Footnote 115:

See _Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1778, p. 470; 1821, pt. 1, p. 531; and
_Archæologia_, vol. xix. pt. 1, art. x. Also, Blomfield’s _Norfolk_,
vol. v. p. 1600.

Footnote 116:

“But a prince slow for punishments, swift for rewards;
To whomsoever he grieves, how often is he forced to be severe.”

Footnote 117:

“If as often as men sin his thunderbolts he should send,
Jupiter, in very brief time, without arms will be.”

Footnote 118:

“The Heraulte, that proclaims the daie at hande,
The Cocke I meane, that wakés vs out of sleepe,
On steeple highe, doth like a watchman stande:
The gate beneath, a Lion still doth keepe.
And why? theise two, did alder time decree,
That at the Churche, theire places still should bee.

That pastors, shoulde like watchman still be preste,
To wake the worlde, that sleepeth in his sinne,
And rouse them vp, that longe are rock’d in reste,
And shewe the daie of Christe, will straighte beginne:
And to foretell, and preache, that light deuine,
Euen as the Cocke doth singe, ere daie doth shine.

The Lion shewes, they shoulde of courage bee
And able to defende, their flocke from foes:
If rauening wolfes, to lie in waite they see:
They shoulde be stronge, and boulde, with them to close:
And so be arm’de with learning, and with life,
As they might keepe, their charge, from either strife.”

Footnote 119:

See also _Carm._ iv. 3. 20.

Footnote 121:

The same author speaks also of the soft Zephyr moderating the sweet
sounding song of the swan, and of sweet honour exciting the breasts of
poets; and presents the swan as saying, “I fear not lightnings, for
the branches of the laurel ward them off; so integrity despises the
insults of fortune.”—_Emb._ 24 and 25.

Footnote 122:

Paradin’s words and his meaning differ; the Civic crown was bestowed,
not on the citizen saved, but on the citizen who delivered him from
danger.

Footnote 123:

Consequently there is an anachronism by Shakespeare in assigning the
order of St. Michael to “valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,” who
was slain in 1453.

Footnote 124:

The name of Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, does not occur in the
list which Paradin gives of the twenty-four Knights Companions of the
Golden Fleece.

Footnote 125:

Paradin’s text:—“_Ma Dame Bone de Sauoye mere de Ian Galeaz, Duc de
Milan, se trouuant veufe feit faire vne Deuise en ses Testons d’vne
Fenix au milieu d’vn feu auec ces paroles_: Sola facta, solum Deum
sequor. _Voulant signifier que comme il n’y a au monde qu’vne Fenix,
tout ainsi estant demeuree seulette, ne vouloit aymer selon le seul
Dieu, pour viure eternellement._”

Footnote 126:

See _Penny Cyclopædia_, vol. xxi. p. 343: “We have no doubt that the
three plays in their original form, which we now call the three Parts
of _Henry VI._, were his,” _i. e._ Shakespeare's, “and they also
belong to this epoch,” _i. e._ previous to 1591.

Footnote 127:

Or _Parvus Mundus_, ed. 1579, where the figure of Bacchus by Gerard de
Jode has wings on the head, and a swift Pegasus by its side, just
striking the earth for flight.

Footnote 128:

It is curious to observe how in the margin Whitney supports his theme
by a reference to Ovid, and by quotations from Anacreon, John
Chrysostom, Sambucus, and Propertius.

Footnote 129:

To the device of the Sirens, Camerarius, _Ex Aquatilibus_ (ed. 1604,
leaf 64), affixes the motto, “MORTEM DABIT IPSA VOLVPTAS,”—_Pleasure
itself will give death_,—and with several references to ancient
authors adds the couplet,—

“_Dulcisono mulcent Sirenes æthera cantu:
Tu fuge, ne pereas, callida monstra maris._”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“With sweet sounding song the Sirens smooth the breeze:
Flee, lest thou perish, the crafty monsters of the seas.”

Footnote 130:

Shakespeare’s “goddess blind” and his representation of blind Love
have their exact correspondence in the motto of Otho Vænius, “Blynd
fortune blyndeth loue;” which is preceded by Cicero’s declaration,
“Non solùm ipsa fortuna cæca est: sed etiam plerumque cæcos efficit
quos complexa est: adeò vt spernant amores veteres, ac indulgeant
nouis,”—

“Sometyme blynd fortune can make loue bee also blynd,
And with her on her globe to turne & wheel about,
When cold preuailes to put light loues faint feruor out,
But ferwent loyall loue may no such fortune fynde.”

Footnote 131:

Well shown in Whitney’s device to the motto, _Veritas
inuicta_,—“Unconquered truth” (p. 166),—where the Spirits of Evil are
sitting in “shady cell” to catch the souls of men, while the Great
Enemy is striving—

“with all his maine and mighte
To hide the truthe, and dimme the lawe deuine.”

Footnote 132:

“LVNAREM _noctu, vt speculum, canis inspicit orbem:
Seq. videns, altum credit inesse canem,
Et latrat: sed frustra agitur vox irrita ventis,
Et peragit cursus surda Diana suos_.”

Footnote 133:

“_Irrita vaniloquæ quid curas spicula linguæ?
Latrantem curatne alta Diana canem._”

Footnote 134:

See Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_, bk. x. fab. 1, 2.

Footnote 135:

For pictorial representations of the wonders which Orpheus wrought,
see the Plantinian edition of “P. OVIDII NASONIS METAMORPHOSES,”
Antwerp, 1591, pp. 238–243.

Footnote 136:

See Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_, bk. iii. fab. 2; or the Plantinian Devices
to Ovid, edition 1591, pp. 85, 87.

Footnote 137:

In the beautiful Silverdale, on Morecambe Bay, at Lindow Tower, there
is the same hospitable assurance over the doorway, “_Homo homini
lupus_.”

Footnote 138:

The device by Gerard de Jode, in the edition of 1579, is a very fine
representation of the scene here described.

Footnote 139:

May we not in one instance illustrate the thought from a poet of the
last century?—

“Who, who would live, my Nana, just to breathe
This idle air, and indolently run,
Day after day, the still returning round
Of life’s mean offices, and sickly joys?
But in the service of mankind to be
A guardian god below; still to employ
The mind’s brave ardour in heroic aims,
Such as may raise us o’er the grovelling herd,
And make us shine for ever—that is life.”—_Thomson_

Footnote 140:

For other pictorial illustrations of Phaëton’s charioteership and
fall, see Plantin’s _Ovid_ (pp. 46–49), and De Passe (16 and 17); also
Symeoni’s _Vita, &c., d’Ovidio_ (edition 1559, pp. 32–34).

Footnote 141:

Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_, by Crispin de Passe (editions 1602 and 1607,
p. 10), presents the fable well by a very good device.

Footnote 142:

See the reprint of ~The Dialoges of Creatures Moralysed~, by
Joseph Haslewood, 4to, London, 1816 (Introd., pp. viij and ix).

Footnote 143:

With the addition of two friends in conversation seated beneath the
elm and vine, Boissard and Messin (1588, pp. 64, 65) give the same
device, to the mottoes, “AMICITIÆ IMMORTALI,”—_To immortal
friendship:_ “Parfaite est l’Amitié qui vit après la mort.”

Footnote 144:

“Centvm Fabvlæ ex Antiqvis delectæ, et a Gabriele Faerno Cremonense
carminibus explicatæ. Antuerpiæ ex officina Christoph. Plantini,
M.D.LXXXIII.” 16mo. pp. 1–171.

Footnote 145:

See the French version of Æsop, with 150 beautiful vignettes, “LES
FABLES ET LA VIE D’ESOPE:” “A Anvers En l’imprimerie Plantiniēne Chez
la Vefue, & Jean Mourentorf, M.D.XCIII.” Here the bird is a jay (see
p. 117, _Du Gay_, xxxi); and the peacocks are the avengers upon the
base pretender to glories not his own.

Footnote 146:

Cervantes and Shakespeare died about the same time,—it may be, on the
same day; for the _former_ received the sacrament of extreme unction
at Madrid 18th of April, 1616, and died soon after; and the _latter_
died the 23rd of April, 1616.

Footnote 147:

Paralleled in Æsop’s _Fables_, Antwerp, 1593; by Fab. xxxviii., _De l
Espriuier & du Rossignol_; lii., _De l Oyseleur & du Merle_; and
lxxvii., _Du Laboureur & de la Cigoigne_.

Footnote 148:

Identical almost with “La fin covronne l’oevvre” in Messin’s version
of Boissard’s _Emblematum Liber_ (4to, 1588), where (p. 20) we have
the device of the letter Y as emblematical of human life; and at the
end of the stanzas the lines,—

“L’estroit est de vertu le sentier espineux,
Qui couronne de vie en fin le vertueux:
C’est ce que considere en ce lieu Pythagore.”

Footnote 149:

In the Emblems of Lebens-Batillius (4to, Francfort, 1596), human life
is compared to a game with dice. The engraving by which it is
illustrated represents three men at play with a backgammon-board
before them.

Footnote 150:

The skeleton head on the shield in Death’s escutcheon by Holbein, may
supply another pictorial illustration, but it is not sufficiently
distinctive to be dwelt on at any length. The fac-simile reprints by
Pickering, Bohn, Quaritch, or Brothers, render direct reference to the
plate very easy.

Footnote 151:

A note of inquiry, from Mr. W. Aldis Wright, of Trinity College,
Cambridge, asking me if Shakespeare’s thought may not have been
derived from an emblematical picture, informs me that he has an
impression of having “somewhere seen an allegorical picture of a child
looking through the eyeholes of a skull.”

Footnote 152:

In Johnson’s and Steeven’s _Shakespeare_ (edition 1785, vol. x. p.
434) the passage is thus explained, “Sir John Suckling, in one of his
letters, may possibly allude to this same story. ‘It is the story of
the _jackanapes_ and the partridges; thou starest after a beauty till
it is lost to thee, and then let’st out another, and starest after
that till it is gone too.’”

-----

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION VI.
_EMBLEMS FROM FACTS IN NATURE, AND FROM THE PROPERTIES OF ANIMALS._

EMBLEM writers make the _Natural_, one of the divisions of their
subject, and understand by it, in Whitney’s words, the expressing of the
natures of creatures, for example, “the loue of the yonge Storkes to the
oulde, or of such like.” We shall extend a little the application of the
term, taking in some facts of nature, as well as the natural properties
and qualities of animals, but reserving in a great degree the Poetry,
with which certain natural things are invested, for the next general
heading, “Emblems for Poetic Ideas.”

There is no need to reproduce the Device of Prometheus bound, but simply
to refer to it, and to note the allusions which Shakespeare makes to the
mountain where the dire penalty was inflicted, “the frosty Caucasus.”
From the _Titus Andronicus_ we have already (p. 268) spoken of Tamora’s
infatuated love,—

“faster bound to Aaron’s charming eyes
Than is Prometheus ty’d on Caucasus.”

John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, endeavours, in _Richard II._ (act i.
sc. 3, lines 275, 294, vol. iv. pp. 130, 131), to reconcile his son
Henry Bolingbroke to the banishment which was decreed against him, and
urges,—

“All places that the eye of heaven visits
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
Teach thy necessity to reason thus;
There is no virtue like necessity.
Think not the king did banish thee,
But thou the king.”

Bolingbroke,however, replies,—

“O, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?”

The indestructibility of adamant by force or fire had for ages been a
received truth.

QVEM NVLLA PERICVLA, TERRENT.

[Illustration: _Le Bey de Batilly, 1596._]

“Whom no dangers terrify,” is a fitting motto for the Emblem that
pertains to such as fear nor force nor fire.

Speaking of the precious gem that figures forth their character, it is
the remark of Lebeus-Batillius (Emb. 29), “Duritia ineharrabilis est,
simulque ignium victrix naturâ & nunquam incalescens,”—for which we
obtain a good English expression from Holland’s _Pliny_ (bk. xxxvii. c.
4): “Wonderfull and inenarrable is the _hardnesse_ of a _diamant_;
besides it hath a nature to conquer the fury of fire, nay, you shall
never make it hote.”

The Latin stanzas in illustration close with the lines,—

“_Qualis, non Adamas ullo contunditur ictu,
Vique sua ferri duritium superat._”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“As by no blow the Adamant is crushed,
And by its own force overcomes the hardness of iron.”

When the great Talbot was released from imprisonment (_1 Henry VI._, act
i. sc. 4, l. 49, vol. v. p. 20), his companions-in-arms on welcoming him
back, inquired, “How wert thou entertained?” (l. 39)—

“With scoffs and scorns and contumelious taunts.
. . . . . . . .
In iron walls they deem’d me not secure;
So great fear of my name ’mongst them was spread
That they supposed I could rend bars of steel
And spurn in pieces posts of adamant.”

The strong natural affection of the bear for its young obtained record
nearly three thousand years ago (_2 Samuel_ xvii. 8),—“mighty men,
chafed in their minds” are spoken of “as a bear robbed of her whelps in
the field.”[153] Emblems delineated by Boissard and engraved by Theodore
De Bry in 1596, at Emb. 43 present the bear licking her whelp, in sign
that the inborn force of nature is to be brought into form and
comeliness by instruction and good learning. At a little later period,
the “TRONVS CVPIDINIS,” or “EMBLEMATA AMATORIA” (fol. 2), so beautifully
adorned by Crispin de Passe, adopts the sentiment, _Perpolit incultum
paulatim tempus amorem_,—that “by degrees time puts the finish, or
perfectness to uncultivated love.” The device by which this is shown
introduces a Cupid as well as the bear and her young one,—

[Illustration: _De Passe, 1596._]

and is accompanied by Latin and French stanzas,—

_“Vrsa novum fertur lambendo fingere fœtum
Paulatim & formam, quæ decet, ore dare;
Sic dominam, vt valde sic cruda sit aspera Amator
Blanditiis sensim mollet & obsequio._”

_Peu à peu._

“Ceste masse de chair, que toute ourse faonne
En la leschant se forme à son commencement.
Par seruir: par flatter, par complaire en aymant,
L’amour rude à l’abord, à la fin se façonne.”

The sentiment of these lines finds a parallel in the _Midsummer Night’s
Dream_ (act i. sc. 1. l. 232, vol. ii. p. 206),—

“Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity:
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.”

Perchance, too, it receives illustration from the praise accorded to the
young Dumain by Katharine, in _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ (act ii. sc. 1, l.
56, vol. ii. p. 114),—

“A well accomplish’d youth,
Of all that virtue love for virtue loved:
Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill;
For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,
And shape to win grace, though he had no wit.”

To the denial of natural affection towards himself Gloucester (_3 Henry
VI_., act iii. sc. 2, l. 153, vol. v. p. 284) deemed it almost a thing
impossible for him to “make his heaven in a lady’s lap,”—

“Why, love forswore me in my mother’s womb:
And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,
She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe,
To shrink mine arm up like a wither’d shrub;
To make an envious mountain on my back,
Where sits deformity to mock my body;
To shape my legs of an unequal size;
To disproportion me in every part.
Like to a chaos, or an unlick’d bear-whelp
That carries no impression like the dam.”

Curious it is to note how slowly the continent which Columbus discovered
became fully recognised as an integral portion of what had been
denominated, ἡ οἰκουμένη,—“the inhabited world.” The rotundity of the
earth and of the water was acknowledged, but Brucioli’s “TRATTATO DELLA
SPHERA,” published at Venice, D.M.XLIII., maintains that the earth is
immovable and the centre of the universe; and in dividing the globe into
climates, it does not take a single instance except from what is named
the old world; in fact, the new world of America is never mentioned.

Somewhat later, in 1564, when Sambucus published his _Emblems_, and
presented _Symbols of the parts of the Inhabited Earth_, he gave only
three; thus (p. 113),—

[Illustration: Partium τῆς οικουμένης ſymbola.]

_Sambucus_, 1564.

EST _regio quæuis climate certo
Aëre diſtincta, & commoditate.
Quælibet haud quidius terra feretq́ue.
Africa monſtroſa eſt ſemper habendo
Antea quod nemo viderat vſquam.
Fert Aſia immanes frigidiore
Nempe ſolo apros, & nimbigera vrſos:
Sed reliquas vincit viribus omnes
Belua, quam Europæ temperat aër.
Taurus vt eſt fortis, bufalus vnà.
Ergo ſit Europæ taurus alumnus,
Africæ at inſigne ſitq́ue Chimæra.
Sint Aſiæ immites vrſus, aperq́ue._

The Bull is thus set forth as the _alumnus_, or nursling of Europe; of
Africa the Chimæra is the ensign; and to Asia belong the untamed Bear
and Boar; America and the broad Pacific, from Peru to China, have
neither token nor locality assigned.

Shakespeare’s geography, however, though at times very defective,
extended further than its “symbols” by Sambucus. In the humorous mapping
out, by Dromio of Syracuse, of the features of the kitchen-wench, who
was determined to be his wife (_Comedy of Errors_, act iii. sc. 2, l.
131, vol. i. p. 429), the question is asked,—

“_Ant. S._ Where America, the Indies?

_Dro. S._ Oh, sir, upon her nose, all o’er embellished with rubies,
carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of
Spain.

In _Twelfth Night_ (act iii. sc. 2, l. 73, vol. iii. p. 271) Maria thus
describes the love-demented steward,—

“He does smile his face into more lines than is in the new map with
the augmentation of the Indies; you have not seen such a thing as ’tis.”

And in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ (act i. sc. 3, l. 64, vol. i. p.
177), Sir John Falstaff avers respecting Mistress Page and Mistress
Ford,—

“I will be cheaters to them both, and they shall be exchequers to
me; they shall be my East and West Indies, and I will trade to them
both.”

Yet in agreement with the map of Sambucus, with the three capes
prominent upon it, of Gibraltar Rock, the Cape of Good Hope, and that of
Malacca, Shakespeare on other occasions ignores America and all its
western neighbours. At the consultation by Octavius, Antony, and
Lepidus, about the division of the Roman Empire (_Julius Cæsar_, act iv.
sc. 1, l. 12, vol. vii. p. 384), Antony, on the exit of Lepidus,
remarks,—

“This is a slight unmeritable man,
Meet to be sent on errands: is it fit,
The three-fold world divided, he should stand
One of the three to share it?”

And when the camp of Octavius is near Alexandria (_Antony and
Cleopatra_, act iv. sc. 6, l. 5, vol. ix. p. 109), and orders are issued
to take Antony alive, Cæsar declares,—

“The time of universal peace is near:
Prove this a prosperous day, the three-nook’d world
Shall bear the olive freely.”

_Plate 13_

[Illustration: _The Zodiac from a Title page - Brucioli 1543_]

TRATTATO DELLA SPHERA,
nel quale si dimoſtrano, & inſegnano i
principii della aſtrologia raccolto da
Giouanni di Sacrobuſto, & altri
Aſtronomi, & tradotto in
lingua Italiana.

PER ANTONIO BRVCIOLI.

ET CON NVOVE ANNOTA=
rioni in piu luoghi dichiarato.

In Ventia nel. D. M. XLIII.

The Signs of the Zodiac, or, rather, the figures of the animals of which
the zodiac is composed, were well known in Shakespeare’s time from
various sources; and though they are Emblems, and have given name to at
least one book of Emblems that was published in 1618,[154]—almost within
the limits to which our inquiries are confined,—some may doubt whether
they strictly belong to Emblem writers. Frequently, however, are they
referred to in the dramas of which we are speaking; and, therefore, it
is not out of place to exhibit a representation of them. This we do from
the frontispiece or title page of an old Italian astronomical work by
Antonio Brucioli (see Plate XIII.), who was banished from Florence for
his opposition to the Medici, and whose brothers, in 1532, were printers
in Venice. It is not pretended that Shakespeare was acquainted with this
title page, but it supplies an appropriate illustration of several
astronomical phenomena to which he alludes.

The zodiac enters into the description of the advancing day in _Titus
Andronicus_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 5, vol. vi. p. 450),—

“As when the golden sun salutes the morn,
And, having gilt the ocean with his beams,
Gallops the zodiac in his glistering coach,
And overlooks the highest-peering hills;
So Tamora.
Upon her wit doth earthly honour wait,
And virtue stoops and trembles at her frown.”

It also occupies a place in a homely comparison in _Measure for Measure_
(act i. sc. 2, l. 158, vol. i. p. 303), to point out the duration of
nineteen years, or the moon’s cycle,—

“This new governor
Awakes me all the enrolled penalties
Which have, like unscour’d armour, hung by the wall
So long, that nineteen zodiacs have gone round.
And none of them been worn; and for a name
Now puts the drowsy and neglected act
Freshly on me: ’tis surely for a name.”

The archery scene in _Titus Andronicus_ (act iv. sc. 3, l. 52, vol. vi.
p. 501) mentions several of the constellations and the figures by which
they were known. The dialogue is between Titus and Marcus,—

“_Tit._ You are a good archer, Marcus;
[_He gives them the arrows._
‘Ad Jovem,’ that’s for you: here, ‘Ad Apollinem:’
‘Ad Martem,’ that’s for myself:
Here, boy, to Pallas: here, to Mercury:
To Saturn, Caius, not to Saturnine;
You were as good to shoot against the wind.
To it, boy! Marcus, loose when I bid.
Of my word, I have written to effect;
There’s not a god left unsolicited.
_Marc._ Kinsmen, shoot all your shafts into the court:
We will afflict the emperor in his pride.
_Tit._ Now, masters, draw, [_They shoot._] O, well said, Lucius!
Good boy, in Virgo’s lap; give it Pallas.
_Marc._ My Lord, I aim a mile beyond the moon;
Your letter is with Jupiter by this.
_Tit._ Ha, ha!
Publius, Publius, what hast thou done?
See, see, thou hast shot off one of Taurus’ horns.
_Marc._ This was the sport, my lord: when Publius shot,
The Bull, being gall’d, gave Aries such a knock
That down fell both the Ram’s horns in the court.”

In allusion to the old medico-astrological idea that the different
members of the human body were under the influence of their proper or
peculiar constellations, the following dialogue occurs in the _Twelfth
Night_ (act i. sc. 3, l. 127, vol. iii. p. 231),—

“_Sir And._ Shall we not set about some revels?
_Sir Toby._ What shall we do else? were we not born under Taurus?
_Sir And._ Taurus! That’s sides and heart.
”_Toby._ No sir; it is legs and thighs. Let me see thee caper: ha!
higher: ha, ha! excellent!”

Falstaff, in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ (act ii. sc. 2, l. 5, vol. i.
p. 190), vaunts of the good services which he had rendered to his
companions: “I have grated upon my good friends for three reprieves for
you and your coach-fellow Nym: or else you had looked through the grate,
like a geminy of baboons.”

In telling of the folly of waiting on Achilles (_Troilus and Cressida_,
act ii. sc. 3, l. 189, vol. vi. p. 175), Ulysses declares,—

“That were to enlard his fat-already pride,
And add more coals to Cancer when he burns
With entertaining great Hyperion.”

The figure of the ninth of the zodiacal constellations, Sagittarius, is
named in _Troilus and Cressida_ (act v. sc. 5, l. 11, vol. vi. p. 253),—

“Polixenes is slain,
Amphimachus and Thaos deadly hurt;
Patroclus ta’en or slain; and Palamedes
Sore hurt and bruised: the dreadful sagittary
Appals our number.”

If it be demanded why we do not give a fuller account of these
constellations, we may almost remark as the fool does in _King Lear_
(act i. sc. 5, l. 33, vol. viii. p. 295)—“The reason why the seven stars
are no more than seven, is a pretty reason.

_Lear._ Because they are not eight?
_Fool._ Yes, indeed: thou wouldst make a good fool.”

How soon the American bird, which we name a Turkey, was known in
England, is in some degree a subject of conjecture. It has been supposed
that its introduction into this country is to be ascribed to Sebastian
Cabot, who died in 1557, and that the year 1528 is the exact time; but
if so, it is strange that the bird in question should not have been
called by some other name than that which indicates a European or an
Asiatic origin. Coq d’Inde, or Poule d’Inde, Gallo d’India, or Gallina
d’India, the French and Italian names, point out the direct American
origin, as far as France and Italy are concerned; for we must remember
that the term India, at the early period of Spanish discovery, was
applied to the western world. But most probably the Turkey fleet brought
the bird into England, by way of Cadiz and Lisbon, and hence the name;
and hence also the reasonableness of supposing that its permanent
introduction into this country was not so early as the time of Cabot. A
general knowledge of the bird was at any rate spread abroad in Europe
soon after the middle of the sixteenth century, for we find it figured
in the Emblem-books; one of which, Freitag’s _Mythologia Ethica_, in
1579, p. 237, furnishes a most lively and exact representation to
illustrate “the violated right of hospitality.”[155]

Ius hoſpitalitatis violatum.

[Illustration: _Freitag, 1579._]

_Si habitauerit aduena in terra veſtra, & moratus fuerit inter vos, non
exprobretis ei._
_Lev. 19. 33._

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex
him.”

Shakespeare, no doubt, was familiarly acquainted with the figure and
habits of the Turkey, and yet may have seized for description some of
the expressive delineations and engravings which occur in the Emblem
writers. Freitag’s turkey he characterises with much exactness, though
the sentiment advanced is more consistent with the lines from
Camerarius. In the _Twelfth Night_ (act ii. sc. 5, lines 15, 27, vol.
iii. p. 257), Malvolio, as his arch-tormenter Maria narrates the
circumstance, “has been yonder i’ the sun practising behaviour to his
own shadow this half hour;” he enters on the scene, and Sir Toby says to
Fabian, “Here’s an overweening rogue!” to which the reply is made, “O
peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him; how he jets under
his advancing plumes!”

The same action is well hit off in showing the bearing of the “pragging
knave, Pistol,” as Fluellen terms him (_Henry V._, act v. sc. 1, l. 13,
vol. iv. p. 591),—

“_Gow._ Why here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.

_Flu._ ’Tis no matter for his swellings, nor his turkey-cocks. God
pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you scurvy, lousy knave, God pless you!”

Referring again to the “Prometheus ty’d on Caucasus,” the Vulture may be
accepted as the Emblem of cruel retribution. So when Falstaff expresses
his satisfaction at the death of Henry IV. (2nd part, act v. sc. 3, l.
134, vol. iv. p. 474), “Blessed are they that have been my friends; and
woe to my lord chief-justice;” Pistol adds,—

“Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also!”

And Lear, telling of the ingratitude of one of his daughters (_King
Lear_, act ii. sc. 4, l. 129. vol. viii. p. 320). says,—

“Beloved Regan,
Thy sister’s naught: O Regan, she hath tied
Sharp-tooth’d unkindness, like a vulture, here.”

[Illustration: _Horapollo, 1551._]

A remarkable instance of similarity between Whitney and Shakespeare
occurs in the descriptions which they both give of the Commonwealth of
Bees. Whitney, it may be, borrowed his device (p. 200) from the
“HIEROGLYPHICA” of Horus Apollo (edition 1551, p. 87), where the
question is asked, Πῶς λαὸν πειθήνιον βασιλεῖ;—

“How to represent a people obedient to their king? They depict a
BEE, for of all animals bees alone have a king, whom the crowd of bees
follow, and to whom as to a king they yield obedience. It is intimated
also, as well from the remarkable usefulness of honey as from the force
which the animal has in its sting, that a king is both useful and
powerful for carrying on their affairs.”

It is worthy of remark that several, if not all, of the Greek and Roman
authors name the head of a hive not a queen but a king. Plato, in his
_Politics_ (Francfort edition, 1602, p. 557A). writes,—

“Νὺν δὲ γε ὃτε οὐκ ἔστι γιγνόμενος, ὡς δὴ φαμὲν, ἔν ταῖς πόλεσι
βασιλεὺς, οἱ~υς ἐν σμήνεσιν, εμφυέται, τό,τε σῶμα εὐθὺς καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν
διαφέρων,” κ. τ. λ.

“There is not born, as we say, in cities a king such as is naturally
produced in hives, decidedly differing both in body and soul.”

Xenophon’s _Cyropædia_ (bk. v. c. 1, § 23) declares of his hero,—

“Βασιλεὺς μὲν γὰρ ἔμοιγε δοκεῖς σὺ φυσεί πεφυκέναι, οὐδὲν ἤττον η ἐν
τῳ σμῆνει φυόμενος τῶν μελιττῶν ἡγεμών.”

“Thou seemest to me to have been formed a king by nature, no less than
he who in the hive is formed general of the bees.”

In his _Georgics_ Virgil always considers the chief bee to be a king, as
iv. 75,—

“Et circa regem atque ipsa ad prætoria densæ
Miscentur, magnisque vocant clamoribus hostem.”[156]

“And thick around the king, and before the royal tent
They crowd, and with mighty din call forth the foe.”

Alciat’s 148th Emblem (edition 1581, p. 528, or edition 1551, p. 161)
sets forth the clemency of a prince; but the description relates to
wasps, not bees,—

Principis clementia.

[Illustration: _Alciat, 1551._]

_Veſparũ quòd nulla vnquam Rex ſpicula figet:
Quodque aliis duplo corpore maior erit.
Arguet imperium clemens, moderataque, regna,
Sanctaque indicibus credita iura bonis_.

“That the king of the wasps will never his sting infix;
And that by double the size of body he is larger than others,
This argues a merciful empire and well-ordered rule,
And sacred laws to good judges entrusted.”

Whitney’s stanzas (p. 200), dedicated to “Richard Cotton, Esquier,” of
Combermere, Cheshire, are original writing, not a translation.

We will take the chief part of them; the motto being, “To every one his
native land is dear.”

_Patria cuique chara._
_To_ RICHARDE COTTON _Eſquier_.

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

“The bees at lengthe retourne into their hiue,
When they haue suck’d the sweete of FLORAS bloomes;
And with one minde their worke they doe contriue,
And laden come with honie to their roomes:
A worke of arte; and yet no arte of man,
Can worke, this worke; these little creatures can.

The maister bee, within the midst dothe liue,
In fairest roome, and most of stature is;
And euerie one to him dothe reuerence giue,
And in the hiue with him doe liue in blisse:
Hee hath no stinge, yet none can doe him harme,
For with their strengthe, the rest about him swarme.

Lo, natures force within these creatures small,
Some, all the daye the honie home doe beare.
And some, farre off on flowers freshe doe fall,
Yet all at nighte vnto their home repaire:
And euerie one, her proper hiue doth knowe
Althoughe there stande a thousande on a rowe.

A Common-wealthe, by this, is right expreste:
Bothe him, that rules, and those, that doe obaye:
Or suche, as are the heads aboue the rest,
Whome here, the Lorde in highe estate dothe staye:
By whose supporte, the meaner sorte doe liue,
And vnto them all reuerence dulie giue.

Which when I waied: I call’d vnto my minde
Your CVMBERMAIRE, that fame so farre commendes:
A stately seate, whose like is harde to finde,
Where mightie IOVE the horne of plentie lendes:
With fishe, and foule, and cattaile sondrie flockes,
Where christall springes doe gushe out of the rockes.

There, fertile fieldes; there, meadowes large extende:
There, store of grayne: with water, and with wood.
And, in this place, your goulden time you spende,
Vnto your praise, and to your countries good:
This is the hiue; your tennaunts, are the bees:
And in the same, haue places by degrees.”

By the side of these stanzas let us place for comparison what
Shakespeare wrote on the same subject,—the Commonwealth of Bees,—and I
am persuaded we shall perceive much similarity of thought, if not of
expression. In _Henry V._ (act i. sc. 2, l. 178, vol. iv. p. 502), the
Duke of Exeter and the Archbishop of Canterbury enter upon an argument
respecting a well-governed state,—

“_Exe._ While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
The advised head defends itself at home;
For government, though high and low and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,
Congreeing in a full and natural close,
Like music.
_Cant._ Therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion:
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for so work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king[157] and officers of sorts;
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home,
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad,
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum.
Delivering o’er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone.”

Again, in the _Troilus and Cressida_ (act i. sc. 3, l. 75, vol. vi. p.
144), Ulysses draws from the unsuitableness of a general, as he terms
the ruling bee, over a hive, an explanation of the mischiefs from an
incompetent commander,—

“Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,
And the great Hector’s sword had lack’d a master,
But for these instances.
The specialty of rule hath been neglected:
And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive
To whom the foragers shall all repair.
What honey is expected?”

The Dramatist’s knowledge of bee-life appears also in the metaphor used
by Warwick (_2 Henry VI._, act iii. sc. 2, l. 125, vol. v. p. 168),—

“The commons, like an angry hive of bees,
That want their leader, scatter up and down,
And care not who they sting in his revenge.”

In an earlier play, _2 Henry IV._ (act iv. sc. 5, l. 75, vol. iv. p.
454), the comparison is taken from the bee-hive,—

“When, like the bee, culling from every flower
The virtuous sweets,
Our thighs pack’d with wax, our mouths with honey,
We bring it to the hive; and like the bees,
Are murdered for our pains.”

In the foregoing extracts on the bee-king, the plea is inadmissible that
Shakespeare and Whitney went to the same fountain; for neither of them
follows Alciatus. The two accounts of the economy and policy of these
“creatures small” are almost equally excellent, and present several
points of resemblance, not to name them imitations by the more recent
writer. Whitney speaks of the “Master bee,” Shakespeare of the king, or
“emperor,”—both regarding the head of the hive not as a queen, but a
“born king,” and holding forth the polity of the busy community as an
admirable example of a well-ordered kingdom or government.

The conclusion of Whitney’s reflections on those “that suck the sweete
of FLORA’S bloomes,” conducts to another parallelism; and to show it we
have only to follow out his idea of returning home after “absence manie
a yeare,” “when happe some goulden honie bringes.” Here is the whole
passage (p. 201),—

“And as the bees, that farre and neare doe straye,
And yet come home, when honie they haue founde:
So, thoughe some men doe linger longe awaye,
Yet loue they best their natiue countries grounde.
And from the same, the more they absent bee,
With more desire, they wishe the same to see.

Euen so my selfe; throughe absence manie a yeare,
A straunger meere, where I did spend my prime.
Nowe, parentes loue dothe hale mee by the eare,
And sayeth, come home, deferre no longer time:
Wherefore, when happe, some goulden honie bringes?
I will retorne, and rest my wearie winges.

Ouid. 1. Pont. 4.

_Quid melius Roma? Scythico quid frigore peius?
Huc tamen ex illa barbarus vrbe fugit._”

The parallel is from _All’s Well that Ends Well_ (act i. sc. 2, 1. 58,
vol. iii. p. 119), when the King of France speaks the praise of
Bertram’s father,—

“‘Let me not live,’ quoth he,
‘After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
Expire before their fashions.’ This he wish’d:
I after him do after him wish too,
Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
I quickly were dissolved from my hive,
To give some labourers room.”

The noble art and sport of Falconry were long the recreation, and, at
times, the eager pursuit of men of high birth or position. Various
notices, collected by Dr. Nathan Drake, in _Shakespeare and his Times_
(vol. i. pp. 255–272), show that Falconry was—

“During the reigns of Elizabeth and James, the most prevalent and
fashionable of all amusements;... it descended from the nobility to the
gentry and wealthy yeomanry, and no man could then have the smallest
pretension to the character of a gentleman who kept not a cast of
hawks.”

From joining in this amusement, or from frequently witnessing it,
Shakespeare gained his knowledge of the sport and of the technical terms
employed in it. We do not even suppose that our pictorial illustration
supplied him with suggestions, and we offer it merely to show that
Emblem writers, as well as others, found in falconry the source of many
a poetical expression.[158] The Italian we quote from, Giovio’s
“SENTENTIOSE IMPRESE” (Lyons, 1562, p. 41), makes it a mark “of the true
nobility;” but by adding, “So more important things give place,” implies
that it was wrong to let mere amusement occupy the time for serious
affairs.

DELLA VERA.
NOBILTÀ.

SIC MAJORA CEDVNT

[Illustration: _Giovio, 1562._]

_Lo ſparbier ſol tra piu falcon portato.
Franchi gli fa paſſar per ogni loco,
Et par che dica all’ huom triſto & da poco,
Nobil’ è quel, ch’ è di virtù dotato._

Thus we interpret the motto and the stanza,—

“Many falcons the falconer carries so proud
Through every place he makes them pass free;
And says to men sorrowing and of low degree,
Noble is he, who with virtue’s endowed.”

Falconers form part of the retinue of the drama (_2 Henry VI._, act ii.
sc. 1, l. 1, vol. v. p. 132), and the dialogue at St. Albans even
illustrates the expression, “Nobil’ è quel, ch’ è di virtù dotato,”—

“_Q. Marg._ Believe me, lords, for flying at the brook,
I saw not better sport these seven years’ day:
Yet, by your leave, the wind was very high;
And, ten to one, old Joan had not gone out.
_K. Henry._ But what a point, my lord, your falcon made,
And what a pitch she flew above the rest!
To see how God in all his creatures works!
Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high.
_Suf._ No marvel, an it like your majesty,
My lord protector’s hawks do tower so well;
They know their master likes to be aloft,
And bears his thoughts above his falcon’s pitch.
_Glo._ My lord, ’tis but a base ignoble mind
That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.”

On many other occasions Shakespeare shows his familiarity with the whole
art and mysteries of hawking. Thus Christophero Sly is asked (_Taming of
the Shrew_, Introduction, sc. 2, l. 41, vol. iii. p. 10),—

“Dost thou love hawking? Thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark.”

And Petruchio, after the supper scene, when he had thrown about the meat
and beaten the servants, quietly congratulates himself on having
“politicly began his reign” (act iv. sc. 1, l. 174, vol. iii. p. 67),—

“My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,
And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged;
For then she never looks upon her lure.
Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come and know her keeper’s call,
That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites
That bate and beat and will not be obedient.”

Touchstone, too, in _As You Like It_ (act iii. sc. 3, 1. 67, vol. ii. p.
427), hooking several comparisons together, introduces hawking among
them: “As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon
her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock will
be nibbling.”

Also in _Macbeth_ (act ii. sc. 4, l. 10, vol. vii. p. 459), after “hours
dreadful and things strange,” so “that darkness does the face of earth
entomb, when living light should kiss it,” the Old Man declares,—

“’Tis unnatural.
Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last
A falcon towering in her pride of place
Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d.”

To renew our youth, like the eagle’s, is an old scriptural expression
(_Psalms_, ciii. 5); and various arc the legends and interpretations
belonging to the phrase.[159] We must not wander among these,—but may
mention one which is given by Joachim Camerarius, _Ex Volatilibus_ (Emb.
34), for which he quotes Gesner as authority, how in the solar rays,
hawks or falcons, throwing off their old feathers, are accustomed to set
right their defects, and so to renew their youth.

RENOVATA
IVVENTVS.

[Illustration: _Camerarius, 1596._]

_Exuviis vitii abjectis, decus indue recti,
Ad ſolem ut plumas accipiter renovat._

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“Sin’s spoils cast off, man righteousness assumes,
As in the sun the hawk renews its plumes.”

The thought of the sun’s influence in renovating what is decayed is
unintentionally advanced by the jealousy of Adriana in the _Comedy of
Errors_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 97, vol. i. p. 411), when to her sister
Luciana she blames her husband Antipholus of Ephesus,—

“What ruins are in me that can be found
By him not ruin’d? then is he the ground
Of my defeatures. My decayed fair
A sunny look of his would soon repair.”

In the _Cymbeline_ (act i. sc. 1, l. 130, vol. ix. p. 167), Posthumus
Leonatus, the husband of Imogen, is banished with great fierceness by
her father, Cymbeline, King of Britain. A passage between daughter and
father contains the same notion as that in the Emblem of Camerarius,—

“_Imo._ There cannot be a pinch in death
More sharp than this is.
_Cym._ O disloyal thing,
That shouldst repair my youth, thou heap’st
A year’s age on me!”

Nil penna, ſed vſus.

[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]

The action of the ostrich in spreading out its feathers and beating the
wind while it runs, furnished a device for Paradin (fol. 23), which,
with the motto, _The feather nothing but the use_, he employs against
hypocrisy.

Whitney (p. 51) adopts motto, device, and meaning,—

“The Hippocrites, that make so great a showe,
Of Sanctitie, and of Religion sounde,
Are shaddowes meere, and with out substance goe,
And beinge tri’de, are but dissemblers founde.
Theise are compar’de, vnto the Ostriche faire,
Whoe spreades her winges, yet sealdome tries the aire.”

A different application is made in _1 Henry IV._ (act iv. sc. 1, l. 97,
vol. iv. p. 317), yet the figure of the bird with outstretching wings
would readily supply the comparison employed by Vernon while speaking to
Hotspur of “the nimbled-footed madcap Prince of Wales, and his
comrades,”—

“All furnish’d, all in arms;
All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Baited like eagles having lately bathed.”

It must, however, be conceded, according to Douce’s clear annotation
(vol. i. p. 435), that “it is by no means certain that this bird (the
ostrich) is meant in the present instance.” A line probably is lost from
the passage, and if supplied would only the more clearly show that the
falcon was intended,—“estrich,” in the old books of falconry, denoting
that bird, or, rather, the goshawk. In this sense the word is used in
_Antony and Cleopatra_ (act iii. sc. 13, l. 195, vol. ix. p. 100),—

“To be furious
Is to be frighted out of fear; and in that mood
The dove will peck the _estridge_.”

Though a fabulous animal, the Unicorn has properties and qualities
attributed to it which endear it to writers on Heraldry and on Emblems.
These are well, it may with truth be said, finely set forth in Reusner’s
_Emblems_ (edition 1581, p. 60), where the creature is made the ensign
for the motto, _Faith undefiled victorious_.

Victrix casta fides.

_EMBLEMA IV._

[Illustration: _Reusner_, 1581.]

_Caſta pudicitiæ defenſtrix bellua: cornu
Vnum quæ media fronte, nigrumque gerit:
Theſauros ornans regum, preciumque rependens:
(Nam cornu præſens hoc leuat omne malum)
Fraude capi nulla, nulla valet arte virorum
Callida: nec gladios, nec fera tela pauet:
Solius in gremio requieſcens ſpontè puellæ:
Fœminea capitur, victa ſopore, manu._

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“This creature of maiden modesty protectress pure.
In the mid-forehead bears one dark black horn,
Kings’ treasures to ornament, and equalling in worth:
(For where the horn abides, no evil can be born).
Captured nor by guile, nor by crafty art of man,
Trembling nor at swords nor iron arms, firm doth it stand;
Of choice reposing in the lap of a maiden alone,[160]
Should sleep overpower, it is caught by woman’s hand.”

A volume of tales and wonders might be collected respecting the unicorn;
for a sketch of these the article on the subject in the _Penny
Cyclopædia_ (vol. xxvi. p. 2) may be consulted. There are the
particulars given which Reusner mentions, and the medical virtues of the
horn extolled,[161] which, at one time, it is said, made it so estimated
that it was worth ten times its weight in gold. It is remarkable that
Shakespeare, disposed as he was, occasionally at least, to magnify
nature’s marvels, does not dwell on the properties of the unicorn, but
rather discredits its existence; for when the strange shapes which
Prospero conjures up to serve the banquet for Alonso make their
appearance (_Tempest_, act iii. sc. 3, l. 21, vol. i. p. 50), Sebastian
avers,—

“Now I will believe
That there are unicorns; that in Arabia
There is one tree, the phœnix’ throne; one phœnix
At this hour reigning there.”

Timon of Athens (act iv. sc. 3, 1. 331, vol. vii. p. 281) just hints at
the animal’s disposition: “Wert thou the unicorn, pride and wrath would
confound thee, and make thine own self the conquest of thy fury.”

Decius Brutus, in _Julius Cæsar_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 203, vol. vii. p.
347), vaunts of his power to influence Cæsar, and among other things
names the unicorn as a wonder to bring him to the Capitol. The
conspirators doubt whether Cæsar will come forth;—

“Never fear that: if he be so resolved,
I can o’ersway him; for he loves to hear
That unicorns may be betray’d with trees,
And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,
Lions with toils, and men with flatterers.”

The humorous ballad in the _Percy Reliques_ (vol. iv. p. 198), written
it is supposed close upon Shakespeare’s times, declares,—

“Old stories tell, how Hercules
A dragon slew at Lerna,
With seven heads and fourteen eyes
To see and well discern-a:
But he had a club, this dragon to drub,
Or he had ne’er done it. I warrant ye.”

It is curious that the device in Corrozet’s _Hecatomgraphie_ of the
Dragon of Lerna should figure forth, in the multiplication of processes
or forms, what Hamlet terms “the law’s delay.”

Multiplication de proces.

Tout homm[e/] en proces tant ſoit fin,
Alors qu’il penſe eſtr[e/] à la fin,
Il luy en ſuruient troys ou quatre
Pour leſquelz il ſe fault debatre.

[Illustration: _Corrozet, 1540._]

That is the very subject against which even Hercules,—“qu’ aqerre
honneur par ses nobles conquestes,”—is called into requisition to rid
men of the nuisance. We need not quote in full so familiar a narrative,
and which Corrozet embellishes with twenty-four lines of French
verses,—but content ourselves with a free rendering of his quatrain,—

“All clever though a man may be in various tricks of law,
Though he may think unto the end, his suit contains no flaw,
Yet up there spring forms three or four with which he hardly copes,
And lawyers’ talk and lawyers’ fees dash down his fondest hopes.”

It is not, however, with such speciality that Shakespeare uses this tale
respecting Hercules and the Hydra. On the occasion serving, the
questions may be asked, as in _Hamlet_ (act v. sc. 1, l. 93, vol. viii.
p. 154), “Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his
quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?
why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce
with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery?”

But simply by way of allusion the Hydra is introduced; as in the account
of the battle of Shrewsbury (_1 Henry IV._ act v. sc. 4, l. 25, vol. iv.
p. 342), Douglas had been fighting with one whom he thought the king,
and comes upon “another king:” “they grow,” he declares, “like Hydra’s
heads.”

In _Othello_ (act ii. sc. 3, l. 290, vol. vii. p. 498), some time after
the general had said to him (l. 238),—

“Cassio, I love thee;
But never more be officer of mine,”—

Cassio says to Iago,—

“I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me I am a drunkard!
Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such an answer would stop them all.”

So of the change which suddenly came over the Prince of Wales (_Henry
V._, act i. sc. 1, l. 35, vol. iv. p. 493), on his father’s death, it is
said,—

“Never Hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat and all at once
As in this king.”

This section of our subject is sufficiently ample, or we might press
into our service a passage from _Timon of Athens_ (act iv. sc. 3, l.
317, vol. vii. p. 281), in which the question is asked, “What wouldst
thou do with the world, Apemantus, if it lay in thy power?” and the
answer is, “Give it the beasts, to be rid of the men.”

In the wide range of the pre-Shakespearean Emblematists and Fabulists we
might peradventure find a parallel to each animal that is named (l.
324),—

“If thou wert the lion, the fox would beguile thee: if thou wert the
lamb, the fox would eat thee: if thou wert the fox, the lion would
suspect thee when peradventure thou wert accused by the ass: if thou
wert the ass, thy dulness would torment thee, and still thou livedst but
as a breakfast to the wolf: if thou wert the wolf, thy greediness would
afflict thee, and oft thou shouldst hazard thy life for thy dinner[162]
... wert thou a bear, thou wouldst be killed by the horse: wert thou a
horse, thou wouldst be seized by the leopard: wert thou a leopard, thou
wert german to the lion, and the spots of thy kindred were jurors on thy
life: all thy safety were remotion, and thy defence absence.”

And so may we take warning, and make our defence for writing so much,—it
is the absence of far more that might be gathered,—

“Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’
Like the poor cat i’ the adage.”
_Macbeth_, act i. sc. 7, l. 44.

[Illustration: _Aneau, 1552._]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION VII.
_EMBLEMS FOR POETIC IDEAS._

ALTHOUGH many persons may maintain that the last two or three examples
from the Naturalist’s division of our subject ought to be reserved as
Emblems to illustrate Poetic Ideas, the animals themselves may be
inventions of the imagination, but the properties assigned to them
appear less poetic than in the instances which are now to follow. The
question, however, is of no great importance, as this is not a work on
Natural History, and a strictly scientific arrangement is not possible
when poets’ fancies are the guiding powers.

How finely and often how splendidly Shakespeare makes use of the
symbolical imagery of his art, a thousand instances might be brought to
show. Three or four only are required to make plain our meaning. One,
from _All’s Well that Ends Well_ (act i. sc. 1, l. 76, vol. iii. p.
112), is Helena’s avowal to herself of her absorbing love for Bertram,—

“My imagination
Carries no favour in’t but Bertram’s.
I am undone: there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. ’Twere all one
That I should love a bright particular star
And think to wed it, he is so above me:
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Might I be comforted, not in his sphere.
The ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind that would be mated by the lion
Must die of love. ’Twas pretty, though a plague,
To see him every hour; to sit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart’s table; heart too capable
Of every line and trick of his sweet favour:
But now he’s gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his reliques.”

Another instance shall be from _Troilus and Cressida_ (act iii. sc. 3,
l. 145, vol. vi. p. 198). Neglected by his allies, Achilles demands,
“What, are my deeds forgot?” and Ulysses pours forth upon him the great
argument, that to preserve fame and honour active exertion is
continually demanded,—

“Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:
Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour’d
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done: perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright: to have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery.”

And so on, with inimitable force and beauty, until the crowning thoughts
come (l. 165),—

“Time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arms outstretch’d, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin;
That all with one consent praise new-born gawds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past,
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o’er-dusted.”

As a last instance, from the _Winter’s Tale_ (act iv. sc. 4, l. 135,
vol. iii. p. 383), take Florizel’s commendation of his beloved Perdita,—

“What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I’ld have you do it ever: when you sing,
I’ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms.
Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you
A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so,
And own no other function: each your doing.
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens.”

Our Prelude we may take from Le Bey de Batilly’s _Emblems_
(_Francofurti_ 1596, Emb. 51), in which with no slight zeal he
celebrates “The Glory of Poets.” For subject he takes “The Christian
Muse” of his Jurisconsult friend, Peter Poppæus of Barraux, near
Chambery.

POETARVM GLORIA.

[Illustration: _De Batilly, 1596._]

With the sad fate of Icarus, Le Bey contrasts the far different
condition of Poets,—

“_Quos Phœbus ad aurea cœli
Limina sublimis Iouis omnipotentis in aula
Sistit, & ætherei monstrat commercia cœtus;
Et sacri vates & Diuûm cura vocantur.
Quos etiam sunt qui numen habere putent._”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“Whom at heaven’s golden threshold,
Within the halls of lofty Jove omnipotent
Phœbus doth place, and to them clearly shows
The intercourses of ethereal companies.
Both holy prophets and the care of gods
Are poets named; and those there are who think
That they possess the force of power divine.”

In vigorous prose Le Bey declares “their home of glory is the world
itself, and for them honour without death abides.” Then personally to
his friend Poppæus he says,—

“Onward, and things not to be feared fear not thou, who speakest
nothing little or of humble measure, nothing mortal. While the pure
priest of the Muses and of Phœbus with no weak nor unpractised wing
through the liquid air as prophet stretches to the lofty regions of the
clouds. Onward, and let father Phœbus himself bear thee to heaven.”

Now by the side of Le Bey’s laudatory sentences, may be placed the
Poet’s glory as sung in the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (act v. sc. 1, l.
12, vol. ii. p. 258),—

“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.”

The Swan of silvery whiteness may have been the heraldic badge of the
Poets, but that “bird of wonder,” the Phœnix, which,—

“Left sweete Arabie:
And on a Cædar in this coast
Built vp her tombe of spicerie,”[163]—

is the source of many more Poetic ideas. To the Emblem writers as well
as to the Poets, who preceded and followed the time of Shakespeare, it
really was a constant theme of admiration.

One of the best pictures of what the bird was supposed to be occurs in
Freitag’s “MYTHOLOGIA ETHICA” (Antwerp, 1579). The drawing and execution
of the device are remarkably fine; and the motto enjoins that “youthful
studies should be changed with advancing age,”—

Iuuenilia ſtudia cum prouectiori
ætate permutata.

[Illustration: _Freitag, 1579._]

“_Deponite vos, ſecundum priſtinam conuerſationem, veterem hominem,
qui corrumpitur ſecundum deſideria erroris._”—_Epheſ._ 4. 22.

After describing the bird, Freitag applies it as a type of the
resurrection from the dead; but its special moral is,—

“That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man,
which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.”

Ancient authors, as well as the comparatively modern, very gravely
testify to the lengthened life, and self-renovating power, and splendid
beauty of the Phœnix. In the “EUTERPE” of Herodotus (bk. ii. 73) we meet
with the following narrative,—

“Ἔστι δε καὶ ἄλλος ὄμνις,” κ. τ. λ. “There is another sacred bird,
named the Phœnix, which I myself never saw except in picture; for
according to the people of Heliopolis, it seldom makes its appearance
among them, only once in every 500 years. They state that he comes on
the death of his sire. If at all like the picture, this bird may be thus
described both in size and shape. Some of his feathers are of the colour
of gold; others are red. In outline he is exceedingly similar to the
Eagle, and in size also. This bird is said to display an ingenuity of
contrivance which to me does not seem credible: he is represented as
coming out of Arabia and bringing with him his father, embalmed in
myrrh, to the temple of the Sun, and there burying him. The following is
the manner in which this is done. First of all he sticks together an egg
of myrrh, as much as he can carry, and then if he can bear the burden,
this experiment being achieved, he scoops out the egg sufficiently to
deposit his sire within; next he fills with fresh myrrh the opening in
the egg, by which the body was enclosed; thus the whole mass containing
the carcase is still of the same weight. The embalming being completed,
he transports him into Egypt and to the temple of the Sun.”

Pliny’s account is brief (bk. xiii. ch. iv.),—

“The bird Phœnix is supposed to have taken that name from the date
tree, which in Greek is called φοῖνιξ; for the assurance was made me
that the said bird died with the tree, and of itself revived when the
tree again sprouted forth.”

Numerous indeed are the authorities of old to the same or a similar
purport. They are nearly all comprised in the introductory dissertation
of Joachim Camerarius to his device of the Phœnix, and include about
eighteen classic writers, ten of the Greek and Latin Fathers, and three
modern writers of the sixteenth century.

Appended to the works of Lactantius, an eloquent Christian Father of the
latter part of the third century, there is a _Carmen De Phœnice_,—“Song
concerning the Phœnix,”—in elegiac verse, which contains very many of
the old tales and legends of “the Arabian bird,” and describes it as,—

“_Ipsa sibi proles, suus est pater, & suus hæres:
Nutrix ipsa sui, semper alumna sibi._”

“She to herself offspring is, and her own father, and her own heir:
Nurse is she of herself, and ever her own foster daughter.”

(See _Lactantii Opera, studio Gallæi_, Leyden, 8vo. 1660, pp. 904–923.)

Besides Camerarius, there are at least five Emblematists from whom
Shakespeare might have borrowed respecting the Phœnix. Horapollo, whose
_Hieroglyphics_ were edited in 1551; Claude Paradin and Gabriel Symeoni,
whose _Heroic Devises_ appeared in 1562; Arnold Freitag, in 1579;
Nicholas Reusner, in 1581; Geffrey Whitney, in 1586, and Boissard, in
1588,—these all take the Phœnix for one of their emblems, and give a
drawing of it in the act of self-sacrifice and self-renovation. They
make it typical of many truths and doctrines,—of long duration for the
soul, of devoted love to God, of special rarity of character, of
Christ’s resurrection from the dead, and of the resurrection of all
mankind.

There is a singular application of the Phœnix emblem which existed
before and during Shakespeare’s time, but of which I find no pictorial
representation until 1633. It is in Henry Hawkins’ rare volume, “Η
ΠΑΡΘΕΝΟΣ,”—_The Virgin_—“Symbolically set forth and enriched with piovs
devises and emblemes for the entertainement of Devovt Sovles.” This
peculiar emblem bestows upon the bird two hearts, which are united in
closest sympathy and in entire oneness of affection and purpose; they
are the hearts of the Virgin-Mother and her Son.

Eadem inter ſe. Sunt eadem uni tertia.

[Illustration: _Hawkins’ Parthenos, 1633._]

“Behold, how Death aymes with his mortal dart,
And wounds a Phœnix with a twin-like hart.
These are the harts of Jesus and his Mother
So linkt in one, that one without the other
Is not entire. They (sure) each others smart
Must needs sustaine, though two, yet as one hart.
One Virgin-Mother, Phenix of her kind,
And we her Sonne without a father find.
The Sonne’s and Mothers paines in one are mixt,
His side, a Launce, her soule a Sword transfixt.
Two harts in one, one Phenix loue contriues:[164]
One wound in two, and two in one reuiues.”

Whitney’s and Shakespeare’s uses of the device resemble each other, as
we shall see, more closely than the rest do,—and present a singular
coincidence of thought, or else show that the later writer had consulted
the earlier.

“_The Bird always alone_,” is the motto which Paradin, Reusner, and
Whitney adopt. Paradin (fol. 53), informs us,—

Vnica ſemper auis

[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]

Comme le Phenix eſt à jamais ſeul, & vnique Oiſeau au monde de ſon
eſpece. Auſſi ſont les tresbonnes choſes de merueilleuſe rarité, & bien
cler ſemees. Deuiſe que porte Madame Alienor d’ Auſtriche, Roine
Douairiere de France.

Theophraſte.

_i.e._ “As the Phœnix is always alone, and the only bird of its kind in
the world, so are very good things of marvellous rarity and very thinly
sown. It is the device which Madam Elinor of Austria bears, Queen
Dowager of France.”

The Phœnix is Reusner’s 36th Emblem (bk. ii. p. 98),—

Vnica ſemper auis
_EMBLEMA XXXVI._

[Illustration: _Reusner, 1581._]

_Quæ thuris lacrymis, & ſucco viuit amomi:_[165]
_Fert cunas Phœnix, buſta paterna, ſuas._

Sixteen elegiac lines of Latin are devoted to its praise and typical
signification, mixed with some curious theological conjectures,—

“On tears of frankincense, and on the juice of balsam lives
The Phœnix, and bears its cradle, the coffin of its sire.
Always alone is this bird;—itself its own father and son,
By death alone does it give to itself a new life.
For oft as on earth it has lived the ten ages through,
Dying at last, in the fire it is born of its own funeral pile.
So to himself and to his, Christ gives life by his death,
Life to his servants, whom in equal love he joins to himself.
True Man is he, the one true God, arbiter of ages,
Who illumines with light, with his spirit cherishes all.
Happy, who by holy baptisms in Christ is reborn,
In the sacred stream he takes hold of life,—in the stream he obtains
it.”

And again, in reference to the birth unto life eternal,—

“If men report true, death over again forms the Phœnix,
To this bird both life and death the same funeral pile may prove.
Onward, executioners! of the saints burn ye the sainted bodies;
For whom ye desire perdition, to them brings the flame new birth.”

Whitney, borrowing his woodcut and motto from Plantin’s edition of “LES
DEVISES HEROIQVES,” 1562, to a very considerable degree makes the
explanatory stanzas his own both in the conception and in the
expression. The chief town near to his birth-place had on December 10,
1583, been almost totally destroyed by fire, but through the munificence
of the Queen and many friends, by 1586, “the whole site and frame of the
town, so suddenly ruined, was with great speed re-edified in that
beautifull manner,” says the chronicler, “that now it is.” The Phœnix
(p. 177) is standing in the midst of the flames, and with outspreading
wings is prepared for another flight in renewed youth and vigour.

_Vnica semper auis._
_To my countrimen of the_ Namptwiche _in Cheshire_.

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

“THE Phœnix rare, with fethers freshe of hewe,
ARABIAS righte, and sacred to the Sonne:
Whome, other birdes with wonder seeme to vewe,
Dothe liue vntill a thousande yeares bee ronne:
Then makes a pile: which, when with Sonne it burnes,
Shee flies therein, and so to ashes turnes.

Whereof, behoulde, an other Phœnix rare,
With speede dothe rise most beautifull and faire:
And thoughe for truthe, this manie doe declare,
Yet thereunto, I meane not for to sweare:
Althoughe I knowe that Aucthors witnes true,
What here I write, bothe of the oulde, and newe.

Which when I wayed, the newe, and eke the oulde,
I thought vppon your towne destroyed with fire:
And did in minde, the newe NAMPWICHE behoulde,
A spectacle for anie mans desire:
Whose buildinges braue, where cinders weare but late,
Did represente (me thought) the Phœnix fate.

And as the oulde, was manie hundreth yeares,
A towne of fame, before it felt that crosse:
Euen so, (I hope) this WICHE, that nowe appeares,
A Phœnix age shall laste, and knowe no losse:
Which GOD vouchsafe, who make you thankfull, all:
That see this rise, and sawe the other fall.”

The _Concordance to Shakespeare_, by Mrs. Cowden Clarke, for
thoroughness hitherto unmatched,[166] notes down eleven instances in
which the Phœnix is named, and in most of them, with some epithet
expressive of its nature. It is spoken of as the Arabian bird, the bird
of wonder; its nest of spicery is mentioned; it is made an emblem of
death, and employed in metaphor to flatter both Elizabeth and James.

Besides the instances already given (p. 236), we here select others of a
general nature; as:—When on the renowned Talbot’s death in battle, Sir
William Lucy, in presence of Charles, the Dauphin, exclaims over the
slain (_1 Hen. VI._, act iv. sc. 7, l. 92),—

“O that I could but call these dead to life!
It were enough to fright the realm of France:”

his request for leave to give their bodies burial is thus met,—

“_Pucelle._ I think this upstart is old Talbot’s ghost,
He speaks with such a proud commanding spirit.
For God’s sake, let him have ’em....
_Charles._ Go, take their bodies hence.
_Lucy._ I’ll bear them hence; but from their ashes shall be rear’d
A phœnix, that shall make all France afeard.”

And York, on the haughty summons of Northumberland and Clifford,
declares (_3 Hen. VI._, act i. sc. 4, l. 35),—

“My ashes, as the Phœnix, may bring forth
A bird that will revenge upon you all.”

In the _Phœnix and the Turtle_ (lines 21 and 49, vol. ix. p. 671), are
the lines,—

“Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phœnix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.
. . . . . .
Whereupon it made this threne
To the phœnix and the dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene.”

The “threne,” or _Lamentation_ (l. 53, vol. ix. p. 672), then follows,—

“Beauty, truth and rarity
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclosed in cinders lie.

Death is now the phœnix’ nest;
And the turtle’s loyal breast
To eternity doth rest.”

The Maiden in _The Lover’s Complaint_ (l. 92, vol. ix. p. 638) thus
speaks of her early love,—

“Small show of man was yet upon his chin;
His phœnix down began but to appear,
Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin,
Whose bare out-bragg’d the web it seem’d to wear.”

Some of the characteristics of the Phœnix are adduced in the dialogue,
_Richard III._ (act iv. sc. 4, l. 418, vol. v. p. 606), between Richard
III. and the queen or widow of Edward IV. The king is proposing to marry
her daughter,—

“_Q. Eliz._ Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?
_K. Rich._ Ay, if the devil tempt thee to do good.
_Queen._ Shall I forget myself, to be myself?
_K. Rich._ Ay, if yourself’s remembrance wrong yourself.
_Queen._ But thou didst kill my children.
_K. Rich._ But in your daughter’s womb I bury them:
Where in that nest of spicery, they shall breed
Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.”

Another instance is from _Antony and Cleopatra_ (act iii. sc. 2, l. 7,
vol. ix. p. 64). Agrippa and Enobarbus meet in Cæsar’s ante-chamber, and
of Lepidus Enobarbus declares,—

“O how he loves Cæsar!
_Agrip._ Nay, but how dearly he adores Marc Antony!
_Enob._ Cæsar? Why, he’s the Jupiter of men.
_Agrip._ What’s Antony? The god of Jupiter.
_Enob._ Speak you of Cæsar? How? the nonpareil!
_Agrip._ O Antony! O thou Arabian bird!”

And in _Cymbeline_ (act i. sc. 6, l. 15, vol. ix. p. 183), on being
welcomed by Imogen, Iachimo says, _aside_,—

“All of her that is out of door most rich!
If she be furnish’d with a mind so rare.
She is alone th’ Arabian Bird, and I
Have lost the wager.”

But the fullest and most remarkable example is from _Henry VIII._ (act
v. sc. 5, l. 28, vol. vi. p. 114). Cranmer assumes the gift of
inspiration, and prophesies of the new-born child of the king and of
Anne Bullen an increase of blessings and of all princely graces,—

“Truth shall nurse her,
Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her:
She shall be loved and fear’d: her own shall bless her;
Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn,
And hang their heads with sorrow. Good grows with her:
In her days every man shall eat in safety,
Under his own vine, what he plants, and sing
The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours:
God shall be truly known; and those about her
From her shall read the perfect ways of honour,
And by these claim their greatness, not by blood.
Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but, as when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phœnix,
Her ashes new create another heir,
As great in admiration as herself,
So shall she leave her blessedness to one—
When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness—
Who from the sacred ashes of her honour
Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was,
And so stand fix’d.”

There is another bird, the emblem of tranquillity and of peaceful and
happy days; it is the KING-FISHER, which the poets have described with
the utmost embellishment of the fancy. Aristotle and Pliny tell even
more marvellous tales about it than Herodotus and Horapollo do about the
Phœnix.

The fable, on which the poetic idea rests, is two-fold; one that
Alcyone, a daughter of the wind-god Æolus, had been married to Ceyx; and
so happily did they live that they gave one another the appellations of
the gods, and by Jupiter in anger were changed into birds; the other
narrates, that Ceyx perished from shipwreck, and that in a passion of
grief Alcyone threw herself into the sea. Out of pity the gods bestowed
on the two the shape and habit of birds. Ovid has greatly enlarged the
fable, and has devoted to it, in his _Metamorphoses_ (xi. 10), between
three and four hundred lines. We have only to do with the conclusion,—

“The gods at length taking compassion
The pair are transformed into birds; tried by one destiny
Their love remained firm; nor is the conjugal bond
Loosened although they are birds; parents they become,
And through a seven days’ quietness in midwinter
In nests upborne by the sea the King-fishers breed.
Safe then is the sea-road; the winds Æolus guards,
Debarring from egress; and ocean’s plain favours his children.”

According to Aristotle’s description (_Hist. Anim._ ix. 14),—

“The nest of the Alcyon is globular, with a very narrow entrance, so
that if it should be upset the water would not enter. A blow from iron
has no effect upon it, but the human hand soon crushes it and reduces it
to powder. The eggs are five.”

“The _halcyones_,” Pliny avers, “are of great name and much marked.
The very seas, and they that saile thereupon, know well when they sit
and breed. This bird, so notable, is little bigger than a sparrow; for
the more part of her pennage, blew, intermingled yet among with white
and purple feathers; having a thin small neck and long withal they lay
and sit about mid-winter, when daies be shortest; and the times while
they are broodie, is called the _halcyon_ daies; for during that
season the sea is calm and navigable, especially on the coast of
Sicilie.”—_Philemon Holland’s Plinie_, x. 32.

We are thus prepared for the device which Paolo Giovio sets before his
readers, with an Italian four-lined stanza to a French motto, _We know
well the weather_. The drawing suggests that the two Alcyons in one nest
are sailing “on the coast of Sicilie,” in the straits of Messina, with
Scylla and Charybdis on each hand—but in perfect calmness and security,—

_DE I MEDESIMI._

Novs scavons bien le temps

[Illustration: _Giovio, 1562._]

_San gl’ Alcionij augei il tempo eletto,
Ch’ al nido; e all’ oua lor non nuoca il mare.
Infelice quell’ huom, ch’el dí aſpettare
Non ſa, per dare al ſuo diſegno effetto._

Nous ſauons bien le temps.

“Happy the Alcyons, whom choice times defend.
Nor in the nest nor egg the sea can harm;
But luckless man knows not to meet alarm,
Nor to his purpose gives the wished for end.”

The festival of Saint Martin, or Martlemas, is held November 11th, at
the approach of winter, and was a season of merriment and good cheer. It
is in connection with this festival that Shakespeare first introduces a
mention of the Alcyon (_1 Henry VI._, act i. sc. 2, l. 129, vol. v. p.
14). The Maid of Orleans is propounding her mission for the deliverance
of France to Reignier, Duke of Anjou,—

“Assign’d I am to be the English scourge.
This night the siege assuredly I’ll raise:
Expect Saint Martin’s summer, halcyon days,
Since I have enter’d into these wars.”

It was, and I believe still is, an opinion prevalent in some parts of
England, that a King-fisher, suspended by the tail or beak, will turn
round as the wind changes. To this fancy, allusion is made in _King
Lear_ (act ii. sc. 2, l. 73, vol. viii. p. 307),—

“Renege, affirm and turn their halcyon beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters,
Knowing nought, like dogs, but following.”

The Poet delights to tell of self-sacrificing love; and hence the
celebrity which the PELICAN has acquired for the strong natural
affection which impels it, so the tale runs, to pour forth the very
fountain of its life in nourishment to its young. From Epiphanius,
bishop of Constantia in the island of Cyprus, whose _Physiologvs_ was
printed by Plantin in 1588, we have the supposed natural history of the
Pelicans and their young, which he symbolizes in the Saviour. His
account is accompanied by a pictorial representation, “ΠΕΡΙ ΤΗΣ
ΠΕΛΕΚΑΝΟΣ,”—_Concerning the Pelican_ (p. 30).

[Illustration: _Epiphanius, 1588._]

The good bishop narrates as physiological history the following,—

“Beyond all birds the Pelican is fond of her young. The female sits
on the nest, guarding her offspring, and cherishes and caresses them and
wounds them with loving; and pierces their sides and they die. After
three days the male pelican comes and finds them dead, and very much his
heart is pained. Driven by grief he smites his own side, and as he
stands over the wounds of the dead young ones, the blood trickles down,
and thus are they made alive again.”

Reusner and Camerarius both adopt the Pelican as the emblem of a good
king who devotes himself to the people’s welfare. _For Law and for
Flock_, is the very appropriate motto they prefix; Camerarius simply
saying (ed. 1596, p. 87),—

“_Sanguine vivificat Pelicanus pignora, sic rex
Pro populi vitæ est prodigus ipse suæ._”

“By blood the Pelican his young revives; and so a king
For his people’s sake himself of life is prodigal.”

Reusner (bk. ii. p. 73) gives the following device,—

Pro lege, & grege.
_EMBLEMA XIV._

[Illustration: _Reusner, 1581._]

And tells how,—

“Alphonsus the wise and good king of Naples, with his own honoured
hand painted a Pelican which with its sharp beak was laying open its
breast so as with its own blood to save the lives of its young. Thus for
people, for law, it is right that a king should die and by his own death
restore life to the nations. As by his own death Christ did restore life
to the just, and with life peace and righteousness.”

He adds this personification of the Pelican,—

“For people and for sanctioned law heart’s life a king will pour;
So from this blood of mine do I life to my young restore.”

The other motto, which Hadrian Junius and Geffrey Whitney select, opens
out another idea, _Quod in te est, prome_,—“Bring forth what is in
thee.” It suggests that of the soul’s wealth we should impart to others.

Junius (Emb. 7) thus addresses the bird he has chosen,—

“By often striking, O Pelican, thou layest open the deep recesses of
thy breast and givest life to thy offspring. Search into thine own mind
(my friend), seek what is hidden within, and bring forth into the light
the seeds of thine inner powers.”

And very admirably does Whitney (p. 87) apply the sentiment to one of
the most eminent of divines in the reign of Queen Elizabeth,—namely, to
Dr. Alexander Nowell, the celebrated Dean of St. Paul’s, illustrious
both for his learning and his example,—

“The Pellican, for to reuiue her younge,
Doth peirce her brest, and geue them of her blood:
Then searche your breste, and as yow haue with tonge,
With penne proceede to doe our countrie good:
Your zeale is great, your learning is profounde,
Then helpe our wantes, with that you doe abounde.”

The full poetry of the thoughts thus connected with the Pelican is taken
in, though but briefly expressed by Shakespeare. In _Hamlet_ (act iv.
sc. 5, l. 135, vol. viii. p. 135), on Laertes determining to seek
revenge for his father’s death, the king adds fuel to the flame,—

“_King._ Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father’s death, is’t writ in your revenge,
That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?
_Laer._ None but his enemies.
_King._ Will you know them then?
_Laer._ To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms;
And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.”[167]

From _Richard II._ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 120, vol. iv. p. 140) we learn how
in zeal and true loyalty John of Gaunt counsels his headstrong nephew,
and how rudely the young king replies,—

“Now, by my seat’s right royal majesty,
Wert thou not brother to great Edward’s son,
This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head
Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.
_Gaunt._ O, spare me not, my brother Edward’s son,
For that I was his father Edward’s son;
That blood already, like the pelican,
Hast thou tapp’d out and drunkenly caroused.”

The idea, indeed, almost supposes that the young pelicans strike at the
breasts of the old ones, and forcibly or thoughtlessly drain their life
out. So it is in _King Lear_ (act iii. sc. 4, l. 68, vol. viii. p. 342),
when the old king exclaims,—

“Death, traitor! nothing could have subdued nature
To such a lowness but his unkind daughters.
Is it the fashion that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! ’twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.”

And again (_2 Henry VI._, act iv. sc. 1, l. 83, vol. v. p. 182), in the
words addressed to Suffolk,—

“By devilish policy art thou grown great,
And, like ambitious Sylla, over-gorged
With gobbets of thy mother’s bleeding heart.”

The description of the wounded stag, rehearsed to the banished duke by
one of his attendants, is as touching a narrative, as full of
tenderness, as any which show the Poet’s wonderful power over our
feelings; it is from _As You Like It_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 29, vol. ii. p.
394),—

“To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself
Did steal behind him [_Jaques_] as he lay along
Under an oak whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood:
To the which place a poor sequester’d stag,
That from the hunter’s aim had ta’en a hurt,
Did come to languish, and indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heaved forth such groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting, and the big round tears
Coursed one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy Jacques,
Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.”

Graphic and highly ornamented though this description may be, it is
really the counterpart of Gabriel Symeoni’s Emblem of love incurable.
The poor stag lies wounded and helpless,—the mortal dart in his flank,
and the life-stream gushing out. The scroll above bears a Spanish motto,
_This holds their Remedy and not I_; and it serves to introduce the
usual quatrain.

D’VN AMORE.
INCVRABILE.

[Illustration: _Giovio and Symeoni_, 1562.]

_Troua il ceruio ferito al ſuo gran male
Nel dittamo Creteo fido ricorſo,
Ma laſſo (io’lsò) rimedio ne ſoccorſo
All’ amoroſo colpo alcun non vale._

Eſto tiene ſu remedio, y non yo.

“The smitten stag hath found sad pains to feel,
No trusted Cretan dittany[168] is near,
Wearied, for succour there is only fear,—
The wounds of love no remedy can heal.”

To the same motto and the same device Paradin (fol. 168) furnishes an
explanation,—

“_The device of love incurable,_” he says, “_may be a stag wounded
by an arrow, having a branch of Dittany in its mouth, which is a herb
that grows abundantly in the island of Crete. By eating this the wounded
stag heals all its injuries. The motto,_ ‘Esto tienne su remedio, y no
yo,’ _follows those verses of Ovid in the Metamorphoses, where Phœbus,
complaining of the love for Daphne, says, ‘~Hei mihi, quòd nullis
amor est medicabilis herbis~.’_”

The connected lines in Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ (bk. i. fab. 9), show that
even Apollo, the god of healing, whose skill does good to all others,
does no good to himself. The _Emblems_ of Otho Vænius (p. 154) gives a
very similar account to that of Symeoni,—

“_Cerua venenato venantûm saucia ferro
Dyctamno quærit vulneris auxilium.
Hei mihi, quod nullis sit Amor medicabilis herbis,
Et nequeat medicâ pellier arte malum._”

The following is the English version of that date,—

“_No help for the louer._”

“The hert that wounded is, knowes how to fynd relief,
And makes by dictamon the arrow out to fall,
And with the self-same herb hee cures his wound withall,
But love no herb can fynd to cure his inward grief.”

In the presence of those who had slain Cæsar, and over his dead body at
the foot of Pompey’s statue, “which all the while ran blood,” Marc
Antony poured forth his fine avowal of continued fidelity to his friend
(_Julius Cæsar_, act iii. sc. 1, l. 205, vol. vii. p. 368),—

“Pardon me, Julius! Here wast thou bay’d, brave hart;
Here didst thou fall, and here thy hunters stand,
Sign’d in thy spoil and crimson’d in thy lethe.
O world! thou wast the forest to this hart;
And this, indeed, O world, the heart of thee.
How like a deer strucken by many princes
Dost thou here lie!”

The same metaphor from the wounded deer is introduced in _Hamlet_ (act
iii. sc. 2, l. 259, vol. viii. p. 97). The acting of the play has had on
the king’s mind the influence which Hamlet hoped for; and as in haste
and confusion the royal party disperse, he recites the stanza,—

“Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, whilst some must sleep:
Thus runs the world away.”

The very briefest allusion to the subject of our Emblem is also
contained in the _Winter’s Tale_ (act i. sc. 2, l. 115, vol. iii. p.
323). Leontes is discoursing with his queen Hermione,—

“But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,
As now they are, and making practised smiles,
As in a looking glass, and then to sigh, as ’twere
The mort o’ the deer; O, that is entertainment
My bosom likes not, nor my brows!”

The poetical epithet “golden,” so frequently expressive of excellence
and perfection, and applied even to qualities of the mind, is declared
by Douce (vol. i. p. 84) to have been derived by Shakespeare either from
Sidney’s _Arcadia_ (bk. ii.), or from Arthur Golding’s translation of
Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ (4to, fol. 8), where speaking of Cupid’s arrows,
he says,—

“_That causeth love_ is all of _golde_ with point full sharp and bright.
That chaseth love, is blunt, whose steele with leaden head is dight.”

This borrowing and using of the epithet “golden” might equally well, and
with as much probability, have taken place through the influence of
Alciat, or by adoption from Whitney’s very beautiful translation and
paraphrase of Joachim Bellay’s _Fable of Cupid and Death_. The two were
lodging together at an inn,[169] and unintentionally exchanged quivers:
death’s darts were made of bone, Cupid’s were “dartes of goulde.”

The conception of the tale is admirable, and the narrative itself full
of taste and beauty. Premising that the same device is employed by
Whitney as by Alciat, we will first give almost a literal version from
the 154th and 155th Emblems of the latter author (edition 1581),—

“Wandering about was Death along with Cupid as companion,
With himself Death was bearing quivers; little Love his weapons;
Together at an inn they lodged; one night together one bed they shared;
Love was blind, and on this occasion Death also was blind.
Unforeseeing the evil, one took the darts of the other,
Death the golden weapons,—those of bone the boy rashly seizes.
Hence an old man who ought now to be near upon Acheron.
Behold him loving,—and for his brow flower-fillets preparing.
But I, since Love smote me with the dart that was changed,
I am fainting, and their hand the fates upon me are laying.
Spare, O boy; spare, O Death, holding the ensigns victorious,—
Make me the lover, the old man make him sink beneath Acheron.”

And carrying on the idea into the next Emblem (155),—

“Why, O Death, with thy wiles darest thou deceive Love the boy,
That thy weapons he should hurl, while he thinks them his own?”

Whitney’s “sportive tale, concerning death and love,” possesses
sufficient merit to be given in full (p. 132),—

_De morte, & amore: Iocoſum._
_To_ EDWARD DYER, _Eſquier._

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

“While furious Mors, from place, to place did flie,
And here, and there, her fatall dartes did throwe:
At lengthe shee mette, with Cupid passing by,
Who likewise had, bene busie with his bowe:
Within one Inne, they bothe togeather stay’d,
And for one nighte, awaie theire shooting lay’d.

The morrowe next, they bothe awaie doe haste,
And eache by chaunce, the others quiuer takes:
The frozen dartes, on Cupiddes backe weare plac’d.
The fierie dartes, the leane virago shakes:
Whereby ensued, suche alteration straunge,
As all the worlde, did wonder at the chaunge.

For gallant youthes, whome Cupid thoughte to wounde,
Of loue, and life, did make an ende at once.
And aged men, whome deathe woulde bringe to grounde:
Beganne againe to loue, with sighes, and grones;
Thus natures lawes, this chaunce infringed soe:
That age did loue, and youthe to graue did goe.

Till at the laste, as Cupid drewe his bowe,
Before he shotte: a younglinge thus did crye,
Oh Venus sonne, thy dartes thou doste not knowe,
They pierce too deepe: for all thou hittes, doe die:
Oh spare our age, who honored thee of oulde,
Theise dartes are bone, take thou the dartes of goulde.

Which beinge saide, a while did Cupid staye,
And sawe, how youthe was almoste cleane extinct:
And age did doate, with garlandes freshe, and gaye,
And heades all balde, weare newe in wedlocke linckt:
Wherefore he shewed, this error vnto Mors,
Who miscontent, did chaunge againe perforce.

Yet so, as bothe some dartes awaie conuay’d,
Which weare not theirs: yet vnto neither knowne,
Some bonie dartes, in Cupiddes quiver stay’d,
Some goulden dartes, had Mors amongst her owne.
Then, when wee see, vntimelie deathe appeare:
Or wanton age: it was this chaunce you heare.”

For an interlude to our remarks on the “golden,” we must mention that
the pretty tale _Concerning Death and Cupid_ was attributed to Whitney
by one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries; and, if known to other literary
men of the age, very reasonably may be supposed not unknown to the
dramatist. Henry Peacham, in 1612, p. 172 of his _Emblems_, acknowledges
that it was from Whitney that he derived his own tale,—

“_De Morte, et Cupidine._”

“DEATH meeting once, with _CVPID_ in an Inne,
Where roome was scant, togeither both they lay.
Both weariè, (for they roving both had beene,)
Now on the morrow when they should away,
_CVPID_ Death’s quiver at his back had throwne,
And _DEATH_ tooke _CVPIDS_, thinking it his owne.

By this o’re-sight, it shortly came to passe,
That young men died, who readie were to wed:
And age did revell with his bonny-lasse,
Composing girlonds for his hoarie head:
Invert not Nature, oh ye Powers twaine,
Giue _CVPID’S_ dartes, and _Death_ take thine againe.”

Whitney luxuriates in this epithet “golden;”—golden fleece, golden hour,
golden pen, golden sentence, golden book, golden palm are found recorded
in his pages. At p. 214 we have the lines,—

“A Leaden sworde, within a goulden sheathe,
Is like a foole of natures finest moulde,
To whome, shee did her rarest giftes bequethe,
Or like a sheepe, within a fleece of goulde.”

We may indeed regard Whitney as the prototype of Hood’s world-famous
“Miss Kilmansegg, with her golden leg,”—

“And a pair of Golden Crutches.” (vol. i. p. 189.)

Shakespeare is scarcely more sparing in this respect than the Cheshire
Emblematist; he mentions for us “golden tresses of the dead,” “golden
oars and a silver stream,” “the glory, that in gold clasps locks in the
golden story,” “a golden casket,” “a golden bed,” and “a golden mind.”
_Merchant of Venice_ (act ii. sc. 7, lines 20 and 58, vol. ii. p. 312),—

“A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross.
. . . . . .
But here an angel in a golden bed
Lies all within.”

And applied direct to Cupid’s artillery in _Midsummer Night’s Dream_
(act i. sc. 1, l. 168, vol. ii. p. 204), Hermia makes fine use of the
epithet golden,—

“My good Lysander!
I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow,
By his best arrow with the golden head.”

So in _Twelfth Night_ (act i. sc. 1, l. 33, vol. iii. p. 224), Orsino,
Duke of Milan, speaks of Olivia,—

“O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame
To pay the debt of love but to a brother,
How will she love, when the rich golden shaft
Hath kill’d the flock of all affections else
That live in her; when liver, brain and heart
These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and fill’d
Her sweet perfections with one self king!”

And when Helen praised the complexion or comeliness of Troilus above
that of Paris, Cressida avers (_Troilus and Cressida_, act i. sc. 2, l.
100, vol. vi. p. 134),—

“I had as lief Helen’s golden tongue had commended Troilus for a
copper nose.”

_Plate 14_

THEATRVM VITÆ
HVMANÆ.

CAPVT I.

_VITA HVMANA EST TANQVAM_

_Theatrum omnium miſeriarum._

[Illustration: _Life as a Theatre, from Boissards Theatrum 1596._]

_Vita hominis tanquam circus, vel grande theatrum est:
Quod tragici ostentat cuncta referta metus.
Hoc laſciva caro, peccatum, morsſque, Satanque
Triſti hominem vexant, exagitantque modo._

As Whitney’s pictorial illustration represents them, Death and Cupid are
flying in mid-air, and discharging their arrows from the clouds.
Confining the description to Cupid, this is exactly the action in one of
the scenes of the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 155, vol.
ii. p. 216). The passage was intended to flatter Queen Elizabeth; it is
Oberon who speaks,—

“That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm’d: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned by the west,
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft
Quench’d in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy free.
Yet mark’d I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.”

Scarcely by possibility could a dramatist, who was also an actor, avoid
the imagery of poetic ideas with which his own profession made him
familiar. I am not sure if Sheridan Knowles did not escape the
temptation; but if Shakespeare had done so, it would have deprived the
world of some of the most forcible passages in our language. The theatre
for which he wrote, and the stage on which he acted, supplied materials
for his imagination to work into lines of surpassing beauty.

Boissard’s “THEATRVM VITÆ HUMANÆ” (edition Metz, 4to, 1596) presents its
first Emblem with the title,—_Human life is as a Theatre of all
Miseries_. (See Plate XIV.)

“The life of man a circus is, or theatre so grand:
Which every thing shows forth filled full of tragic fear;
Here wanton sense, and sin, and death, and Satan’s hand
Molest mankind and persecute with penalties severe.”

The picture of human life which Boissard draws in his “Address to the
Reader” is gloomy and dispiriting; there are in it, he declares, the
various miseries and calamities to which man is subject while he
lives,—and the conflicts to which he is exposed from the sharpest and
cruellest enemies, the devil, the flesh, and the world; and from their
violence and oppression there is no possibility of escape, except by the
favour and help of God’s mercy.

Very similar ideas prevail in some of Shakespeare’s lines; as “the
thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” (_Hamlet_, act iii. sc.
1, l. 62, vol. viii. p. 79); “my heart all mad with misery beats in this
hollow prison of my flesh” (_Titus Andronicus_, act iii. sc. 2, l. 9,
vol. vi. p. 483); and, “shake the yoke of inauspicious stars from this
world-wearied flesh” (_Romeo and Juliet_, act v. sc. 3, l. 111, vol.
vii. p. 126).

But more particularly in _As You Like It_ (act ii. sc. 7, l. 136, vol.
ii. p. 409),—

“Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.”

Also in _Macbeth_ (act v. sc. 5, l. 22, vol. vii. p. 512),—

“And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.”

And when the citizens of Angiers haughtily closed their gates against
both King Philip and King John, the taunt is raised (_King John_, act
ii. sc. 1, l. 373, vol. iv. p. 26),—

“By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,
And stand securely on their battlements,
As in a theatre, whence they gape and point
At your industrious scenes and acts of death.”

_Plate 15_

[Illustration: _Seven Ages of Life from an early Block Print in the
British Museum_]

The stages or ages of man have been variously divided. In the Arundel
MS., and in a Dutch work printed at Antwerp in 1820, there are ten of
these divisions of Man’s Life.[170] The celebrated physician Hippocrates
(B.C. 460–357), and Proclus, the Platonist (A.D. 412–485), are said to
have divided human life, as Shakespeare has done, into _seven_ ages. And
a mosaic on the pavement of the cathedral at Siena gives exactly the
same division. This mosaic is very curious, and is supposed to have been
executed by Antonio Federighi in the year 1476. Martin’s “SHAKSPERE’S
SEVEN AGES,” published in 1848, contains a little narrative about it,
furnished by Lady Calcott, who shortly before that time had been
travelling in Italy,—

“We found,” she says, “in the cathedral of Sienna a curious proof
that the division of human life into seven periods, from infancy to
extreme old age with a view to draw a moral inference, was common before
Shakspeare’s time: the person who was showing us that fine church
directed our attention to the large and bold designs of Beccafumi, which
are inlaid in black and white in the pavement, entirely neglecting some
works of a much older date which appeared to us to be still more
interesting on account of the simplicity and elegance with which they
are designed. Several of these represent Sibyls and other figures of a
mixed moral and religious character; but in one of the side chapels we
were both suprised and pleased to find seven figures, each in a separate
compartment, inlaid in the pavement, representing the Seven Ages of
Man.”

Lord Lindsay notices the same work, and in his “CHRISTIAN ART,” vol.
iii. p. 112, speaking of the Pavement of the Duomo at Siena,
says,—“Seven ages of life in the Southern Nave, near the Capella del
Voto.”

Of as old a date, even if not more ancient, is the Representation of the
Seven Ages from a Block-Print belonging to the British Museum, and of
which we present a diminished facsimile (Plate XV.), the original
measuring 15½ in. by 10½ in.

The inscription on the centre of the wheel, _Rota vite que septima
notatur_,—“The wheel of life which seven times is noted:” on the outer
rim,—_Est velut aqua labuntur deficiens ita. Sic ornati nascuntur in hac
mortali vita_,—“It is as water so failing, they pass away. So furished
are they born in this mortal life.” The figures for the seven ages are
inscribed, _Infans ad vii. annos_,—“An infant for vii. years.”
_Pueritia_[171] _ad xv. años_,—“Childhood up to xv. years.” _Adolescẽtia
ad xxv. años_,—“Youthhood to xxv. years.” _Iuvẽtus ad xxxv.
annos_,—“Young manhood to xxxv. years.” _Virilitas ad l. annos_,—“Mature
manhood to 50 years.” _Senatus ad lxx. annos_,—“Age to 70 years.”
_Decrepitus usque ad mortem_,—“Decrepitude up to death.” The angel with
the scrolls holds in her right hand that on which is written _Beuerano_,
in her left, _Corruptio_,—“Corruption;” below her left, _clav_, for
_clavis_, “a key.”

Some parts of the Latin stanzas are difficult to decipher; they appear,
however, to be the following, read downward,—

“Est hominis status in flore significatus
Situ sentires quis esses et unde venisses
Sunt triaque vere quæ faciunt me sæpe dicere,
Secundum timeo quia hoc nescio quando

Flos cadit et periit sic homo cinis erit
Nunquam rideres sed olim sæpe fleres
Est primo durum quare scio me moriturum
Hinc ternum flebo quare nescio ut manebo.”

The lines, however, are to be read across the page,—

“Est hominis status in flore significatus, Flos cadit et periit sic homo
cinis erit.
Situ sentires quis esses et unde venisses, Nunquam rideres sed olim sæpe
fleres.
Sunt triaque vere quæ faciunt me sæpe dicere, Est primo durum quare scio
me moriturum.
Secundum timeo quia hoc nescio quando, Hinc ternum flebo quare nescio ut
manebo.”

They are only doggerel Latin, and in doggerel English may be expressed,—

“Lo here is man’s state—in flowers significate:
The flower fades and perishes,—so man but ashes is;
Who mayst be thou feelest,—whence com’st thou revealest;

Laugh shouldst thou never,—but be weeping for ever;
Three things there are truly,—which make me say duly,
The first hard thing ’tis to know,—that to death I must go;
The second I fear then,—since I know not the when;—
The third again will I weep,—for I know not in life to keep.”

The celebrated speech of Jaques to his dethroned master, “All the
world’s a stage,” from _As You Like It_ (act ii. sc. 7, lines 139–165,
vol. ii. p. 409), is closely constructed on the model of the
Emblematical Devices in the foregoing Block-print. The simple quoting of
the passage will be sufficient to show the parallelism and
correspondence of the thoughts, if not of the expressions,—

“_Jaques._ All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.”

In far briefer phrase, but with a similar comparison, in reply to the
charge of having “too much respect upon the world,” Antonia (_Merchant
of Venice_, act i. sc. 1, l. 77, vol. ii. p. 281) remarked,—

“I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage, where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.”

The pencil and the skill alone are wanting to multiply the Emblems for
the Poetic Ideas which abound in Shakespeare’s dramas. His thoughts and
their combinations are in general so clothed with life and with other
elements of beauty, that materials for pictures exist in all parts of
his writings. Our office, however, is not to exercise the inventive
faculty, nor, even when the invention has been perfected for us by the
poet’s fancy, to give it a visible form and to portray its outward
graces. We have simply to gather up the scattered records of the past,
and to show what correspondencies there really are between Shakespeare
and the elder Emblem artists, and, when we can, to point out where to
him they have been models, imitated and thus approved. Though,
therefore, we might draw many a sketch, and finish many a picture from
ideas to be supplied from this unexhausted fountain, we are mindful of
the humbler task belonging to him who collects, and on his shelf of
literary antiquities places, only what has the stamp of nearly three
centuries upon them.

[Illustration: _Boissard, 1596._]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECTION VIII.
_MORAL AND ÆSTHETIC EMBLEMS._

REJOICING much if the end should crown the earlier portions of our work,
we enter now on the last and most welcome section of this chapter,—on
the Emblems which depict moral qualities and æsthetical properties,—the
Emblems which concern the judgments and perceptions of the mind, and the
conduct of the heart, the conscience, and the life.

_Quæ ante pedes._

[Illustration: _Whitney_, 1586.]

We will initiate this division by the motto and device which Whitney (p.
64) adopts from Sambucus (edition 1564, p. 30),—“Things lying at our
feet,”—that is, of immediate importance and urgency. The Emblems are
warnings from the hen which is eating her own eggs, and from the cow
which is drinking her own milk.

The Hungarian poet thus sets forth his theme,—

“The hen which had seen the eggs to her care entrusted,
Is here sucking them, and hope she holds forth by no pledge.
It is herself she serves and not others,—of future days heedless,
No sense of feeling has she for the good of posterity.
This a fault is in many,—things gained without labour
Thoughtless they waste, unmindful of times that are coming.
So cows suck their own udders,—the milk proper for milk pails
They pilfer away,—and why bear to them the rich fodder?
Not alone for ourselves do we live,—we live from the birth hour
For our friends and our country, and whom the ages shall bring.”

The sentiment is admirable, and well placed by Whitney in the foremost
ground,—

“Not for our selues, alone wee are create,
But for our frendes, and for our countries good:
And those, that are vnto theire frendes ingrate,
And not regarde theire ofspringe, and theire blood,
Or hee, that wastes his substance till he begges,
Or selles his landes, which seru’de his parentes well:
Is like the henne, when shee hathe lay’de her egges,
That suckes them vp and leaues the emptie shell,
Euen so theire spoile, to theire reproche, and shame,
Vndoeth theire heire, and quite decayeth theire name.”

These two, Sambucus and Whitney, are the types, affirming that our
powers and gifts and opportunities were all bestowed, not for mere
selfish enjoyments, but to be improved for the general welfare;
Shakespeare is the antitype: he amplifies, and exalts, and finishes; he
carries out the thought to its completion, and thus attains absolute
perfection; for in _Measure for Measure_ (act i. sc. 1, l. 28, vol. i.
p. 296), Vincentio, the duke, addresses Angelo,—

“There is a kind of character in thy life,
That to th’ observer doth thy history
Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings
Are not thine own so proper, as to waste
Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.
Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for ourselves; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch’d
But to fine issues; nor Nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence,
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,
Both thanks and use.”

Now, there is beauty in the types, brief though they be, and on a very
lowly subject: but how admirable is the antitype! It entirely redeems
the thought from any associated meanness, carries it out to its full
excellence, and clothes it with vestments of inspiration. Such, in
truth, is Shakespeare’s great praise;—he can lift another man’s thought
out of the dust, and make it a fitting ornament even for an archangel’s
diadem.

One of Whitney’s finest Emblems, in point of conception and treatment,
and, I believe, peculiar to himself, one of those “newly devised,” is
founded on the sentiment, “By help of God” (p. 203).

_Auxilio diuino._
_To_ RICHARDE DRAKE, _Eſquier, in praiſe of
Sir_ FRANCIS DRAKE _Knight._

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

The representation is that of the hand of Divine Providence issuing from
a cloud and holding the girdle which encompasses the earth. With that
girdle Sir Francis Drake’s ship, “the Golden Hind,” was drawn and guided
round the globe.

The whole Emblem possesses considerable interest,—for it relates to the
great national event of Shakespeare’s youth,—the first accomplishment by
Englishmen of the earth’s circumnavigation. With no more than 164
able-bodied men, in five small ships, little superior to boats with a
deck, the adventurous commander set sail 13th December, 1577; he went by
the Straits of Magellan, and on his return doubled the Cape of Good
Hope, the 15th of March, 1580, having then only fifty-seven men and
three casks of water. The perilous voyage was ended at Plymouth,
September the 26th, 1580, after an absence of two years and ten months.

These few particulars give more meaning to the Poet’s description,—

“Throvghe scorchinge heate, throughe coulde, in stormes, and tempests
force,
By ragged rocks, by shelfes, & sandes: this Knighte did keepe his
course.
By gapinge gulfes hee pass’d, by monsters of the flood,
By pirattes, theeues, and cruell foes, that long’d to spill his blood.
That wonder greate to scape: but, GOD was on his side,
And throughe them all, in spite of all, his shaken shippe did guide.
And, to requite his paines: _By helpe of Power deuine._
His happe, at lengthe did aunswere hope, to finde the goulden mine.
Let GRÆCIA then forbeare, to praise her IASON boulde?
Who throughe the watchfull dragons pass’d, to win the fleece of goulde.
Since by MEDEAS helpe, they weare inchaunted all,
And IASON without perrilles, pass’de: the conqueste therefore small?
But, hee, of whome I write, this noble minded DRAKE,
Did bringe away his goulden fleece, when thousand eies did wake.
Wherefore, yee woorthie wightes, that seeke for forreine landes:
Yf that you can, come alwaise home, by GANGES goulden sandes.
And you, that liue at home, and can not brooke the flood,
Geue praise to them, that passe the waues, to doe their countrie good.
Before which sorte, as chiefe: in tempeste, and in calme,
Sir FRANCIS DRAKE, by due deserte, may weare the goulden palme.”

How similar, in part at least, is the sentiment in _Hamlet_ (act v. sc.
2, l. 8, vol. viii. p. 164),—

“Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well
When our deep plots do pall; and that should learn us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.”

In the Emblem we may note the girdle by which Drake’s ship is guided;
may it not have been the origin of Puck’s fancy in the _Midsummer
Night’s Dream_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 173, vol. ii. p. 216), when he answers
Oberon’s strict command,—

“And be thou here again
Ere the Leviathan can swim a league.

_Puck._ I’ll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.”

Besides, may it not have been from this voyage of Sir Francis Drake, and
the accounts which were published respecting it, that the correct
knowledge of physical geography was derived which Richard II. displays
(act iii. sc. 2, l. 37, &c. vol. iv. p. 165)? as in the lines,—

“when the searching eye of heaven is hid,
Behind the globe, that lights the lower world.
. . . . . .
when from under this terrestrial ball
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines
And darts his light through every guilty hole.
. . . . . .
revell’d in the night
Whilst we were wandering with the antipodes.”

A mere passing allusion to the same sentiment, a hint respecting it, a
single line expressing it, or only a word or two relating to it, may
sometimes very decidedly indicate an acquaintance with the author by
whom the sentiment has been enunciated in all its fulness. Thus,
Shakespeare, in speaking of Benedick, in _Much Ado about Nothing_ (act
v. sc. 1, l. 170, vol. ii. p. 75), makes Don Pedro say,—

“An if she did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly: the
old man’s daughter told us all.”

To which Claudius replies,—

“All, all; and, moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the
garden.”

Now, Whitney (p. 229) has an Emblem on this very subject; the motto,
“God lives and sees.” It depicts Adam concealing himself, and a divine
light circling the words, “VBI ES?”—_Where art thou?_

_Dominus viuit & videt._

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

“Behinde a figtree great, him selfe did ADAM hide:
And thought from GOD hee there might lurke, and should not bee espide.
Oh foole, no corners seeke, thoughe thou a sinner bee;
For none but GOD can thee forgiue, who all thy ~waies~ doth
see.”[172]

With the same motto, “VBI ES?” and a similar device, Georgette de
Montenay (editions 1584 and 1620) carries out the same thought,—

“_Adam pensoit estre fort bien caché,
Quand il se meit ainsi souz le figuier.
Mais il n’y a cachett[e/] où le peché
Aux yeux de Dieu se puisse desnier.
Se vante donc, qui voudra s’oublier,
Que Dieu ne void des hommes la meschance,
Je croy qu’ à rien ne sert tout ce mestier
Qu’ à se donner à tout peché licence._”

The similarity is too great to be named on Shakespeare’s part an
accidental coincidence; it may surely be set down as a direct allusion,
not indeed of the mere copyist, but of the writer, who, having in his
mind another’s thought, does not quote it literally, but gives no
uncertain indication that he gathered it up he cannot tell where, yet
has incorporated it among his own treasures, and makes use of it as
entirely his own.

From Corrozet, Georgette de Montenay, Le Bey de Batilly, and others
their contemporaries, we might adduce various Moral and Æsthetical
Emblems to which there are similarities of thought or of expression in
Shakespeare’s Dramas, but too slight to deserve special notice. For
instance, there are ingratitude, the instability of the world, faith and
charity and hope, calumny, adversity, friendship, fearlessness,—but to
dwell upon them would lengthen our statements and remarks more than is
necessary.

We will, however, make one more extract from Corrozet’s “HECATOMGRAPHIE”
(Emb. 83); to the motto, _Beauty the companion of goodness_; which might
have been in Duke Vincentio’s mind (_Measure for Measure_, act iii. sc.
1, l. 175, vol. i. p. 340) when he addressed Isabel,—

“The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good; the goodness
that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being
the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body of it ever fair.”

Beautlé compaigne de bonté.

[Illustration: _Corrozet, 1540._]

Comme la pierre precieuſe
Eſt à l’anneau d’or bien conioncte,
Ainſi la beaulté gracieuſe
Doibt eſtr[e/] auecq la bonté ioincte.

La pierre bonne
A l’homme donne
Ioyeuseté,
Quand la personne
A voir ſ’adonne
Sa grand clarté,
Mais ſa beaulté
Et dignité
Augmente quand l’or l’enuironne
Que ie compar[e/] à la bonté
Pour ſa treſgrande vtilité
Qui à telle vertu conſonne.

* Form[e/] elegante
Beaulté patente
De personnage
Du tout augmente
Se rend luyſante
Quand il est ſage
Non au viſage,
Mais au courage
Reluyct la bonté excellente
Et alors c’eſt vng chef d’ouurage
Quand on eſt tresbeau de corſage
Et qu’au cueur eſt vertu latente.

The French verse which immediately follows the Emblem well describes
it,—

“As, for the precious stone
The ring of gold is coin’d;
So, beauty in its grace
Should be to goodness join’d.”

The dramas we have liberty to select from furnish several instances of
the same thought. First, from the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ (act iv. sc.
2, l. 38, vol. i. p. 135), in that exquisitely beautiful little song
which answers the question, “Who is Silvia?”—

“Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she;
The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admired be.

Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness.
Love doth to her eyes repair,
To help him of his blindness,
And, being help’d, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.”

But a closer parallelism to Corrozet’s Emblem of beauty joined to
goodness occurs in _Henry VIII._ (act ii. sc. 3, lines 60 and 75, vol.
vi. pp. 45, 46); it is in the soliloquy or _aside_ speech of the Lord
Chamberlain, who had been saying to Anne Bullen,—

“The king’s majesty
Commends his good opinion of you, and
Does purpose honour to you no less flowing
Than Marchioness of Pembroke.”

With perfect tact Anne meets the flowing honours, and says,—

“Vouchsafe to speak my thanks and my obedience,
As from a blushing handmaid to his highness,
Whose health and royalty I pray for.”

In an _aside_ the Chamberlain owns,—

“I have perused her well;
Beauty and honour in her are so mingled
That they have caught the king: and who knows yet
But from this lady may proceed a gem
To lighten all this isle?”

So on Romeo’s first sight of Juliet _(Romeo and Juliet_, act i. sc. 5,
l. 41, vol. vii. p. 30), her beauty and inner worth called forth the
confession,—

“O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.”

And the Sonnet (CV. vol. ix. p. 603, l. 4) that represents love,—

“Still constant in a wondrous excellence;”

also tells us of the abiding beauty of the soul,—

“‘Fair, kind, and true,’ is all my argument,
‘Fair, kind, and true,’ varying to other words;
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
‘Fair, kind, and true,’ have often lived alone,
Which three till now never kept seat in one.”

The power of Conscience, as the soul’s bulwark against adversities, has
been sung from the time when Horace wrote (_Epist._ i. 1. 60),—

“Hic murus aëneus esto,
Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa,”—

“This be thy wall of brass, to be conscious to thyself of no shame,
to become pale at no crime.”

Or, in the still more popular ode (_Carm._ i. 22), which being of old
recited in the palaces of Mæcenas and Augustus at Rome, has, after the
flow of nearly nineteen centuries, been revived in the drawing rooms of
Paris and London, and of the whole civilized world;—

“Integer vitæ, scelerisque purus,
Non eget Mauris jaculis, neque arcu,
Non venenatis gravida sagittis,
Fusce, pharetra,”—

“He, sound in his life, from all transgression free,
Doth need no Moorish javelins, nor bended bow,
Nor of arrows winged with poisons a quiver-tree,
Fuscus, to strike his foe.”[173]

Both these sentiments of the lyric poet have been imitated or adapted by
the dramatic; as in _2 Henry VI._ (act iii. sc. 2, l. 232, vol. v. p.
171), where the good king exclaims,—

“What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted!
Thrice is he arm’d, that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though lock’d up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.”

And again, in _Titus Andronicus_ (act iv. sc. 2, l. 18, vol. vi. p.
492), in the words of the original, on the scroll which Demetrius picks
up,—

“_Dem._ What’s here? A scroll, and written round about!
Let’s see:
[_Reads._] ‘Integer vitæ, scelerisque purus,
Non eget Mauri jaculis, nec arcu.’
_Chi._ O, ’tis a verse in Horace; I know it well:
I read it in the grammar long ago.
_Aar._ Ay, just; a verse in Horace; right, you have it.
[_Aside._] Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!
Here’s no sound jest: the old man hath found their guilt,
And sends them weapons wrapp’d about with lines,
That wound, beyond their feeling, to the quick.”

Several of the Emblem writers, however, propound a sentiment not so
generally known, in which Apollo’s favourite tree, the Laurel, is the
token of a soul unalarmed by threatening evils. Sambucus and Whitney so
consider it, and illustrate it with the motto,—_The pure conscience is
man’s laurel tree._

Conſcientia integra, laurus.

[Illustration: _Sambucus, 1564._]

The saying rests on the ancient persuasion that the laurel is the sign
of joy, victory and safety, and that it is never struck even by the
bolts of Jove. Sambucus, personifying the laurel, celebrates its praise
in sixteen elegiac lines beginning,—

“PRONA _virens cælum ſpecto, nec fulmina terrent,
Ob ſcelus excelſa quæ iacit arce pater,” &c._

“Spread out flourishing heaven I survey, nor do lightnings terrify,
Though for crime’s sake the father hurls them from citadels on high,
Yea even with my leaves I crackle, and although burnt
Daphne I name, whom the master’s love so importuned.
So conscious virtue strengthens, and placed far from destruction
Pleasing my state is to powers above, and long time is flourishing.
Men’s voices he never fears, nor the weapons of fire,
Who hath girded his mind round with snow-bright love.
This mind the raging Eumenides will not distress, nor the home
For the sad and the guiltless overturn’d without cause.
Even the hoary swan worn out in inactive old age
Gives forth admonitions, as it sings from a stifling throat;
Pure of heart with its mate conversing, it washes in water,
And morals of clearest hue in due form rehearses.
Who repents of unlawful life, and whom conscious errors
Do not oppress,—that man sings forth hymns everlasting.”

These thoughts in briefer and more nervous style Whitney rehearses to
the old theme, _A brazen wall, a sound conscience_ (p. 67),—

_Murus æneus, ſana conſcientia._
_To_ MILES HOBART _Eſquier_.

“BOTHE freshe, and greene, the Laurell standeth sounde,
Thoughe lightninges flasshe, and thunderboltes do flie:
Where, other trees are blasted to the grounde,
Yet, not one leafe of it, is withered drie:
Euen so, the man that hathe a conscience cleare.
When wicked men, doe quake at euerie blaste,
Doth constant stande, and dothe no perrilles feare,
When tempestes rage, doe make the worlde agaste:
Suche men are like vnto the Laurell tree,
The others, like the blasted boughes that die.”

But a much fuller agreement with the above motto does Whitney express in
the last stanza of Emblem 32,—

“A conscience cleare, is like a wall of brasse,
That dothe not shake, with euerie shotte that hittes;
Eauen soe there by, our liues wee quiet passe,
When guiltie mindes, are rack’de with fearful fittes:
Then keepe thee pure, and soile thee not with sinne,
For after guilte, thine inwarde greifes beginne.”

The same property is assigned to the Laurel by Joachim Camerarius (“EX
RE HERBARIA,” p. 35, edition 1590). He quotes several authorities, or
opinions for supposing that the laurel was not injured by lightning.
Pliny, he says, supported the notion; the Emperor Tiberius in thunder
storms betook himself to the shelter of the laurel; and Augustus before
him did the same thing, adding as a further protection a girdle made
from the skin of a sea-calf. Our modern authorities give no countenance
to either of these fancies.

Now, combining the thoughts on Conscience presented by the Emblems on
the subject which have been quoted, can we fail to perceive in
Shakespeare, when he speaks of Conscience and its qualities, a general
agreement with Sambucus, and more especially with Whitney?

How finely, in _Henry VIII._ (act iii. sc. 2, l. 372, vol. vi. p. 76),
do the old Cardinal and his faithful Cromwell converse,—

“_Enter_ CROMWELL, _and stands amazed._
_Wol._ Why, how now, Cromwell!
_Crom._ I have no power to speak, sir.
_Wol._ What, amazed
At my misfortunes? can thy spirit wonder
A great man should decline? Nay, an you weep,
I am fall’n indeed.
_Crom._ How does your grace?
_Wol._ Why, well:
Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell.
I know myself now; and I feel within me
A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.
. . . . . . . .
I am able now, methinks,
Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,
To endure more miseries and greater far
Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.”

And, on the other hand, the stings of Conscience, the deep remorse for
iniquities, the self-condemnation which lights upon the sinful, never
had expounder so forcible and true to nature. When Alonso, as portrayed
in the _Tempest_ (act iii. sc. 3, l. 95, vol. i. p. 53), thought of his
cruel treachery to his brother Prospero, he says,—

“O, it is monstrous, monstrous!
Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it:
The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder.
That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounced
The name of Prosper: it did bass my trespass.”

And the King’s dream, on the eve of Bosworth battle (_Richard III._, act
v. sc. 3, lines 179, 193, and 200, vol. v. p. 625), what a picture it
gives of the tumult of his soul!—

“O coward conscience, how dost thou affright me!
. . . . . . . .
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
. . . . . . . .
There is no creature loves me;
And, if I die, no soul shall pity me:—
Nay, wherefore should they? since that I myself,
Find in myself no pity to myself.
Methought, the souls of all that I had murder’d
Came to my tent; and everyone did threat
To-morrow’s vengeance on the head of Richard.”

Various expressions of the dramatist may end this notice of the Judge
within us,—

“The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul.”

“Every man’s conscience is a thousand swords
To fight against that bloody homicide.”

“I’ll haunt thee, like a wicked conscience still,
That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy thought.”

“Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.”

In some degree allied to the power of conscience is the retribution for
sin ordained by the Divine Wisdom. We have not an Emblem to present in
illustration, but the lines from _King Lear_ (act v. sc. 3. l. 171, vol.
viii. p. 416),—

“The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us,”—

are so co-incident with a sentiment in the _Confessions_ (bk. i. c. 12,
§ 19) of the great Augustine that they deserve at least to be set in
juxta-position. The Bishop is addressing the Supreme in prayer, and
naming the sins and follies of his youth, says,—

“_De peccanti meipso justè retribuebas mihi._ JUSISTI _enim, & sic
est, ut pœna sua sibi sit omnis inordinatus animis._”

_i.e._ “By my own sin Thou didst justly punish me. For thou hast
commanded, and so it is, that every inordinate affection should bear its
own punishment.”[174]

“_Timon of Athens_,” we are informed by Dr. Drake (vol. ii. p. 447), “is
an admirable satire on the folly and ingratitude of mankind; the former
exemplified in the thoughtless profusion of Timon, the latter in the
conduct of his pretended friends; it is, as Dr. Johnson observes,—

“‘A very powerful warning against that ostentatious liberality,
which scatters bounty, but confers no benefits, and buys flattery but
not friendship.’”

There is some doubt whether Shakespeare derived his idea of this play
from the notices of Timon which appear in Lucian, or from those given by
Plutarch. The fact, however, that the very excellent work by Sir Thomas
North, Knight, _The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romaines, &c._, was
published in 1579,—and that Shakespeare copies it very closely in the
account of Timon’s sepulchre and epitaph, show, I think, Plutarch to
have been the source of his knowledge of Timon’s character and life.

One of the Emblem writers, Sambucus, treated of the same subject in
eighteen Latin elegiacs, and expressly named it, _Timon the
Misanthrope_. The scene, too, which the device represents, is in a
garden, and we can very readily fancy that the figure on the left is the
old steward Flavius come to reason with his master,—

Μισάνθρωπ!ος! Τίμων.
_Ad Hieron. Cardanum._

[Illustration: _Sambucus, 1584._]

ODERAT _hic cunctos, nec ſe, nec amabat amicos,
Μισῶν ἀνθρώπους nomina digna gerens.
Hoc vitium, & morbus de bili naſcitur atra,
Anxiat hæc, curas ſuppeditatque graues.
Quapropter cecidiſſe piro, fregiſſeque crura
Fertur, & auxilium non petiiſſe malo.
Suauibus à sociis, & conſuetudine dulci
Qui se ſubducunt, vulnera ſæua ferunt.
Conditio hæc miſera eſt, triſtes ſuſpiria ducunt,
Cumque nihil cauſæ eſt, occubuiſſe velint.
At tu dum poteris, noto ſociere ſodali,
Subleuet vt preſſum, corque dolore vacet.
Quos nulla attingunt prorſus commercia grato
Atque ſodalitio, ſubſidiisque carent:
Aut Dij ſunt proprij, aut falſus peruertit inanes
Senſus, vt hos ſtolidos, vanaque corda putes.
Tu verò tandem nobis dialectica ſponte
Donata, in lucem mittito, ſi memor es._

In this case we have given the Latin of Sambucus in full, and append a
nearly literal translation,—

“All men did he hate, nor loved himself, nor his kindred,—
One hating mankind was the name, worthy of him, he bore.
This faultiness and disease from the black bile arise,
When freely it flows heavy cares it increases.
Wherefore from a pear tree he is said to have fallen,
To have broken his legs, nor help to have sought for the evil.
From pleasant companions, and sweet conversation
They who withdraw themselves, cruel wounds have to bear.
Wretched this state of theirs, sorrowful what sighs they draw,
And though never a cause arise, ’tis their wish to have died.
But thou, while the power remains, join thy well-known companion,
Thee overwhelmed he strengthens, and free sets the heart from its
grief.
Whom, with a friend that is pleasing, never intercourse touches,
Without companionship, long without assistance they remain.
Either the gods are our own, or false feeling perverteth the soul,
And you fancy men stupid, and their hearts all are vain.
To us at length reasoning power freely being granted,
Into light do thou send them, if of light thou art mindful.”

The character here sketched is deficient in the thorough heartiness of
hatred for which Shakespeare’s Timon is distinguished, yet may it have
served him for the primal material out of which to create the drama. In
Sambucus there is a mistiness of thought and language which might be
said almost to prefigure the doubtful utterances of some of our modern
philosophers, but in Shakespeare the master himself takes in hand the
pencil of true genius, and by the contrasts and harmonies, the
unmistakeable delineations and portraitures, lays on the canvas a
picture as rich in its colouring as it is constant in its fidelity to
nature, and as perfect in its finish as it is bold in its conceptions.

The extravagance of Timon’s hatred may be gathered from only a few of
his expressions,—

“Burn, house! sink, Athens! henceforth hated be
Of Timon man and all humanity.”
_Timon of Athens_, act iii. sc. 6, l. 103

“Timon will to the woods, where he shall find
The unkindest beast more kinder than mankind
The gods confound—hear me, you good gods all!—
The Athenians both within and out that wall!
And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow
To the whole race of mankind, high and low!
Amen.”
Act iv. sc. 1, l. 35.

“All is oblique;
There’s nothing level in our cursed natures
But direct villany. Therefore be abhorr’d
All feasts, societies and throngs of men.”
Act iv. sc. 3, l. 18

“I am misanthropos, and hate mankind.
For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,
That I might love thee something.”
Act iv. sc. 3, l. 51

“I never had honest man about me, I; all
I kept were knaves, to serve in meat to villains.”
Act iv. sc. 3, l. 475

And so his ungoverned passion of hatred goes on until it culminates in
the epitaph placed on his tomb, which he names his “everlasting
mansion,”—

“Upon the beached verge of the salt flood.”

That epitaph as given by Shakespeare, from North’s _Plutarch_ (edition
1579, p. 1003), is almost a literal rendering from the real epitaph
recorded in the Greek Anthology (Jacobs, vol. i. p. 86),—

“Ἐνθάδ’ ἀποῤῥηξας ψυχὴν βαρυδαίμονα κεῖμαι,
Τοὔνομα δ’ οὐ πεύσεσθε, κακοὶ δὲ κακῶς ἀπόλοισθε.”

Of which a very close translation will be,—

“Here, having rent asunder a dæmon oppressed soul, I lie;
The name ye shall not inquire, but ye bad ones badly shall perish.”

The epitaph of the drama (_Timon of Athens_, act v. sc. 4, l. 69, vol.
vii. p. 305) is thus read by Alcibiades from the wax impression taken at
the tomb,—

“Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft:
Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked caitiffs left!
Here lie I, Timon; who, alive, all living men did hate:
Pass by and curse thy fill: but pass and stay not here thy gait.”

Plutarch[175] introduces a mention of Timon into the life of Marc
Antony, whom he compares in some respects to the misanthrope of Athens.
He gives the same epitaph as that of the Anthology above quoted, except
a letter or two,—

“Ἐνθαδ’ ἀποῤῥήξας ψυχὴν βαρυδαίμονα κεῖμαι,
Τοὔνομα δ’ οὐ πευσοισθε, κακοὶ δὲ κακῶς ἀπόλοισθε.”

Plutarch avers, “καὶ τοὺτο μὲν αὐτὸν ἔτιζῶντα πεποιηκέναι λέγουσι,”—“And
people say that during his life he himself made this epitaph.” The
narrator then adds, “τοὺτο δε περιφερόμενον, Καλλιμάχου εστι,”—“But this
round the margin is by Callimachus,”—

“Τίμων μισάνθρωπος ἐσοικέω· ἀλλα πάρελθε
Οἰμώζειν εἴπας πολλὰ, πάρελθε μόνον.”

“I, Timon the manhater dwell within: but pass by,
To bewail _me_ thou hast spoken many things;—only pass by.“

The two epitaphs Shakespeare has combined into one, showing indeed his
acquaintance with the above passage through North’s _Plutarch_, but not
discriminating the authorship of the two parts. North’s translation of
the epitaphs is simple and expressive, but the Langhornes, in 1770,
vulgarise the lines into,—

“At last I’ve bid the knaves farewell
Ask not my name, but go to hell.”

“My name is Timon: knaves begone,
Curse me, but come not near my stone.”

How Wrangham, in his edition of the Langhornes, 1826, could without
notice let this pass for a translation, is altogether unaccountable!

Shakespeare’s, adapted as it is by Sir Thomas North in 1612, may
certainly be regarded as a direct version from the Greek, and might
reasonably be adduced to prove that he possessed some knowledge of that
language. Probably, however, he collected, as he could, the general
particulars respecting the veritable and historical Timon, and obtained
the help of some man of learning so as to give the very epitaph which in
the time of the Peloponnesian war had been placed on the
thorn-surrounded sepulchre of the Athenian misanthrope.

To conclude this notice we may observe that the breaking of the legs,
which Sambucus mentions, is said to have been the actual cause of the
real Timon’s death; for that in his hatred of mankind he even hated
himself, and would not allow a surgeon to attempt his cure.

Envy and Hatred may be considered as nearly allied, the latter too often
springing from the former. Alciat, in his 71st Emblem, gives a brief
description of Envy,—

“SQVALLIDA _vipereas manducans femina carnes,
Cuiq. dolent oculi, quæq. suum cor edit,
Quam macies & pallor habent, spinosaq. gestat
Tela manu: talis pingitur Inuidia._”

Thus amplified with considerable force of expression by Whitney (p.
94),[176]—

_Inuidiæ deſcriptio._

[Illustration: _Whitney_, 1586.]

“WHAT hideous hagge with visage sterne appeares?
Whose feeble limmes, can scarce the bodie staie:
This, Enuie is: leane, pale, and full of yeares,
Who with the blisse of other pines awaie.
And what declares, her eating vipers broode?
That poysoned thoughtes, bee euermore her foode.

What meanes her eies? so bleared, sore, and redd:
Her mourninge still, to see an others gaine.
And what is mente by snakes vpon her head?
The fruite that springes, of such a venomed braine.
But whie, her harte shee rentes within her brest?
It shewes her selfe, doth worke her owne vnrest.

Whie lookes shee wronge? bicause shee woulde not see,
An happie wight, which is to her a hell:
What other partes within this furie bee?
Her harte, with gall: her tonge, with stinges doth swell.
And laste of all, her staffe with prickes aboundes:
Which showes her wordes, wherewith the good shee woundes.”

The dramatist speaks of the horrid creature with equal power. Among his
phrases are,—

“Thou makest thy knife keen; but no metal can,
No, not the hangman’s axe, bear half the keenness
Of thy sharp envy.”
_Merchant of Venice_, act iv. sc. 1, l. 124

“And for we think the eagle-winged pride
Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
With rival-hating envy, set on you
To wake our peace.”
_Richard II._, act i. sc. 3, l. 129

“Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake’s groan,
I would invent as bitter-searching terms,
As curst, as harsh and horrible to hear,
Deliver’d strongly through my fixed teeth,
With full as many signs of deadly hate,
As lean-faced Envy in her loathsome cave.”
_2 Hen. VI._, act iii. sc. 2, l. 310

“’tis greater skill
In a true hate, to pray they have their will:
The very devils cannot plague them better.”
_Cymbeline_, act ii. sc. 5, l. 33

“Men that make
Envy and crooked malice nourishment
Dare bite the best.”
_Hen. VIII._, act v. sc. 3, l. 43

“That monster envy.”
_Pericles_, act iv. _Introd._, l. 12

The ill-famed Thersites, that railer of the Grecian camp, may close the
array against “the hideous hagge with visage sterne” (_Troilus and
Cressida_, act ii. sc. 3, l. 18, vol. vi. p. 169),—

“I have said my prayers; and devil Envy say Amen.”

The wrong done to the soul, through denying it at the last hour the
consolations of religion, or through negligence in not informing it of
its danger when severe illness arises, is set forth with true
Shakespearean power in Holbein’s _Simulachres & Historiees faces de la
Mort_ (Lyons, 1538), on sign. Nij,—

“O si ceulx, qui font telles choses, scauoient le mal qu’ilz font,
ilz ne cõmettroient iamais vne si grande faulte. Car de me oster mes
biens, persecuter ma personne, denigrer ma renommée, ruyner ma maison,
destruire mõ parẽtaige, scãdalizer ma famille, criminer ma vie, ces
ouures sõt dũg cruel ennemy. Mais d’estre occasion, q̃ ie perde mõ ame,
pour nõ la cõseiller au besoing, c’est vne oeuure dũg diable d’Enfer.
Car pire est q̃ vng diable l’hõme, qui trompe le malade.”

It is in a similar strain that Shakespeare in _Othello_ (act iii. sc. 3,
lines 145 and 159, vol. viii. pp. 512, 513) speaks of the wrong done by
keeping back confidence, and by countenancing calumny,—

“_Oth._ Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,
If thou but think’st him wrong’d and mak’st his ear
A stranger to thy thoughts.
. . . . . . . .
_Iago._ It were not for your quiet nor your good,
Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom,
To let you know my thoughts.
_Oth._ What dost thou mean?
_Iago._ Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.”

The gallant ship, courageously handled and with high soul of
perseverance and fearlessness guided through adverse waves, has for long
ages been the type of brave men and brave women struggling against
difficulties, or of states and nations amid opposing influences battling
for deliverance and victory. Even if that gallant ship fails in her
voyage she becomes a fitting type, how “human affairs may decline at
their highest.” So Sambucus, and Whitney after him (p. 11), adapt their
device and stanzas to the motto,—

Res humanæ in ſummo declinant.

[Illustration: _Sambucus, 1584._]

IN _medio librat Phœbus dum lumina cælo,
Diſſoluit radiis, quæ cecidere, niues.
Cùm res humanæ in ſummo ſtant, ſæpe liqueſcunt:
Et nihil æternum, quod rapit atra dies.
Nil iuuat ingentes habitare palatia Reges,
Conditio miſeros hæc eadémque manet.
Mors æquat cunctos, opibus nec parcit in horam,
Verbáque dum Volitant, ocyus illa venit.
Heu, leuiter ventus pellit nos omnis inermes,
Concidimus citiùs quàm leuat aura roſas._

“The gallante Shipp, that cutts the azure surge,
And hathe both tide, and wisshed windes, at will:
Her tackle sure, with shotte her foes to vrge,
With Captaines boulde, and marriners of skill,
With streamers, flagges, topgallantes, pendantes braue,
When Seas do rage, is swallowed in the waue.

The snowe, that falles vppon the mountaines greate,
Though on the Alpes, which seeme the clowdes to reache,
Can not indure the force of Phœbus heate,
But wastes awaie, Experience doth vs teache:
Which warneth all, on Fortunes wheele that clime
To beare in minde how they haue but a time.”

But with brighter auguries, though from a similar device, Alciat (Emb.
43) shadows forth hope for a commonwealth when dangers are threatening.
A noble vessel with its sails set is tossing upon the billows, the
winds, however, wafting it forward; then it is he gives utterance to the
thought, _Constancy the Companion of Victory_; and thus illustrates his
meaning,[177]—

“By storms that are numberless our Commonwealth is shaken,
And hope for safety in the future, hope alone is present:
So a ship with the ocean about her, when the winds seize her,
Gapes with wide fissures ’mid the treacherous waters.
What of help, the shining stars, brothers of Helen, can bring:
To spirits cast down good hope soon doth restore.”

Whitney (p. 37), from the same motto and device, almost with a clarion’s
sound, re-echoes the thought,—

_Constantia comes victoriæ._
_To_ MILES CORBET _Esſquier._

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

“THE shippe, that longe vppon the sea dothe saile,
And here, and there, with varrijng windes is toste:
On rockes, and sandes, in daunger ofte to quaile.
Yet at the lengthe, obtaines the wished coaste:
Which beinge wonne, the trompetts ratlinge blaste,
Dothe teare the skie, for ioye of perills paste.

Thoughe master reste, thoughe Pilotte take his ease,
Yet nighte, and day, the ship her course dothe keepe:
So, whilst that man dothe saile theise worldlie seas,
His voyage shortes: althoughe he wake, or sleepe.
And if he keepe his course directe, he winnes
That wished porte, where lastinge ioye beginnes.”

To a similar purport is the “FINIS CORONAT OPVS,” _The end crowns the
work_,—of Otho Vænius (p. 108), if perchance Shakespeare may have seen
it. Cupid is watching a sea-tossed ship, and appears to say,—

“_Ni ratis optatum varijs iactata procellis
Obtineat portum, tum perijsse puta.
Futilis est diuturnus amor, ni in fine triumphet,
Nam benè cœpit opus, qui benè finit opus._”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“Unless the raft though tossed by various storms
The port desired obtains, think that it perishes;
Vain is the daily love if it no triumph forms,
For well he work begins, who well work finishes.”

Thus, however, rendered at the time into English and Italian,—

“_Where the end is good all is good._”

“The ship toste by the waues doth to no purpose saile,
Vnlesse the porte shee gayn whereto her cours doth tend.
Right so th’ euent of loue appeereth in the end,
For losse it is to loue and neuer to preuaile.”

“Il fine corona l’opere.”

“_Inutile è la naue, che in mar vaga
Senza prender giamai l’amato porto:
Impiagato d’Amor quel cor’ è à torto,
Che con vano sperar mai non s’appaga._”

Messin in his translation of Boissard’s _Emblems_ (edition 1588, p. 24),
takes the motto, “AV NAVIRE AGITÉ _semble le jour de l’homme_,” and
dilates into four stanzas the neatly expressed single stanza of the
original.

“_Vita hæc est tanquam pelago commissa carina,
Instanti semper proxima naufragio.
Optima res homini est non nasci: proxima, si te
Nasci fata velent, quàm citò posse mori._”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“This life is as a keel entrusted to the sea,
Ever to threatening shipwreck nearest.
Not to be born for man is best; next, if to thee
The fates give birth, quick death is dearest.”

Shakespeare takes up these various ideas of which the ship in storm and
in calm is typical, and to some of them undoubtedly gives utterance from
the lips of the dauntless Margaret of Anjou (_3 Henry VI._, act v. sc.
4, l. 1, vol. v. p. 325),—

“Great lords, wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
What though the mast be now blown overboard,
The cable broke, our holding-anchor lost,
And half our sailors swallow’d in the flood?
Yet lives our pilot still: Is’t meet that he
Should leave the helm and like a fearful lad
With tearful eyes add water to the sea
And give more strength to that which hath too much;
Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,
Which industry and courage might have saved?
Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!
Say, Warwick was our anchor; what of that?
And Montague our top-mast; what of him?
Our slaughter’d friends the tackles; what of these?
Why, is not Oxford here another anchor?
And Somerset another goodly mast?
The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?
And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I
For once allow’d the skilful pilot’s charge?
We will not from the helm to sit and weep,
But keep our course, though the rough wind say,—no,
From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck.
As good to chide the waves as speak them fair.
And what is Edward but a ruthless sea?
What Clarence but a quicksand of deceit?
And Richard but a rugged fatal rock?
All these the enemies to our poor bark.
Say, you can swim; alas, ’tis but a while:
Tread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink:
Bestride the rock; the tide will wash you off,
Or else you famish; that’s a threefold death.
This speak I, lords, to let you understand,
If case some one of you would fly from us,
That there’s no hoped-for mercy with the brothers
More than with ruthless waves, with sands and rocks.
Why, courage then! what cannot be avoided
’Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.”

Well did the bold queen merit the outspoken praises of her son,—

“Methinks, a woman of this valiant spirit
Should, if a coward heard her speak these words,
Infuse his breast with magnanimity,
And make him, naked, foil a man at arms.”

And in a like strain, when Agamemnon would show that the difficulties of
the ten years’ siege of Troy were (l. 20),—

“But the protractive trials of great Jove
To find persistive constancy in men;”

the venerable Nestor, in _Troilus and Cressida_ (act i. sc. 3, l. 33,
vol. vi. p. 142), enforces the thought by adding,—

“In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men: the sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail
Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk!
But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and anon behold
The strong-ribb’d bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements
Like Perseus’ horse.
. . . . . . . .
Even so
Doth valour’s show and valour’s worth divide
In storms of fortune: for in her ray and brightness
The herd hath more annoyance by the breese
Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,
And flies fled under shade, why then the thing of courage
As roused with rage with rage doth sympathize,
And with an accent tuned in selfsame key
Retorts to chiding fortune.”

To the same great sentiments Georgette Montenay’s “EMBLEMES
CHRESTIENNES” (Rochelle edition, p. 11) supplies a very suitable
illustration; it is to the motto, _Quem timebo_?—“Whom shall I fear?”—

“_Du grand peril des vens & de la mer,
C’est homme a bien cognoissance très claire,
Et ne craind point de se voir abismer
Rusque son Dieu l’adresse et luy esclaire._”

The device itself is excellent,—a single mariner on a tempestuous sea,
undaunted in his little skiff; and the hand of Providence, issuing from
a cloud, holds out to him a beacon light.

“On a student entangled in love,” is the subject of Alciat’s 108th
Emblem. The lover appears to have been a jurisconsult, whom Alciat,
himself a jurisconsult, represents,—

“Immersed in studies, in oratory and right well skilled,
And great especially in all the processes of law,
Haliarina he loves; as much as ever loved
The Thracian prince his sister’s beauteous maid.
Why in Cyprus dost thou overcome Pallas by another judge?
Sufficient is it not to conquer at Mount Ida?”

The unfinished thoughts of Alciat are brought out more completely by
Whitney, who thus illustrates his subject (p. 135),—

_Jn ſtudioſum captum amore._

[Illustration: _Whitney_, 1586.]

“A Reuerend sage, of wisedome most profounde,
Beganne to doate, and laye awaye his bookes:
For CVPID then, his tender harte did wounde,
That onlie nowe, he lik’de his ladies lookes?
Oh VENVS staie? since once the price was thine,
Thou ought’st not still, at PALLAS thus repine.”

Note, now, how the thoughts of the Emblematists, though greatly excelled
in the language which clothes them, are matched by the avowals which the
severe and grave Angelo made to himself in _Measure for Measure_ (act
ii. sc. 4, l. 1, vol. i. p. 327). He had been disposed to carry out
against another the full severity of the law, which he now felt himself
inclined to infringe, but confesses,—

“When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words:
Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,
As if I did but only chew his name;
And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
Of my conception. The state, whereon I studied,
Is like a good thing, being often read,
Grown fear’d and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein—let no man hear me—I take pride,
Could I with boot change for an idle plume,
Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood:
Let’s write good angel on the devil’s horn;
’Tis not the devil’s crest.”

But the entire force of this parallelism in thought is scarcely to be
apprehended, unless we mark Angelo’s previous conflict of desire and
judgment. Isabel utters the wish, “Heaven keep your honour safe!” And
after a hearty “Amen,” the old man confesses to himself (p. 324),—

“For I am that way going to temptation,
Where prayers cross.”
Act ii. sc. 2, l. 158.

“What’s this, what’s this? Is this her fault or mine?
The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
Ha!
Not she; nor doth she tempt: but it is I
That, lying by the violet in the sun,
Do as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be
That modesty may more betray our sense
Than woman’s lightness.”
Act ii. sc. 2, l. 162.

“What, do I love her,
That I desire to hear her speak again,
And feast upon her eyes? What is’t I dream on?
O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue.”
Act ii. sc. 2, l. 177

There is an Emblem by Whitney (p. 131), which, though in some respects
similar to one at p. 178 of the “PEGMA” by Costalius, 1555, entitled
“Iron,” “on the misery of the human lot,” is to a very great degree his
own, and which makes it appear in a stronger light than usual, that a
close resemblance exists between his ideas and even expressions and
those of Shakespeare. The subject is “Writings remain,” and the device
the overthrow of stately buildings, while books continue unharmed.

_Scripta manent._

_To Sir_ ARTHVRE MANWARINGE _Knight._

[Illustration: _Whitney_, 1586.]

“If mightie TROIE, with gates of steele, and brasse,
Bee worne awaie, with tracte of stealinge time:
If CARTHAGE, raste: if THEBES be growne with grasse.
If BABEL stoope: that to the cloudes did clime:
If ATHENS, and NVMANTIA suffered spoile:
If ÆGYPT spires, be euened with the soile.

Then, what maye laste, which time dothe not impeache,
Since that wee see, theise monumentes are gone:
Nothinge at all, but time doth ouer reache,
It eates the steele, and weares the marble stone:
But writinges laste, thoughe yt doe what it can,
And are preseru’d, euen since the worlde began.

And so they shall, while that they same dothe laste,
Which haue declar’d, and shall to future age:
What thinges before three thousande yeares haue paste,
What martiall knightes, haue march’d vppon this stage:
Whose actes, in bookes if writers did not saue,
Their fame had ceaste, and gone with them to graue.

Of SAMSONS strengthe, of worthie IOSVAS might.
Of DAVIDS actes, of ALEXANDERS force.
Of CÆESAR greate; and SCIPIO noble knight,
Howe shoulde we speake, but bookes thereof discourse:
Then fauour them, that learne within their youthe:
But loue them beste, that learne, and write the truthe.”

_La vie de Memoire_, and _Vine ut viuas_,—“Live that you may
live,”—emblematically set forth by pen, and book, and obelisk, and
ruined towers, in Boissard’s _Emblems_ by Messin (1588, pp. 40, 41),
give the same sentiment, and in the Latin by a few brief lines,—

“_Non omnis vivit, vitâ qui spirat in istâ:
Sed qui post fati funera vivit adhuc:
Et cui posteritas famæ præconia servat
Æternum is, calamo vindice, nomen habet._”

Thus having the main idea taken up in the last of the four French
stanzas,—

“Mais qui de ses vertus la plume a pour garand:
Celuy centre le temps invincible se rend:
Car elle vainc du temps & l’effort, & l’injure.”

In various instances, only with greater strength and beauty, Shakespeare
gives utterance to the same sequences of thought. When, in _Love’s
Labour’s Lost_ (act i. sc. 1, l. 1, vol. ii. p. 97), fashioning his
court to be,—

“A little Academe,
Still and contemplative in living art,”

Ferdinand, king of Navarre, proclaims,—

“Let Fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live register’d upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
The endeavour of this present breath may buy
That honour which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity.”

In his Sonnets, more especially, Shakespeare celebrates the enduring
glory of the mind’s treasures. Thus, the 55th Sonnet (_Works_, vol. ix.
p. 578) is written almost as Whitney wrote,—

“Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents,
Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish lime.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry.
Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity,
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room,
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.”

But the 65th Sonnet (p. 583) is still more in accordance with Whitney’s
ideas,—not a transcript of them, but an appropriation,—

“Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o’ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack!
Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
No one, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.”

How closely, too, are these thoughts allied to some in that Emblem (p.
197) in which Whitney, following Hadrian Junius, so well celebrates “the
eternal glory of the pen.”

Pennæ gloria immortalis.

_Ad Iacobum Blondelium._

[Illustration: _Junius_, 1565.[178]]

He has been telling of Sidney’s praise, and in a well-turned compliment
to him and to his other friend, “EDWARDE DIER,” makes the award,—

“This Embleme lo, I did present, vnto this woorthie Knight.
Who, did the same refuse, as not his proper due:
And at the first, his sentence was, it did belonge to you.
Wherefore, lo, fame with trompe, that mountes vnto the skye:
And, farre aboue the highest spire, from pole, to pole dothe flye,
Heere houereth at your will, with pen adorn’d with baies:
Which for you bothe, shee hath prepar’d, vnto your endlesse praise.
The laurell leafe for you, for him, the goulden pen;
The honours that the Muses giue, vnto the rarest men.
Wherefore, proceede I praye, vnto your lasting fame;
For writinges last when wee bee gonne, and doe preserue our name.
And whilst wee tarrye heere, no treasure can procure,
The palme that waites vpon the pen, which euer doth indure.
Two thousand yeares, and more, HOMERVS wrat his books;
And yet, the same doth still remayne, and keepes his former looke.
Wheare Ægypte spires bee gonne, and ROME doth ruine feele,
Yet, both begonne since he was borne, thus time doth turne the wheele.
Yea, thoughe some Monarche greate some worke should take in hand,
Of marble, or of Adamant, that manie worldes shoulde stande,
Yet, should one only man, with labour of the braine,
Bequeathe the world a monument, that longer shoulde remaine,
And when that marble waules, with force of time should waste;
It should indure from age, to age, and yet no age should taste.”

“EX MALO BONUM,”—_Good out of evil_,— contains a sentiment which
Shakespeare not unfrequently expresses. An instance occurs in the
_Midsummer Nights Dream_ (act i. sc. 1, l. 232, vol. ii. p. 206),—

“Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.”

Also more plainly in _Henry V._ (act iv. sc. 1, l. 3, vol. iv. p. 555),—

“God Almighty!
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out.
For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,
Which is both healthful and good husbandry:
Besides they are our outward consciences,
And preachers to us all, admonishing
That we should dress us fairly for our end.
Thus we may gather honey from the weed,
And make a moral of the devil himself!”

So in Georgette Montenay’s _Christian Emblems_ we find the stanzas,—

“_On tire bien des epines poignantes
Rose tres bonn[e/] & pleine de beauté.
Des reprouuer & leurs œuures meschantes
Dieu tir[e/] aussi du bien par sa bonté,
Faisant seruir leur fausse volonté
A sa grand’ gloir[e/] & salut des esleuz,
Et par iustic[e/], ainsi qu’ a decreté,
Dieu fait tout bien; que nul n’en doute plus._”

As we have mentioned before (pp. 242, 3), Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ are the
chief source to which, from his time downwards, poets in general have
applied for their most imaginative and popular mythic illustrations; and
to him especially have Emblem writers been indebted. For a fact so well
known a single instance will suffice; it is the description of Chaos and
of the Creation of the World (bk. i. fab. 1),—

“Ante mare et terras, et quod tegit omnia, cœlum,
Unus erat toto naturæ vultus in orbe,
Quem dixêre Chaos: rudis indigestaque moles.”

An early Italian Emblematist, Gabriel Symeoni, in 1559, presents on this
subject the following very simple device in his _Vita et Metamorfoseo
d’Ovidio_ (p. 12), accompanied on the next page by “The creation and
confusion of the world,”—

Il Caos.

[Illustration: _Symeoni, 1559._]

“_Prima fuit rerum confusa sine ordine moles,
Vnaq. erat facies sydera, terra, fretum._”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“First was there a confused mass of things without order,
And one appearance was stars, earth, sea.”

But Ovid’s lines are applied in a highly figurative sense, to show the
many evils and disorders of injustice. A wild state where wrong triumphs
and right is unknown,—that is the Chaos which Anulus sets forth in his
“PICTA POESIS” (p. 49); _Without justice, confusion_.

SINE IVSTITIA, CONFVSIO.

[Illustration: _Aneau_, 1555.]

SI TERRAE _Cœlum ſemiſceat: & mare cœlo.
Sol Erebo. Tenebris lumina, Terra Polo.
Quattuor & Mundi mixtim primordia pugnent.
Arida cum ſiccis, algida cum calidis.
In Chaos antiquum omnia denique confundantur:
Vt cùm ignotus adhuc mens Deus orbis erat.
Eſt Mundanarum talis confuſio rerum.
Quo Regina latet Tempore Iuſtitia._

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“If with earth heaven should mingle and the sea with heaven,
The sun with Erebus, light with darkness, the earth with the pole,
Should the four elements of the world in commixture fight,
Dry things with the moist and cold things with the hot,
Into ancient chaos at last all things would be confounded
As when God as yet unknown was the soul of the globe.
Such is the confusion of all mundane affairs,
At what time soever Justice the queen lies concealed.”

Whitney (p. 122), borrowing this idea and extending it, works it out
with more than his usual force and skill, and dedicates his stanzas to
Windham and Flowerdewe, two eminent judges of Elizabeth’s reign,—but his
amplification of the thought is to a great degree peculiar to himself.
Ovid, indeed, is his authority for representing the elements in wild
disorder, and the peace and the beauty which ensued,—

“When they weare dispos’d, eache one into his roome.”

The motto, dedication, and device, are these,—

_Sine iuſtitia, confuſio._
_Ad eoſdem Iudices_.

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

“When Fire, and Aire, and Earthe, and Water, all weare one:
Before that worke deuine was wroughte, which nowe wee looke vppon.
There was no forme of thinges, but a confused masse:
A lumpe, which CHAOS men did call: wherein no order was.
The Coulde, and Heate, did striue: the Heauie thinges, and Lighte.
The Harde, and Softe, the Wette, and Drye, for none had shape arighte.
But when they weare dispos’d, eache one into his roome:
The Fire, had Heate: the Aire, had Lighte: the Earthe, with fruites did
bloome.
The Sea, had his increase: which thinges, to passe thus broughte:
Behoulde, of this vnperfecte masse, the goodly worlde was wroughte.”

Whitney then celebrates “The goulden worlde that Poëttes praised moste;”
next, “the siluer age;” and afterwards, “the age of brasse.”

“The Iron age was laste, a fearefull cursed tyme:
Then, armies came of mischiefes in: and fil’d the worlde with cryme.
Then rigor, and reuenge, did springe in euell hower:
And men of mighte, did manadge all, and poore opprest with power.

And hee, that mightie was, his worde, did stand for lawe:
And what the poore did ploughe, and sowe: the ritch away did drawe.
None mighte their wiues inioye, their daughters, or their goodes,
No, not their liues: such tyraunts broode, did seeke to spill their
bloodes.
Then vertues weare defac’d, and dim’d with vices vile,
Then wronge, did maske in cloke of righte: then bad, did good exile.
Then falshood, shadowed truthe: and hate, laugh’d loue to skorne:
Then pitie, and compassion died: and bloodshed fowle was borne.
So that no vertues then, their proper shapes did beare:
Nor coulde from vices bee decern’d, so straunge they mixed weare.
That nowe, into the worlde, an other CHAOS came:
But GOD, that of the former heape: the heauen and earthe did frame.
And all thinges plac’d therein, his glorye to declare:
Sente IVSTICE downe vnto the earthe: such loue to man hee bare.
Who, so suruay’d the world, with such an heauenly vewe:
That quickley vertues shee aduanc’d: and vices did subdue.
And, of that worlde did make, a paradice, of blisse:
By which wee doo inferre: That where this sacred Goddes is.
That land doth florishe still, and gladnes, their doth growe:
Bicause that all, to God, and Prince, by her their dewties knowe.
And where her presence wantes, there ruine raignes, and wracke:
And kingdomes can not longe indure, that doe this ladie lacke.
Then happie England most, where IVSTICE is embrac’d:
And eeke so many famous men, within her chaire are plac’d.”

With the description thus given we may with utmost appropriateness
compare Shakespeare’s noble commendation of order and good government,
into which, by way of contrast, he introduces the evils and miseries of
lawless power. The argument is assigned to Ulysses, in the _Troilus and
Cressida_ (act i. sc. 3, l. 75, vol. vi. p. 144), when the great
chieftains, Agamemnon, Nestor, Menelaus, and others are discussing the
state and prospects of their Grecian confederacy against Troy. With
great force of reasoning, as of eloquence, he contends,—

“Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,
And the great Hector’s sword had lack’d a master.
But for these instances.
bloodes.
The specialty of rule hath been neglected:
And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive,
To whom the foragers shall all repair,
What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre,
Observe degree, priority and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office and custom, in all line of order:
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other;
. . . . . .
but when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents, what mutiny,
What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,
Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels.
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: The bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides,
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then everything includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf.
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.
And this neglection of degree it is
That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general’s disdain’d
By him one step below; he, by the next;
That next by him beneath: so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation:
And ’tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.”

At a hasty glance the two passages may appear to have little more
connection than that of similarity of subject, leading to several
coincidences of expression; but the Emblem of Chaos, given by Whitney,
represents the winds, the waters, the stars of heaven, all in confusion
mingling, and certainly is very suggestive of the exact words which the
dramatic poet uses,—

“What raging of the sea? shaking of earth?
Commotion in the winds?
. . . . . .
The bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe.”

Discord as one of the great causes of confusion is also spoken of with
much force (_1 Henry VI_., act iv. sc. 1, l. 188, vol. v. p. 68),—

“No simple man that sees
This jarring discord of nobility,
This should’ring of each other in the court,
This factious bandying of their favourites,
But that he doth presage some ill event.
’Tis much, when sceptres are in children’s hands;
But more when envy breeds unkind division;
There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.”

The Paris edition of Horapollo’s _Hieroglyphics_, 1551, subjoins several
to which there is no Greek text (pp. 217–223). Among them (at p. 219) is
one that figures, _The thread of life_, a common poetic idea.

[Illustration: _Horapollo, ed. 1551._]

Quo pacto mortem ſeu hominis
exitum.

Hominis exitum innuentes, fuſum pingebant, & fili extremum reſectum,
quaſi à colo diuulſum, finguntur ſiquidem à poetis Parcæ hominis vitam
nere: Clotho quidem colum geſtans: Lacheſis quæ Sors exponitur, nens:
Atropos verò inconuertibilis ſeu inexorabilis Latinè redditur, filum
abrumpens.

The question is asked, “How do they represent the death or end of man?”
Thus answered,—“To intimate the end of man they paint a spindle, and the
end of the thread cut off, as if broken from the distaff: so indeed by
the poets the Fates are feigned to spin the life of man: Clotho indeed
bearing the distaff; Lachesis spinning whatever lot is declared; but
Atropos, breaking the thread, is rendered unchangeable and inexorable.”

This thread of life Prospero names when he speaks to Ferdinand
(_Tempest_, act iv. sc. 1, l. 1, vol. i. p. 54) about his daughter,—

“If I have too austerely punish’d you,
Your compensation makes amends; for I
Have given you here a thread[179] of mine own life
Or that for which I live.”

“Their thread of life is spun,” occurs in _2 Henry VI._ (act iv. sc. 2,
l. 27).

So the “aunchient Pistol,” entreating Fluellen to ask a pardon for
Bardolph (_Henry V._, act iii. sc. 6, l. 44, vol. iv. p. 544). says,—

“The duke will hear thy voice;
And let not Bardolph’s vital thread be cut
With edge of penny cord and vile reproach.
Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.”

The full application of the term, however, is given by Helena in the
_Pericles_ (act i. sc. 2, l. 102, vol. ix. p. 325), when she says to the
Prince of Tyre,—

“Antiochus you fear,
And justly too, I think, you fear the tyrant,
Who either by public war or private treason
Will take away your life.
Therefore, my lord, go travel for a while,
Till that his rage and anger be forgot,
Or till the Destinies do cut his thread of life.”

The same appendix to Horapollo’s _Hieroglyphics_ (p. 220) assigns a
burning lamp as the emblem of life; thus,—

[Illustration: _Horapollo, ed. 1551._]

Quo modo vitam.

Vitam innuentes ardentem lampada pingebant: quòd tantiſper dum
accenſa lampas eſt, luceat, extincta verò tenebras offundat, ita & anima
corpore ſoluta, & aſpectu & luce caremus.

“To intimate life they paint a burning lamp; because so long as the lamp
is kindled it gives forth light, but being extinguished spreads
darkness; so also the soul being freed from the body we are without
seeing and light.”

This Egyptian symbol Cleopatra names just after Antony’s death (_Antony
and Cleopatra_, act iv. sc. 15, l. 84, vol. ix. p. 132),—

“Ah, women, women, look
Our lamp is spent, it’s out.”

Similar the meaning when Antony said (act iv. sc. 14, l. 46, vol. ix. p.
123),—

“Since the torch is out,
Lie down and stray no farther.”

Of the Emblems which depict moral qualities and æsthetical principles,
scarcely any are more expressive than that which denotes an abiding
sense of injury. This we can trace through Whitney (p. 183) to the
French of Claude Paradin (fol. 160), and to the Italian of Gabriel
Symeoni (p. 24). It is a sculptor, with mallet and chisel, cutting a
memorial of his wrongs into a block of marble; the title, _Of offended
Poverty_, and the motto, “Being wronged he writes on marble.”

DI POVERTA
OFFESA.

[Illustration: _Giovio and Symeoni, 1562._]

Scribit in marmore læſus.

_Tempri l’ ira veloce ogniun, che viue,
Et per eſſer potente non ha cura,
Di far’ altrui talhor danno o paura,
Che l’offeſo l’ingiuria in marmo ſeriue_.

Like the other “Imprese” of the “TETRASTICHI MORALI,” the woodcut is
surrounded by a curiously ornamented border, and manifests much artistic
skill. The stanza is,—

“Each one that lives may be swift passion’s slave,
And through a powerful will at times delight
In causing others harm and terror’s fright:
The injured doth those wrongs on marble grave.”

The “DEVISES HEROIQVES” adds to the device a simple prose description of
the meaning of the Emblem,—

Scribit in marmore leſus.

[Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]

_Certains fols éuentés s’ aſſeurans trop ſus leur credit &
richeſſes, ne font point cas d’iniurier ou gourmander de faict & de
paroles une pauure perſonne, eſtimans que à faute de biens, de faueur,
de parens, ou d’amis elle n’aura jamais le moyen de ſe venger, ou leur
rẽdre la pareille, ains qu’elle doiue lien toſt oublier le mal qu’elle a
receu. Or combien ces Tirans (c’eſt leur propre nom) ſoyent abuſez de
leur grande folie & ignorance, l’occaſion & le temps le leur fera à la
fin connoiſtre, apres les auoir admoneſtez par ceſte Deuiſe d’un homme
aſſis, qui graue en un tableau de marbre ce qu’il a en memmoire auec ces
parolles_: Scribit in marmore læsus. (f.160.)

The word here propounded is of very high antiquity. The prophet Jeremiah
(xvii. 1 and 13) set forth most forcibly what Shakespeare names “men’s
evil manners living in brass;” and Whitney, “harms graven in marble
hard.” “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the
point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon
the horns of your altars.” And the writing in water, or in the dust, is
in the very spirit of the declaration, “They that depart from me shall
be written in the earth,”—_i.e._, the first wind that blows over them
shall efface their names,—“because they have forsaken the LORD, the
fountain of living waters.”

Some of Shakespeare’s expressions,—some of the turns of thought, when he
is speaking of injuries,—are so similar to those used by the Emblem
writers in treating of the same subject, that we reasonably conclude
“the famous Scenicke Poet, Master W. Shakespeare,” was intimate with
their works, or with the work of some one out of their number; and, as
will appear in a page or two, very probably those expressions and turns
of thought had their origin in the reading of Whitney’s _Choice of
Emblemes_ rather than in the study of the French and Italian authors.

Of the same cast of idea with the lines illustrative of _Scribit in
marmore læsus_, are the words of Marc Antony’s oration over Cæsar
(_Julius Cæsar_, act iii. sc. 2, l. 73, vol. vii. p. 375),—

“I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Cæsar.”

A sentiment, almost the converse of this, and of higher moral
excellence, crops out where certainly we should not expect to find it—in
the _Timon of Athens_ (act iii. sc. 5, l. 31, vol. vii. p. 254),—

“He’s truly valiant that can wisely suffer
The worst that man can breathe, and make his wrongs
His outsides, to wear them like his raiment, carelessly,
And ne’er prefer his injuries to his heart,
To bring it into danger.
If wrongs be evils and enforce us kill,
What folly ’tis to hazard life for ill!”

In that scene of unparalleled beauty, tenderness, and simplicity, in
which there is related to Queen Katharine the death of “the great child
of honour,” as she terms him, Cardinal Wolsey (_Henry VIII._, act iv.
sc. 2, l. 27, vol. vi. p. 87), Griffith describes him as,—

“Full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears and sorrows,
He gave his honours to the world again,
His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.”

And just afterwards (l. 44), when the Queen had been speaking with some
asperity of the Cardinal’s greater faults, Griffith remonstrates,—

“Noble Madam,
Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water. May it please your highness
To hear me speak his good now?”

How very like to the sentiment here enunciated is that of Whitney (p.
183),—

“In marble harde our harmes wee alwayes graue,
Bicause, wee still will beare the same in minde:
In duste wee write the benifittes wee haue,
Where they are soone defaced with the winde.
So, wronges wee houlde, and neuer will forgiue,
And soone forget, that still with vs shoulde liue.”

Lavinia’s deep wrongs (_Titus Andronicus_, act iv. sc. 1, l. 85, vol.
vi. p. 490) were written by her on the sand, to inform Marcus and Titus
what they were and who had inflicted them; and Marcus declares,—

“There is enough written upon this earth
To stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts
And arm the minds of infants to exclaims.”

Marcus is for instant revenge, but Titus knows the power and cruel
nature of their enemies, and counsels (l. 102),—

“You are a young huntsman, Marcus; let alone;
And, come, I will go get a leaf of brass.
And with a gad of steel will write these words,
And lay it by: the angry northern wind
Will blow these sands, like Sibyl’s leaves, abroad.
And where’s your lesson then?”

The Italian and French Emblems as pictures to be looked at would readily
supply Shakespeare with thoughts respecting the record of “men’s evil
manners,” and of “their virtues,” but there is a closer correspondence
between him and Whitney; and allowing for the easy substitution of
“brass” and of “water” for “marble” and “dust,” the parallelism of the
ideas and words is so exact as to be only just short of being complete.

We must not, however, conceal what may have been a common origin of the
sentiment for all the four writers,—for the three Emblematists and for
the dramatist, namely, a sentence written by Sir Thomas More, about the
year 1516, before even Alciatus had published his book of Emblems. Dr.
Percy, as quoted by Ayscough (p. 695), remarks that, “This reflection
bears a great resemblance to a passage in Sir Thomas More’s _History of
Richard III._, where, speaking of the ungrateful turns which Jane Shore
experienced from those whom she had served in her prosperity, More adds,
‘Men use, if they have an evil turne, to write it in marble, and whoso
doth us a good turne, we write it in duste.’”

But the thought is recorded as passing through the mind of Columbus,
when, during mutiny, sickness, and cruel tidings from home, he had, on
the coast of Panama, the vision which Irving describes and records. A
voice had been reproving him, but ended by saying, “Fear not, Columbus,
all these tribulations are written in marble, and are not without
cause.”

“To write in dust,” however, has sometimes a simple literal meaning in
Shakespeare; as when King Edward (_3 Henry VI._, act v. sc. 1, l. 54,
vol. v. p. 319), uses the threat,—

“This hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair,
Shall, while thy head is warm and new cut off,
Write in the dust this sentence with thy blood,—
Wind-changing Warwick now can change no more.”

But in the _Titus Andronicus_ (act iii. sc. 1, l. 12, vol. vi. p. 472),
the phrase is of doubtful meaning: it may denote the oblivion of
injuries or the deepest of sorrows,—

“In the dust I write
My heart’s deep languor, and my soul’s sad tears.”

Whitney also has the lines to the praise of Stephen Limbert, Master of
Norwich School (p. 173),—

“Our writing in the duste, can not indure a blaste;
But that which is in marble wroughte, from age to age, doth laste.”

It is but justice to Shakespeare to testify that at times his judgment
respecting injuries rises to the full height of Christian morals. The
spirit Ariel avows, that, were he human, his “affections would become
tender” towards the shipwrecked captives on whom his charms had been
working (_Tempest_, act v. sc. 1, l. 21, vol. i. p. 64); and Prospero
enters into his thought with strong conviction,—

“Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,
Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,
Yet with my nobler reason ’gainst my fury
Do I take part: the rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further.”

The subject in this connection finds a fitting conclusion from the words
of a later writer, communicated to me by the Rev. T. Walker, M.A.,
formerly of Nether Tabley, in which a free forgiveness of injuries is
ascribed to the world’s great and blessed Saviour,—

“Some write their wrongs on marble, He more just
Stoop’d down serene, and wrote them in the dust,
Trod under foot, the sport of every wind,
Swept from the earth, quite banished from his mind,
There secret in the grave He bade them lie,
And grieved, they could not ’scape the Almighty’s eye.”

[Illustration: _Whitney. Reprint, 1866, p. 431._]

-----

Footnote 153:

See a most touching account of a she-hear and her whelps in the
_Voyage of Discovery to the North Seas_ in 1772, under Captain C. J.
Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave.

Footnote 154:

“Zodiacvs Christianvs, seu signa 12, _diuinæ Prædestinationis, &c., à
Raphaele Sadelero_, 12mo, p. 126, Monaci CD. DCXVIII.”

Footnote 155:

See also the Emblems of Camerarius (pt. iii. edition 1596, Emb. 47),
where the turkey is figured to illustrate “RABIE SVCCENSA
TVMESCIT,”—_Being angered it swells with rage._

“_Quam deforme malum ferventi accensa furore
Ira sit, iratis Indica monstrat avis,_”—

“How odious an evil to the violent anger may be
Inflamed to fury.—the Indian bird shows to the angry.”

Footnote 156:

See also other passages from the _Georgics_,—

“Ut, cum prima novi ducent examina reges
Vere suo.” iv. 21.

“Sin autem ad pugnam exierint, nam sæpe duobus
Regibus incessit magno discordia motu.” iv. 67.

Description of the kings (iv. 87–99),—

“tu regibus alas
Eripe.” iv. 106.

And,—

“ipsæ regem parvosque Quirites
Sufficiunt, aulasque ei cerea regna refingunt.” iv, 201.

Footnote 157:

At a time even later than Shakespeare’s the idea of a king-bee
prevailed; Waller, the poet of the Commonwealth, adopted it, as in the
lines to Zelinda,—

“Should you no honey vow to taste
But what the master-bees have placed
In compass of their cells, how small
A portion to your share will fall.”

In Le Moine’s _Devises Heroiqves et Morales_ (4to, Paris, 1649, p. 8)
we read, “Du courage & du conseil au Roy des abeilles,”—and the
creature is spoken of as a male.

Footnote 158:

To mention only Joachim Camerarius, edition 1596, _Ex Volatilibus_
(Emb. 29–34); here are no less than five separate devices connected
with Hawking or Falconry.

Footnote 159:

Take an example from the Paraphrase in an old Psalter: “The arne,”
_i.e._ the eagle, “when he is greved with grete elde, his neb waxis so
gretely, that he may nogt open his mouth and take mete: hot then he
smytes his neb to the stane, and has away the slogh, and then he gaes
til mete, and he commes yong a gayne. Swa Crist duse a way fra us oure
elde of syn and mortalite, that settes us to ete oure brede in hevene,
and newes us in hym.”

Footnote 160:

The Virgin, in Brucioli’s _Signs of the Zodiac_, as given in our Plate
XIII., has a unicorn kneeling by her side, to be fondled.

Footnote 161:

The wonderful curative and other powers of the horn are set forth in
his _Emblems_ by Joachim Camerarius, _Ex Animalibus Quadrupedibus_
(Emb. 12, 13 and 14). He informs us that “Bartholomew Alvianus, a
Venetian general, caused to be inscribed on his banner, _I drive away
poisons_, intimating that himself, like a unicorn putting to flight
noxious and poisonous animals, would by his own warlike valour
extirpate his enemies of the contrary factions.”

Footnote 162:

See the fable of the Wolf and the Ass from the _Dialogues of
Creatures_ (pp. 53–55 of this volume).

Footnote 163:

See p. 11 of J. Payne Collier’s admirably executed Reprint of “THE
PHŒNIX NEST,” from the original edition of 1593.

Footnote 164:

There are similar thoughts in Shakespeare’s _Phœnix and Turtle_
(Works, lines 25 and 37, vol. ix. p. 671),—

“So they loved, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none,
Number there in love was slain.”

And,—

“Property was thus appalled,
That the self was not the same;
Single nature’s double name
Neither two nor one was called.”

Footnote 165:

Reusner adopts this first line from Ovid’s _Fable of the Phœnix_
(_Metam._, bk. xv. 37. l. 3),—

“Sed thuris lacrymis, & succo vivit amomi.”

Footnote 166:

To render it still more useful, the words should receive something of
classification, as in Cruden’s _Concordance to the English Bible_, and
the _number_ of the _line_ should be given as well as of the _Act_ and
_Scene_.

Footnote 167:

The whole stanza as given on the last page, beginning with the line,—

“The Pellican, for to reuiue her younge,”

is quoted in Knight’s “PICTORIAL SHAKSPERE” (vol. i. p. 154), in
illustration of these lines from _Hamlet_ concerning “the kind
life-rendering pelican.” The woodcut which Knight gives is also copied
from Whitney, and the following remark added,—“Amongst old books of
emblems there is one on which Shakspere himself might have looked,
containing the subjoined representation. It is entitled ‘A Choice of
Emblemes and other Devices by Geffrey Whitney, 1586.’” Knight thus
appears prepared to recognise what we contend for, that Emblem writers
were known to Shakespeare.

Footnote 168:

Virgil’s _Æneid_ (bk. xii. 412–414), thus expressed in Dryden’s
rendering, will explain the passage; he is speaking of Venus,—

“A branch of healing dittany she brought:
Which in the Cretan fields with care she sought:
Rough is the stem, which wooly leafs surround;
The leafs with flow’rs, the flow’rs with purple crown’d.”

See also Joachim Camerarius, _Ex Animalibus Quadrup._ (ed. 1595, Emb.
69, p. 71).

Footnote 169:

In Haechtan’s _Parvus Mundus_ (ed. 1579), Gerard de Jode represents
the sleeping place as “sub tegmine fagi,”—but the results of the
mistake as equally unfortunate with those in Bellay and Whitney.

Footnote 170:

See “ARCHÆOLOGIA,” vol. xxxv. 1853, pp. 167–189; “Observations on the
Origin of the Division of Man’s Life into Stages. By John Winter
Jones, Esq.”

Footnote 171:

It may be noted that the Romans understood by _Pueritia_ the period
from infancy up to the 17th year; by _Adolescentia_, the period from
the age of 15 to 30; by _Juventus_, the season of life from the 20th
to the 40th year. _Virilitas_, manhood, began when in the 16th year a
youth assumed the _virilis toga_, “the manly gown.”

Footnote 172:

Soon after Whitney’s time this emblem was repeated in that very odd
and curious volume; “Stamm Buch, Darinnen Christliche Tugenden
Beyspiel Einhundert ausserlesener _Emblemata_, mit schönen
Kupffer-stücke geziener:” Franckfurt-am-Mayn, Anno MDCXIX. 8vo, pp.
447. At p. 290, Emb. 65, with the words “UBI ES?” there is the figure
of Adam hiding behind a tree, and among descriptive stanzas in seven
or eight languages, are some intended to be specimens of the language
at that day spoken and written in Britain:—

“Adam did breake God’s commandement,
In Paradise against his dissent,
Therefore he hyde him vnder a tree
Because _h_is Lorde, him _sh_ould not see.
But (alas) to God is all t_h_ing euident.
Th_a_n _h_e faunde _h_im in a moment
_A_n_d_ will alwayes such wicked men
Feind, if they doo from _h_im runn.”

Footnote 173:

For a fine Emblem to illustrate this passage, see “HORATII EMBLEMATA,”
by Otho Vænius, pp. 58, 59, edit. Antwerp, 4to, 1612; also pp. 70 and
71, to give artistic force to the idea of the “just man firm to his
purpose.”

Footnote 174:

Shakespeare illustrated by parallelisms from the Fathers of the Church
might, I doubt not, be rendered very interesting and instructive by a
writer of competent learning and enthusiasm, not to name it _furore_,
in behalf of his subject.

Footnote 175:

_Opera_, vol. i. p. 649 B, Francofurti, 1620.

Footnote 176:

Reference might be made also to Whitney’s fine tale, _Concerning Envy
and Avarice_, which immediately follows the _Description of Envy_.

Footnote 177:

The original lines are,—

“Innvmeris _agitur Respublica nostra procellis,
Et spes venturæ sola salutis adest:
Non secus ac nauis medio circum æquore, venti,
Quam rapiunt; falsis tamq. fatiscit aquis.
Quòd si Helenæ adueniant lucentia sidera fratres:
Amissos animos spes bona restituit._”

Footnote 178:

The original lines by Hadrian Junius are,—

“_Oculata, pennis fulta, sublimem vehens
Calamum aurea inter astra Fama collocat.
Illustre claris surgit è scriptis decus,
Feritque perpes vertice alta sidera._”

Footnote 179:

“A third,” in the modern sense of the word, is just nonsense, and
therefore we leave the reading of the Cambridge edition, and abide by
those critics who tell us that thread was formerly spelt thrid or
third. See Johnson and Steevens’ _Shakspeare_, vol. i. ed. 1785, p.
92.

-----

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER VII.
MISCELLANEOUS EMBLEMS; RECAPITULATION, AND CONCLUSION.

Emblems Miscellaneous will include some which have been omitted, or
which remain unclassified from not belonging to any of the foregoing
divisions. They are placed here without any attempt to bring them into
any special order.

Several words and forms of thought employed by the Emblem writers, and
especially by Whitney, have counterparts, if not direct imitations, in
Shakespeare’s dramas; he often treats of the same heroes in the same
way.

Thus, in reference to Paris and Helen, Whitney utters his opinion
respecting them (p. 79),—

“Thoughe PARIS, had his HELEN at his will,
Thinke howe his faite, was ILIONS foule deface.”

And Shakespeare sets forth Troilus (_Troilus and Cressida_, act ii. sc.
2, l. 81, vol. vi. p. 164) as saying of Helen,—

“Why, she is a pearl,
Whose price hath launch’d above a thousand ships,
And turn’d crown’d kings to merchants.”

And then, as adding (l. 92),—

“O, theft most base,
That we have stol’n what we do fear to keep!
But thieves unworthy of a thing so stol’n.
That in their country did them that disgrace,
We fear to warrant in our native place!”

Whitney inscribes a frontispiece or dedication of his work with the
letters, D. O. M.,—_i.e._, _Deo, Optimo, Maximo_,—“To God, best,
greatest,”—and writes,—

D. O. M.

_Since man is fraile, and all his thoughtes are sinne,
And of him ſelfe he can no good inuent,
Then euerie one, before they oughte beginne,
Should call on GOD, from whome all grace is ſent:
So, I beſeeche, that he the ſame will ſende,
That, to his praiſe I maie beginne, and ende._

Very similar sentiments are enunciated in several of the dramas; as in
_Twelfth Night_ (act iii. sc. 4, l. 340, vol. iii. p. 285),—

“Taint of vice, whose strong corruption
Inhabits our frail blood.”

In _Henry VIII._ (act v. sc. 3, l. 10, vol. vi. p. 103), the Lord
Chancellor says to Cranmer,—

“But we all are men,
In our own nature frail and capable
Of our flesh; few are angels.”

Even Banquo (_Macbeth_, act ii. sc. 1, l. 7, vol. vii. P. 444) can utter
the prayer,—

“Merciful powers,
Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose!”

And very graphically does Richard III. (act iv. sc. 2, l. 65, vol. v. p.
583) describe our sinfulness as prompting sin,—

“But I am in
So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.”

Or as Romeo puts the case (_Romeo and Juliet_, act v. sc. 3, l. 61, vol.
vii. p. 124),—

“I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head,
By urging me to fury.”

Coriolanus thus speaks of man’s “unstable lightness” (_Coriolanus_, act
iii. sc. 1, l. 160, vol. vi. p. 344),—

“Not having the power to do the good it would,
For the ill which doth control ’t.”

Human dependence upon God’s blessing is well expressed by the conqueror
at Agincourt (_Henry V._, act iv. sc. 7, l. 82, vol. iv. p.
582),—“Praised be God, and not our strength, for it;” and (act iv. sc.
8, l. 100),—

“O God, thy arm was here!
And not to us, but to thy arm alone
Ascribe we all.”

And simply yet truly does the Bishop of Carlisle point out that
dependence to Richard II. (act iii. sc. 2, l. 29, vol. iv. p. 164),—

“The means that heaven yields must be embraced,
And not neglected; else, if heaven would,
And we will not, heaven’s offer we refuse,
The proffer’d means of succour and redress.”

The closing thought of Whitney’s whole passage is embodied in Wolsey’s
earnest charge to Cromwell (_Henry VIII._, act iii. sc. 2, l. 446, vol.
vi. p. 79),—

“Be just, and fear not:
Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s,
Thy God’s, and truth’s; then if thou fall’st, O Cromwell,
Thou fall’st a blessed martyr!”

The various methods of treating the very same subject by the professed
Emblem writers will prove that, even with a full knowledge of their
works, a later author may yet allow scarcely a hint to escape him, that
he was acquainted, in some particular instance, with the sentiments and
expressions of his predecessors; indeed, that knowledge itself may give
birth to thoughts widely different in their general character. To
establish this position we offer a certain proverb which both Sambucus
and Whitney adopt, the almost paradoxical saying, _We flee the things
which we follow, and they flee us_,—

Quæ ſequimur fugimus, nosq́ue fugiunt.
_Ad Philip. Apianum._

[Illustration: _Sambucus, 1564._]

QVID _ſemper querimur deeſſe nobis?
Cur nunquam ſatiat fames perennis?
Haud res nos fugiunt, loco ſolemus
Ipſi cedere ſed fugaciore.
Mors nos arripit antè quàm lucremur
Tantum quod cupimus, Deum & precamur,
Vel ſi rem fateare confitendam,
Res, & nos fugimus ſimul fugaces.
Ne ſint diuitiæ tibi dolori:
Ac veram ſtatuas beatitatem
Firmis rebus, in aſperaq́ue vita._

In both instances there is exactly the same pictorial illustration,
indeed the wood-block which was engraved for the Emblems of Sambucus, in
1564, with simply a change of border, did service for Whitney’s Emblems
in 1586. The device contains Time, winged and flying and holding forward
a scythe; a man and woman walking before him, the scythe being held over
their heads threateningly,—the man as he advances turning half round and
pointing to a treasure-box left behind. Sambucus thus moralizes,—

“What do we querulous always deem our want?
Why never to hunger sense of fulness grant?
Wealth flees us not,—but we accustomed are
By our own haste its benefits to mar.
Death takes us off before we reach the gain
Great as our wish; and vows to God we feign
For wealth which fleeing at the time we flee,
Even when wealth around we own to be.
O let not riches prove thy spirit’s bane!
Nor shall thou seek for happiness in vain,—
Though rough thy paths of life on every hand,
Firm on its base thy truest bliss shall stand.”

Now Whitney adopts, in part at least, a much more literal
interpretation; he follows out what the figure of Time and the accessory
figures suggest, and so improves his proverb-text as to found upon it
what appears pretty plainly to have been the groundwork of the ancient
song,—“The old English gentleman, one of the olden time.” The type of
that truly venerable character was “THOMAS WILBRAHAM _Esquier_,” an
early patron of Lord Chancellor Egerton. Whitney’s lines are (p. 199),—

“Wee flee, from that wee seeke; & followe, that wee leaue:
And, whilst wee thinke our webbe to skante, & larger still would weaue,
Lo, Time dothe cut vs of, amid our carke: and care.
Which warneth all, that haue enoughe, and not contented are.
For to inioye their goodes, their howses, and their landes:
Bicause the Lorde vnto that end, commits them to their handes.

Yet, those whose greedie mindes: enoughe, doe thinke too small:
Whilst that with care they seeke for more, oft times are reu’d of all,
Wherefore all such (I wishe) that spare, where is no neede:
To vse their goodes whilst that they may, for time apace doth speede.
And since, by proofe I knowe, you hourde not vp your store;
Whose gate, is open to your frende: and purce, vnto the pore:
And spend vnto your praise, what GOD dothe largely lende:
I chiefly made my choice of this, which I to you commende.
In hope, all those that see your name, aboue the head:
Will at your lampe, their owne come light, within your steppes to tread.
Whose daily studie is, your countrie to adorne:
And for to keepe a worthie house, in place where you weare borne.”

In the spirit of one part of these stanzas is a question in Philemon
Holland’s _Plutarch_ (p. 5). “What meane you, my masters, and whither
run you headlong, carking and caring all that ever you can to gather
goods and rake riches together?”

Similar in its meaning to the two Emblems just considered is another by
Whitney (p. 218), _Mulier vmbra viri_,—“Woman the shadow of man,”—

“Ovr shadowe flies, if wee the same pursue:
But if wee flie, it followeth at the heele.
So, he throughe loue that moste dothe serue, and sue,
Is furthest off his mistresse harte is steele.
But if hee flie, and turne awaie his face,
Shee followeth straight, and grones to him for grace.”

This Emblem is very closely followed in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_
(act ii. sc. 2, l. 187, vol. i. p. 196), when Ford, in disguise as
“Master Brook,” protests to Falstaff that he had followed Mrs. Ford
“with a doting observance;” “briefly,” he says, “I have pursued her as
love hath pursued me; which hath been on the wing of all occasions,”—

“Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.”

Death in most of its aspects is described and spoken of by the great
Dramatist, and possibly we might hunt out some expressions of his which
coincide with those of the Emblem writers on the same subject, but
generally his mention of death is peculiarly his own,—as when Mortimer
says (_1 Henry VI._, act ii. sc. 5, l. 28, vol. v. p. 40),—

“The arbitrator of despairs,
Just death, kind umpire of men’s miseries,
With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence.”

[Illustration: _Holbein’s Simulachres, 1538._]

In his beautiful edition of Holbein’s _Dance of Death_, Noel Humphreys
(p. 81), in describing the CANONESS, thus conjectures,—“May not
Shakespeare have had this device in his mind when penning the passage in
which Othello” (act v. sc. 2, l. 7, vol. viii. p. 574), “determining to
kill Desdemona, exclaims, ‘Put out the light—and then—put out the
light?’”

The way, however, in which Shakespeare sometimes speaks of Death and
Sleep induces the supposition that he was acquainted with those passages
in Holbein’s _Simulachres de la Mort_ (Lyons, 1538) which treat of the
same subjects by the same method. Thus,—

“Cicero disoit bien: Tu as le sommeil pour imaige de la Mort, & tous
les iours tu ten reuestz. Et si doubtes, sil y à nul sentiment a la
Mort, combien que tu voyes qu’ en son simulachre il n’y à nul sentimẽt.”
Sign. Liij _verso_. And again, sign. Liiij _verso_, “La Mort est le
veritable reffuge, la santé parfaicte, le port asseure, la victoire
entiere, la chair sans os, le poisson sans espine, le grain sans
paille.... La Mort est vng eternel sommeil, vne dissolution du Corps,
vng espouuẽtement des riches, vng desir des pouures, vng cas ineuitable,
vng pelerinaige incertain, vng larron des hõmes, vne Mere du dormir, vne
vmbre de vie, vng separement des viuans, vne compaignie des Mortz.”

Thus the Prince Henry by his father’s couch, thinking him dead, says (_2
Hen. IV._, act iv. sc. 5, l. 35, vol. iv. p. 453),—

“This sleep is sound indeed; this is a sleep,
That from this golden rigol hath divorced
So many English kings.”

And still more pertinently speaks the Duke (_Measure for Measure_, act
iii. sc. 1, l. 17, vol. i. p. 334),—

“Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear’st
Thy death, which is no more.”

Again, before Hermione, as a statue (_Winter’s Tale_, act v. sc. 3, l.
18, vol. iii. p. 423),—

“prepare
To see the life as lively mock’d as ever
Still sleep mock’d death.”

Or in _Macbeth_ (act ii. sc. 3, l. 71, vol. vii. p. 454), when Macduff
raises the alarm,—

“Malcolm! awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,
And look on death itself! up, up, and see
The great doom’s image.”[180]

Finally, in that noble soliloquy of Hamlet (act iii. sc. 1, lines 60–69,
vol. viii. p. 79),—

“To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep:
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.”

So the _Evils of Human Life_ and the _Eulogy on Death_, ascribed in
Holbein’s _Simulachres de la Mort_ to Alcidamus, sign. Liij _verso_[181]
may have been suggestive of the lines in continuation of the above
soliloquy in _Hamlet_, namely (lines 70–76),—

“For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?”

[Illustration: _Holbein’s Imagines, Cologne, 1566._]

To another of the devices of the _Images of Death_ (Lyons, 1547),
attributed to Holbein, we may also refer as the source of one of the
Dramatist’s descriptions, in Douce’s _Dance of Death_, (London, 1833,
and Bonn’s, 1858); the device in question is numbered XLIII. and bears
the title of the IDIOT FOOL. Woltmann’s _Holbein and his Time_
(Leipzig, 1868, vol. ii. p. 121), names the figure “~Narr des
Todes~,”—_Death’s Fool_,—and thus discourses respecting it. “Among
the supplemental Figures,”—that is to say, in the edition of 1545,
supplemental to the _forty-one_ Figures in the edition of 1538,—“is
found that of the Fool, which formerly in the Spectacle-plays of the
_Dance of Death_ represented by living persons played an important
part. Also as these were no longer wont to be exhibited, the Episode
of the contest of Death with the Fool was kept separate, and for the
diversion of the people became a pantomimic representation. From
England expressly have we information that this usage maintained
itself down to the former century. The Fool’s efforts and evasions in
order to escape from Death, who in the end became his master, form the
subject of the particular figures. On such representations Shakespeare
thought in his verses in _Measure for Measure_” (act iii. sc. 1, lines
6–13, vol. i. p. 334). Though Woltmann gives only three lines, we add
the whole passage better to bring out the sense,—

“Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyey influences,
That dost this habitation, where thou keep’st,
Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death’s fool;
For him thou labour’st by thy flight to shun,
And yet runn’st toward him still.”

The action described by Shakespeare is so conformable to Holbein’s
Figures of Death and the Idiot Fool that, without doing violence to the
probability, we may conclude that the two portraits had been in the
Poet’s eye as well as in his mind.

Woltmann’s remarks in continuation uphold this idea. He says (vol. ii.
p. 122),—

“Also in the Holbein picture the Fool is foolish enough to think
that he can slip away from Death. He springs aside, seeks through his
movements to delude him, and brandishes the leather-club, in order
unseen to plant a blow on his adversary; and this adversary seems in
sport to give in, skips near him, playing on the bag-pipe, but
unobserved has him fast by the garment, in order not again to let him
loose.”

Old Time is a character introduced by way of Chorus into the _Winter’s
Tale_ (act iv. sc. 1, l. 7, vol. III. p. 371), and he takes upon himself
“to use his wings,” as he says,—

“It is in my power
To o’erthrow law and in one self-born hour
To plant and o’erwhelm custom. Let me pass
The same I am, ere ancient’st order was
Or what is now received: I witness to
The times that brought them in; so shall I do
To the freshest things now reigning, and make stale
The glistering of this present.”

Something of the same paradox which appears in the Emblematist’s motto,
“What we follow we flee,” also distinguishes the quibbling dialogue
about time between Dromio of Syracuse and Adriana (_Comedy of Errors_,
act iv. sc. 2, l. 53, vol. i. p. 437),—

“_Dro. S._ ’Tis time that I were gone:
It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one.
_Adr._ The hours come back! that did I never hear.
_Dro. S._ O, yes; if any hour meet a sergeant, a’turns back for very
fear.
_Adr._ As if Time were in debt! how fondly dost thou reason!
_Dro. S._ Time is a very bankrupt, and owes more than he’s worth to
season.
Nay, he’s a thief too: have you not heard men say,
That Time comes stealing on by night and day?
If Time be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way,
Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?”

Almost of the same complexion are some of the other strong contrasts of
epithets which Shakespeare applies. Iachimo, in _Cymbeline_ (act i. sc.
6, l. 46, vol. ix. p. 185), uses the expressions,—

“The cloyed will,
That satiate yet unsatisfied desire, that tub
Both fill’d and running, ravening first the lamb,
Longs after for the garbage.”

But “old fond paradoxes, to make fools laugh i’ the ale-house,” are also
given forth from the storehouse of his conceits. Desdemona and Emilia
and Iago play at these follies (_Othello_, act ii. sc. 1, l. 129, vol.
viii. p. 477), and thus some of them are uttered,—

“_Iago._ If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,
The one’s for use, the other useth it.
_Des._ Well praised! How if she be black and witty?
_Iago._ If she be black, and thereto have a wit,
She’ll find a white that shall her blackness fit.
. . . . . .
_Des._ But what praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman
indeed?
one that, on the authority of her merit, did justly put on the vouch of
very
malice itself?
_Iago._ She that was ever fair, and never proud,
Had tongue at will, and yet was never loud.
Never lack’d gold, and yet went never gay,
Fled from her wish, and yet said, now I may;
. . . . . .
She was a wight, if ever such wight were,—
_Des._ To do what?
_Iago._ To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.”

We thus return, by a wandering path indeed, to the paradoxical saying
with which we set out,—concerning “fleeing what we follow;” for Iago’s
paragon of a woman,—

“Fled from her wish, and yet said, now I may.”

Taken by itself, the coincidence of a few words in the dedications of
works by different authors is of trifling importance; but when we notice
how brief are the lines in which Shakespeare commends his “VENUS AND
ADONIS” to the patronage of the Earl of Southampton, it is remarkable
that he has adopted an expression almost singular, which Whitney had
beforehand employed in the long dedication of his Emblems to the Earl of
Leycester. “Being abashed,” says Whitney, “that my habillitie can not
affoorde them such, as are fit to be offred vp to so honorable a
suruaighe” (p. xi); and Shakespeare, “I leave it to your honourable
survey, and your Honour to your heart’s content.” Whitney then declares,
“yet if it shall like your honour to allowe of anie of them, I shall
thinke my pen set to the booke in happie hour; and it shall incourage
mee, to assay some matter of more momente, as soon as leasure will
further my desire in that behalfe;” and Shakespeare, adopting the same
idea, also affirms, “only if your Honour seem but pleased, I account
myself highly praised and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till
I have honoured you with some graver labour.” Comparing these passages
together, the inference appears not unwarranted, that Whitney’s
dedication had been read by Shakespeare, and that the tenor of it abided
in his memory, and so was made use of by him.

From the well-known lines of _Horace_ (Ode ii. 10),—

“Sæpius ventis agitatur ingens
Pinus; et celsæ graviore casu
Decidunt turres; feriuntque summos
Fulgura montes,”—

several of the Emblem writers, and Shakespeare after them, tell of the
huge pine and of its contests with the tempests; and how lofty towers
fall with a heavier crash, and how the lightnings smite the highest
mountains. Sambucus (edition 1569, p. 279) and Whitney (p. 59) do this,
as a comment for the injunction, _Nimium rebus ne fide secundis_,—“Be
not too confident in prosperity.” In this instance the stanzas of
Whitney serve well to express the verses of Sambucus,—

_Nimium rebus ne fide secundis._

[Illustration: _Whitney. 1586._]

“The loftie Pine, that on the mountaine growes,
And spreades her armes, with braunches freshe, & greene,
The raginge windes, on sodaine ouerthrowes,
And makes her stoope, that longe a farre was seene:
So they, that truste to muche in fortunes smiles,
Thoughe worlde do laughe, and wealthe doe moste abounde,
When leste they thinke, are often snar’de with wyles,
And from alofte, doo hedlonge fall to grounde:
Then put no truste, in anie worldlie thinges,
For frowninge fate, throwes downe the mightie kinges.”

Antonio, in the _Merchant of Venice_ (act iv. sc. 1, l. 75, vol. ii. p.
345), applies the thought to the fruitlessness of Bassanio’s endeavour
to soften Shylock’s stern purpose of revenge,—

“You may as well forbid the mountain pines
To wag their high tops, and to make no noise
When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven.”

And when “dame Eleanor Cobham, Gloster’s wife,” is banished, and her
noble husband called on to give up the Lord Protector’s staff of office
(_2 Henry VI._, act ii. sc. 3, l. 45, vol. v. p. 145), Suffolk makes the
comparison,—

“Thus droops this lofty pine, and hangs his sprays;
Thus Eleanor’s pride dies in her youngest days.”

So, following almost literally the words of Horace, the exiled Belarius,
in _Cymbeline_ (act iv. sc. 2, l. 172, vol. ix. p. 253), declares of the
“two princely boys,” that passed for his sons,—

“They are as gentle
As zephyrs blowing below the violet,
Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough,
Their royal blood enchafed, as the rudest wind
That by the top doth take the mountain pine
And make him stoop to the vale.”

Words, which, though now obsolete, were in current use in the days of
Surrey, Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare, cannot of themselves be
adduced in evidence of any interchange of ideas; but when the form of
the sentence and the application of some peculiar term agree, we may
reasonably presume that it has been more than the simple use of the same
common tongue which has caused the agreement. When, indeed, one author
writes in English, and the others in Latin, or Italian, or French, we
cannot expect much more than similarity of idea in treating of the same
subject, and a mutual intercommunion of thought; but, in the case of
authors employing the same mother tongue, there are certain
correspondencies in the use of the same terms and turns of expression
which betoken imitation.

Such correspondencies exist between Whitney and Shakespeare, as may be
seen from the following among many other instances. I adopt the old
spelling of the folio edition of Shakespeare, 1632,—

Abroach Whitney, p. 7 And bluddie broiles at home are
set _abroache_.

_Rom. and J._ i. 1. Who set this ancient quarrell new
l. 102 _abroach_?

_2 Hen. IV._ iv. 2, Alacke, what Mischeifes might be
14 set _abroach_.

a-worke Whitney, p. vi. They set them selues _a worke_.

_2 Hen. IV._ iv. 3, Skill in the Weapon is nothing,
107 without Sacke (for that sets it
_a-worke_).

_K. Lear_, iii. 5, 5 — a provoking merit set _a-worke_
by a reprovable badnesse in
himselfe.

Banne Whitney, p. 189 The maide her pacience quite
forgot

And in a rage, the brutishe beaste
did _banne_.

_Hamlet_, iii. 2, With Hecats _ban_, thrice blasted,
246 thrice infected.

_1 Hen. IV._ v. 3, Fell _banning_ Hagge, Inchantresse
42 hold thy tongue.

_2 Hen IV._ ii. 4, And _banne_ thine Enemies, both
25 mine and thine.

Cates Whitney, p. 18 Whose backe is fraughte with
_cates_ and daintie cheere.

_C. Errors_, iii. 1, But though my _cates_ be meane,
28 take them in good part.

_1 Hen. IV._ iii. 1, I had rather live
163

With Cheese and Garlike in a
Windmill far

Then feed on _Cates_, and have him
talke to me

In any Summer House in
Christendome.

create Whitney, p. 64 Not for our selues alone wee are
_create_.

_M. N. Dr._ v. 1, And the issue there _create_
394

Ever shall be fortunate.

_K. John_, iv. 1, The fire is dead with griefe
106

Being _create_ for comfort.

_Hen. V._ ii. 2, 31 With hearts _create_ of duty and
of zeal.

Erksome Whitney, p. 118 With _erksome_ noise and eke with
poison fell.

_T. of Shrew_, i. 2, I know she is an _irkesome_
182 brawling scold.

_2 Hen. VI._ ii. 1, How _irkesome_ is this Musicke to
56 my heart!

Ingrate Whitney, p. 64 And those that are vnto theire
frendes _ingrate_.

_T. of Shrew_, i. 2, Will not so gracelesse be, to be
266 _ingrate_.

_Coriol._ v. 2, 80 _Ingrate_ forgetfulness shall
poison rather.

Prejudicate Whitney, xiii. The enuious who are alwaies readie
with a _prejudicate_ opinion to
condempe.

_All’s Well_, i. 2, @span 6: wherein our deerest
7 friend@

_Prejudicates_ the businesse.

Ripes Whitney, p. 23 When autumne _ripes_ the frutefull
fields of grane.

_K. John_, ii. 1, — yon greene Boy shall haue no
472 Sunne to _ripe_

The bloome that promiseth a mighty
fruit.

Vnrest Whitney, p. 94 It shewes her selfe doth worke her
own _vnrest_.

_Rich. II._ ii. 4, Witnessing Stormes to come, Woe
22 and _Vnrest_.

_T. An._ ii. 3, 8 And so repose sweet Gold for their
_unrest_.

vnsure Whitney, p. 191 So, manie men do stoope to sightes
_vnsure_.

_Hamlet_, iv. 4, 51 Exposing what is mortal and
_unsure_.

_Macbeth_, v. 4, 19 Thoughts speculative their
_unsure_ hopes relate.

vnthrifte Whitney, p. 17 And wisdome still, against such
_vnthriftes_ cries.

_Rich. II._ ii. 3, my Rights and Royalties
120

Pluckt from my armes perforce, and
giuen away

To upstart _Vnthriftes_.

_Timon_, iv. 3, 307 What man didd’st thou euer knowe
_unthrifte_ that was beloved
after his meanes?

_M. Venice_, v. 1, And with an _unthrift_ love did
16 run from Venice

As far as Belmont.[182]

So close are some of these correspondencies that they can scarcely be
accounted for except on the theory that Shakespeare had been an
observant reader of Whitney’s Emblems.

There are also various expressions, or epithets, which the Emblem-books
may be employed to illustrate, and which receive their most natural
explanation from this same theory that Shakespeare was one of the very
numerous host of Emblem students or readers. Perriere’s account of a man
attempting to swim with a load of iron on his back (Emb. 70), is applied
by Whitney with direct reference to the lines in Horace, “O cursed lust
of gold, to what dost thou not compel mortal bosoms?” He sets off the
thought by the device of a man swimming with “a fardle,” or heavy burden
(p. 179),—

_Auri ſacra fames quid non?_

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

“Desire to haue, dothe make vs muche indure.
In trauaile, toile, and labour voide of reste:
The marchant man is caried with this lure,
Throughe scorching heate, to regions of the Easte:
Oh thirste of goulde, what not? but thou canst do:
And make mens hartes for to consent thereto.

The trauailer poore, when shippe doth suffer wracke,
Who hopes to swimme vnto the wished lande,
Dothe venture life, with fardle on his backe,
That if he scape, the same in steede maye stande.
Thus, hope of life, and loue vnto his goods,
Houldes vp his chinne, with burthen in the floods.”

In the _Winter’s Tale_, the word “fardel” occurs several times; we will,
however, take a familiar quotation from _Hamlet_ (act iii. sc. 1, l. 76,
vol. viii. p. 80),—

“Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?”

The Bandogs, which Sir Thomas More and Spenser describe, appear to have
been different from those of Sambucus and Whitney, or, rather, they were
employed for a different purpose. “We must,” writes the worthy
Chancellor (p. 586), “haue bande dogges to dryue them (the swine) out of
the corne with byting, and leade them out by the ears;” and Spenser, in
_Virgil’s Gnat_ (l. 539), speaks of—

“greedie Scilla, under whom there lay
Manie great bandogs, which her gird about.”

These dogs were mastiffs, and their banning was barking or braying; but
the dogs entitled bandogs in Whitney, though also mastiffs, were
fastened by a band to a small cart, and trained to draw it. A large
species of dog may be seen at this day in the towns of Belgium
performing the very same service to which their ancestors had been
accustomed above three centuries ago. Sambucus heads his description of
the bandog’s strength and labours with the sentence,—“ The dog complains
that he is greatly wronged.”

Canis queritur nimium nocere.

[Illustration: _Sambucus_, 1584.]

_Non ego furaces nec apros inſector & vrſos,
Applaudit nec hero blandula cauda dolo:
Sub iuga ſed mittor validus, traho & eſſeda collo,
Quæque leuant alios viribus vſque premor.
Per vicos ductum me alij latratibus vrgent,
Miratur caſus libera turba meos.
Quàm fueram charus dominæ, ſi paruulus eſſem,
Non menſsa, lecto nec caruiſſe velim.
Sic multis vires, & opes nocuere ſuperbæ:
Contentum modico & profuit eſſe ſtatu._

Seated near the toiling mastiff is a lady with two or three pet curs,
and the large dog complains,—

“Were I a little whelp, to my lady how dear I should be; Of board
and of bed I never the want should see.”[183]

Whitney, using the woodcut which adorns the editions of Sambucus both in
1564 and 1599, prefixes a loftier motto (p. 140),—_Feriunt summos
fulmina montes_,—“Thunderbolts strike highest mountains;” and thus
expatiates he,—

“The bandogge, fitte to matche the bull, or beare,
With burthens greate, is loden euery daye:
Or drawes the carte, and forc’d the yoke to weare:
Where littell dogges doe passe their time in playe:
And ofte, are bould to barke, and eeke to bite,
When as before, they trembled at his sighte.

Yet, when in bondes they see his thrauled state,
Eache bragginge curre, beginnes to square, and brall:
The freër sorte, doe wonder at his fate,
And thinke them beste, that are of stature small:
For they maie sleepe vppon their mistris bedde,
And on their lappes, with daynties still bee fedde.

The loftie pine, with axe is ouerthrowne,
And is prepar’d, to serue the shipmans turne:
When bushes stande, till stormes bee ouerblowne,
And lightninges flashe, the mountaine toppes doth burne.
All which doe shewe that pompe, and worldlie power,
Makes monarches, markes: when varrijnge fate doth lower.”

The mastiff is almost the only dog to which Shakespeare assigns any
epithet of praise. In _Henry V._ (act iii. sc. 7, l. 130, vol. iv. p.
552), one of the French lords, Rambures, acknowleges “that island of
England breeds very valiant creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable
courage.” It is the same quality in Achilles and Ajax on which Ulysses
and Nestor count when “the old man eloquent,” in _Troilus and Cressida_
(act i. sc. 3, l. 391, vol. vi. p. 155), says of the two warriors,—

“Two curs shall tame each other: pride alone
Must tarre[184] the mastiffs on, as ’twere their bone.”

It is, however, only in a passing allusion that Shakespeare introduces
any mention of the bandog. He is describing the night “when Troy was set
on fire” (_2 Henry VI._, act i. sc. 4, l. 16, vol. v. p. 129), and thus
speaks of it,—

“The time when scritch-owls cry, and ban-dogs howl,
When spirits walk, and ghosts break up their graves.”

We are all familiar with the expression “motley’s the only wear,” and
probably we are disposed simply to refer it to the way in which that
important personage was arrayed who exercised his fun and nonsense and
shrewd wit in the courts of the kings and in the mansions of the nobles
of the middle ages. The pictorial type exists in the Emblems both of
Sambucus and of his copyist Whitney (p. 81), by whom the sage advice is
imparted,—“Give trifles in charge to fools.”

_Fatuis leuia commitito._

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

“The little childe, is pleas’de with cockhorse gaie,
Althoughe he aske a courser of the beste:
The ideot likes, with bables for to plaie,
And is disgrac’de, when he is brauelie dreste:
A motley coate, a cockescombe, or a bell,
Hee better likes, then Iewelles that excell.

So fondelinges vaine, that doe for honor sue,
And seeke for roomes, that worthie men deserue:
The prudent Prince, dothe give hem ofte their due,
Whiche is faire wordes, that right their humors serue:
For infantes hande, the rasor is vnfitte,
And fooles vnmeete, in wisedomes seate to sitte.”

The word “motley” is often made use of in Shakespeare’s plays. Jaques,
in _As You Like It_ (act ii. sc. 7, lines 12 and 42, vol. ii. pp. 405,
406), describes the “motley fool” “in a motley coat,”—

“I met a fool i’ the forest,
A motley fool; a miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a fool;
Who laid him down and bask’d him in the sun,
And rail’d on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms, and yet a motley fool.
. . . . . .
O that I were a fool!
I am ambitious for a motley coat.”

The Prologue to _Henry VIII._ (l. 15) alludes to the dress of the
buffoons that were often introduced into the plays of the time,—

“a fellow
In a long motley coat, guarded with yellow.”

The fool in _King Lear_ (act i. sc. 4, 1. 93, vol. viii. p. 280) seems
to have been dressed according to Whitney’s pattern, for, on giving his
cap to Kent, he says,—

“Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.

_Kent._ Why, fool?

_Fool._ Why, for taking one’s part that’s out of favour: nay, an
thou canst not smile as the wind sits, thou’lt catch cold shortly:
there, take my coxcomb: why, this fellow hath banished two on’s
daughters, and done the third a blessing against his will; if thou
follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb.”

Drant’s translations[185] from Horace, published in 1567, convey to us a
pretty accurate idea of the fool’s attire,—

“Well geue him cloth and let the fool
Goe like a cockescome still.”

Perchance we know the lines in the “FAERIE QUEENE” (vi. c. 7, 49, 1.
6),—

“And other whiles with bitter mockes and mowes
He would him scorne, that to his gentle mynd
Was much more grievous then the others blowes:
Words sharpely wound, but greatest griefe of scorning growes.”

But probably we are not prepared to trace some of the expressions in
these lines to an Emblem-book origin. The graphic “mockes and mowes,”
indeed, no Latin nor French can express; but our old friend Paradin, in
the “DEVISES HEROIQVES” (leaf 174), names an occasion on which very
amusing “mockes and mowes” were exhibited; it was, moreover, an example
that,—

“_Things badly obtained are badly scattered._” As he narrates the
tale,— “One day it happened that a huge ape, nourished in the house of a
miser who found pleasure only in his crowns, after seeing through a hole
his master playing with his crowns upon a table, obtained means of
entering within by an open window, while the miser was at dinner. The
ape took a stool, as his master did, but soon began to throw the silver
out of the window into the street. How much the passers by kept laughing
and the miser was vexed, I shall not attempt to say. I will not mock him
among his neighbours who were picking up his bright crowns either for a
nestegg, or for a son or a brother,—for a gamester, a driveller or a
drunkard,—for I cannot but remember that fine and true saying which
affirms, ‘_Things badly gained are badly scattered_.’”

This tale, derived by Paradin from Gabriel Symeoni’s _Imprese Heroiche
et Morali_, is assumed by Whitney as the groundwork of his very lively
narrative (p. 169), _Against Userers_, of which we venture to give the
whole.

_Malè parta malè dilabuntur.
In fæneratores._

[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]

“An vserer, whose Idol was his goulde,
Within his house, a peeuishe ape retain’d:
A seruaunt fitte, for suche a miser oulde,
Of whome both mockes, and apishe mowes, he gain’d.
Thus, euerie daie he made his master sporte,
And to his clogge, was chained in the courte.

At lengthe it hap’d? while greedie graundsir din’de?
The ape got loose, and founde a windowe ope:
Where in he leap’de, and all about did finde,
The GOD, wherein the Miser put his hope?
Which soone he broch’d, and forthe with speede did flinge,
And did delighte on stones to heare it ringe?

The sighte, righte well the passers by did please,
Who did reioyce to finde these goulden crommes:
That all their life, their pouertie did ease.
Of goodes ill got, loe heere the fruicte that commes.
Looke herevppon, you that have MIDAS minte,
And bee posseste with hartes as harde as flinte.

Shut windowes close, leste apes doe enter in,
And doe disperse your goulde, you doe adore.
But woulde you learne to keepe, that you do winne?
Then get it well, and hourde it not in store.
If not: no boultes, nor brasen barres will serve,
For GOD will waste your stocke, and make you sterue.”

Poor Caliban, in the _Tempest_ (act ii. sc. 2, l. 7, vol. i. p. 36),
complains of Prospero’s spirits that,—

“For every trifle are they set upon me;
Sometimes like apes, that mow and chatter at me,
And after bite me.”

And Helena, to her rival Hermia (_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, act iii. sc.
2, l. 237, vol. ii. p. 240), urges a very similar charge,—

“Ay, do, persever, counterfeit sad looks,
Make mouths upon me when I turn my back;
Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up.”

There is not, indeed, any imitation of the jocose tale about the
ape[186] and the miser’s gold, and it is simply in “the mockes and
apishe mowes” that any similarity exists. These, however, enter into the
dialogue between Imogen and Iachimo (_Cymbeline_, act i. sc. 6, l. 30,
vol. ix. p. 184); she bids him welcome, and he replies,—

“_Iach._ Thanks, fairest lady.
What, are men mad? Hath nature given them eyes
To see this vaulted arch and the rich crop
Of sea and land, which can distinguish ’twixt
The fiery orbs above and the twinn’d stones
Upon the number’d beach, and can we not
Partition make with spectacles so precious
’Twixt fair and foul?
_Imo._ What makes your admiration?
_Iach._ It cannot be i’ the eye; for apes and monkeys,
’Twixt two such shes, would chatter this way and
Contemn with mows the other.”

There is a fine thought in Furmer’s _Use and Abuse of Wealth_, first
published in Latin in 1575, and afterwards, in 1585, translated into
Dutch by Coornhert; it is respecting the distribution of poverty and
riches by the Supreme wisdom. The subject (at p. 6) is _Undeserved
Poverty_,—“The Lord maketh poor, and enriches.” (See Plate XVI.)

“The riches which Job had as God bestows,
So giver of poverty doth God appear.
Who thinks each good because from God each flows,
Shall always each with bravest spirit bear.”

_Plate 16_

IIII.

PAVPERTAS IMMERITA.

Dominus pauperem facit & ditat.

1. _Regum_ 2, 7.

[Illustration]

_Vt Deus auctor opum quas olim Iobus habebat,
Sic paupertatis tum Deus auctor erat.
Qui bonum vtrumque putat, Dominus quia donat vtrumque,
In animo forti ſemper vtrumque feret._

_Providence making Rich and making Poor Coörnhert, 1585._

In the device, the clouds are opened to bestow fulness upon the poor
man, and emptiness upon the rich. By brief allusion chiefly does
Shakespeare express either of these acts; but in the _Tempest_ (act iii.
sc. 2, l. 135, vol. i. p. 48), Caliban, after informing Stephano that
“the isle is full of noises,” and that “sometimes a thousand twangling
instruments will hum about mine ears,” adds,—

“And then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me; that when I waked,
I cried to dream again.”

A very similar picture and sentiment to those in Coornhert are presented
by Gloucester’s words in _King Lear_ (act iv. sc. 1, l. 64, vol. viii.
p. 366),—

“Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens’ plagues
Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched
Makes thee the happier. Heavens, deal so still!
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly;
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough.”

Coornhert’s title, “~Recht Ghebruyck ende Misbruyck vantydlycke
have~,”—_The right use and misuse of worldly wealth_,—and, indeed,
his work, have their purport well carried out by the king in _2 Henry
IV._ (act iv. sc. 4, l. 103, vol iv. p. 450),—

“Will Fortune never come with both hands full,
But write her fair words still in foulest letters?
She either gives a stomach and no food;
Such are the poor, in health; or else a feast
And takes away the stomach; such are the rich.
That have abundance and enjoy it not.”

The fine thoughts of Ulysses, too, in _Troilus and Cressida_ (act iii.
sc. 3, l. 196, vol. vi. p. 201), have right and propriety here to be
quoted,—

“The providence that’s in a watchful state
Knows almost every grain of Plutus’ gold,
Finds bottom in the uncomprehensive deeps,
Keeps place with thought and almost like the gods
Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
There is a mystery, with whom relation
Durst never meddle, in the soul of state;
Which hath an operation more divine
Than breath or pen can give expressure to.”

Petruchio’s thought, perchance, may be mentioned in this connection
(_Taming of the Shrew_, act iv. sc. 3, l. 165, vol. iii. p. 78), when he
declares his will to go to Kate’s father,—

“Even in these honest mean habiliments:
Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor;
For ’tis the mind that makes the body rich:
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honour peereth in the meanest habit.”

_Plate 17._

[Illustration: _Time Flying from “Emblemata” by Otho Vænius p 206 ed
1612_]

The Horatian thought, “Time flies irrevocable.” so well depicted by Otho
Vænius in his _Emblemata_ (edition 1612, p. 206), has only general
parallels in Shakespeare; and yet it is a thought with which our various
dissertations on Shakespeare and the Emblematists may find no unfitting
end. The Christian artist far excels the Heathen poet. Horace, in his
_Odes_ (bk. iv. carmen 7), declares,—

“_Immortalia ne speres, monet annus & almum
Quæ rapit hora diem:
Frigora mitescunt Zephyris: Ver proterit Æstas
Interitura, simul
Pomifer Autumnus fruges effuderit: & mox
Bruma recurrit iners._”

_i.e._ “Not to hope immortal things, the year admonishes, and the hour
which steals the genial day. By western winds the frosts grow mild; the
summer soon to perish supplants the spring, then fruitful autumn pours
forth
his stores, and soon sluggish winter comes again.”

These, however, the artist makes (_Henry V._, act iv. sc. 1, l. 9, vol.
v. p. 555),—

“Preachers to us all, admonishing
That we should dress us fairly for our end.”

Youthful Time (see Plate XVII.) is leading on the seasons,—a childlike
spring, a matured summer wreathed with corn, an autumn crowned with
vines, and a decrepid winter,—and yet the emblem of immortality lies at
their feet; and the lesson is taught, as our Dramatist expresses it
(_Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2, l. 71, vol. viii. p. 14),—

“All that lives must die
Passing through nature to eternity.”

The irrevocable time flies on, and surely it has its comment in
_Macbeth_ (act v. sc. 5, l. 19, vol. vii. p. 512),—

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.”

Or, in Hotspur’s words (_1 Henry IV._, act v. sc. 2, l. 82, vol. iv. p.
337),—

“O gentlemen, the time of life is short!
To spend that shortness basely were too long,
If life did ride upon a dial’s point,
Still ending at the arrival of an hour.”

And for eternity’s Emblem,[187] the Egyptians, we are told (Horapollo,
i. 1), made golden figures of the Basilisk, with its tail covered by the
rest of its body; so Otho Vænius presents the device to us. But
Shakespeare, without symbol, names the desire, the feeling, the fact
itself; he makes Cleopatra exclaim (_Antony and Cleopatra_, act v. sc.
2, l. 277, vol. ix. p. 150), “I have immortal longings in me,” “I am
fire and air; my other elements I give to baser life.”

When Romeo asks (_Romeo and Juliet_, act v. sc. 1, l. 15, vol. vii. p.
117),—

“How fares my Juliet? that I ask again;
For nothing can be ill, if she be well;”

with the force of entire faith the answer is conceived which Balthasar
returns,—

“Then she is well, and nothing can be ill:
Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.”

We thus know in what sense to understand the words from _Macbeth_ (act
iii. sc. 2, l. 22, vol. vii. p. 467),—

“Duncan is in his grave;
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.”

Therefore, in spite of quickly fading years, in spite of age
irrevocable, and (_Love’s Labours Lost_, act i. sc. 1, l. 4, vol. ii. p.
97),—

“In spite of cormorant devouring Time,
The endeavour of this present breath may buy
That honour which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity.”

A brief _resumé_, or recapitulation, will now place the nature of our
argument more clearly in review.

When writing and its kindred arts of designing and colouring were the
only means in use for the making and illustrating of books, drawings of
an emblematical character were frequently executed both for the
ornamenting and for the fuller explanation of various works.

From the origin of printing, books of an emblematical character, as the
_Bibles of the Poor_ and other block-books, were generally known in the
civilised portions of Europe; they constituted, to a considerable
degree, the illustrated literature of their age, and enjoyed wide fame
and popularity.

Not many years after printing with moveable types had been invented,
Emblem works as a distinct species of literature appeared; and of these
some of the earliest were soon translated into English.

It is on undoubted record that the use of Emblems, derived from German,
Latin, French, and Italian sources, prevailed in England for purposes of
ornamentation of various kinds; that the works of Brandt, Giovio,
Symeoni, and Paradin were translated into English; and that there were
several English writers or collectors of Emblems within Shakespeare’s
lifetime,—as Daniell, Whitney, Willet, Combe, and Peacham.

Shakespeare possessed great artistic powers, so as to appreciate and
graphically describe the beauties and qualities of excellence in
painting, sculpture, and music. His attainments, too, in the languages
enabled him to make use of the Emblem-books that had been published in
Latin, Italian, and French, and possibly in Spanish.

In everything, except in the actual pictorial device, Shakespeare
exhibited himself as a skilled designer,—indeed, a writer of Emblems; he
followed the very methods on which this species of literary composition
was conducted, and needed only the engraver’s aid to make perfect
designs.

Freest among mortals were the Emblem writers in borrowing one from the
other, and from any source which might serve the construction of their
ingenious devices; and they generally did this without acknowledgment.
An Emblem once launched into the world of letters was treated as a fable
or a proverb,—it became for the time and the occasion the property of
whoever chose to take it. In using Emblems, therefore, Shakespeare is no
more to be regarded as a copyist than his contemporaries are, but simply
as one who exercised a recognised right to appropriate what he needed of
the general stock of Emblem notions.

There are several direct References in Shakespeare, at least six, in
which, by the closest description and by express quotation, he
identifies himself with the Emblem writers who preceded him.

But besides these direct References, there are several collateral ones,
in which ideas and expressions are employed similar to those of
Emblematists, and which indicate a knowledge of Emblem art.

And, finally, the parallelisms and correspondencies are very numerous
between devices and turns of thought, and even between the words of the
Emblem writers and passages in Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Dramas; and
these receive their most appropriate _rationale_ on the supposition that
they were suggested to his mind through reading the Emblem-books, or
through familiarity with the Emblem literature.

Now, such References and Coincidences are not to be regarded as purely
accidental, neither can all of them be urged with entire confidence.
Some persons even may be disposed to class them among the similarities
which of necessity arise when writers of genius and learning take up the
same themes, and call to their aid all the resources of their memory and
research.

I presume not, however, to say that my arguments and statements are
absolute proofs, except in a few instances. What I maintain is this:
that the Emblem writers, and our own Whitney especially, do supply many
curious and highly interesting illustrations of the Shakespearean
dramas, and that several of them, probably, were in the mind of the
Dramatist as he wrote.

To show that the theory carried out in these pages is neither singular
nor unsupported by high authorities, it should not be forgotten that the
very celebrated critic, Francis Douce, in his _Illustrations of
Shakespeare_ (pp. 302, 392), maintains that Paradin was the source of
the torch-emblem in the _Pericles_ (act ii. sc. 2, l. 32): the “wreath
of victory,” and “gold on the touchstone,” have also the same source. To
Holbein’s _Simulachres_ Noel Humphreys assigns the origin of the
expression in _Othello_, “Put out the light—and then, put out the
light;” and in the same work, Dr. Alfred Woltmann, in _Holbein and his
Times_ (vol. ii. p. 121), finds the origin of Death’s fool in _Measure
for Measure_: and Shakespeare’s comparisons of “Death and Sleep” may be
traced to Jean de Vauzelle, who wrote the Dissertations for _Les
Simulachres_. Charles Knight, also, in his _Pictorial Shakspere_ (vol.
i. p. 154), to illustrate the lines in _Hamlet_ (act iv. sc. 5, l. 142)
respecting “the kind life-rendering pelican,” quotes Whitney’s stanza,
and copies his woodcut, as stated _ante_, p. 396, note.

Though not a learned man, as Erasmus or Beza was, Shakespeare, as every
page of his wonderful writings shows, must have been a reading man, and
well acquainted with the current literature of his age and country.
Whitney’s _Emblemes_ were well known in 1612 to the author of “MINERVA
BRITANNA,” and boasted of in 1598 by Thomas Meres, in his _Wit’s
Commonwealth_, as fit to be compared with any of the most eminent Latin
writers of Emblems, and dedicated to many of the distinguished men of
Elizabeth’s reign; and they could scarcely have been unknown to
Shakespeare even had there been no similarities of thought and
expression established between the two writers.

Nor after the testimonies which have been adduced, and comparing the
picture-emblems submitted for consideration with the passages from
Shakespeare which are their parallels, as far as words can be to
drawings, are we required to treat it as nothing but a conjecture that
Shakespeare, like others of his countrymen, possessed at least a general
acquaintance with the popular Emblem-books of his own generation and of
that which went before.

The study of the old Emblem-books certainly possesses little of the
charm which the unsurpassed natural power of Shakespeare has infused
into his dramas, and which time does not diminish; yet that study is no
barren pursuit for such as will seek for “virtue’s fair form and graces
excellent,” or who desire to note how the learning of the age disported
itself at its hours of recreation, and how, with few exceptions, it held
firm its allegiance to purity of thought, and reverenced the spirit of
religion. Should there be any whom these pages incite to gain a fuller
knowledge of the Emblem literature, I would say in the words of Arthur
Bourchier, Whitney’s steady friend,—

“_Goe forwarde then in happie time, and thou shalt surely finde,
With coste, and labour well set out, a banquet for thy minde,
A storehouse for thy wise conceiptes, a whetstone for thy witte:
Where, eache man maye with daintie choice his fancies finely fitte._”

So much for the early cultivators of Emblematical mottoes, devices, and
poesies, and for him whom Hugh Holland, and Ben Jonson, and “The
friendly Admirer of his Endowments,” salute as “The Famous Scenicke
Poet,” “The Sweet Swan of Avon,” “The Starre of Poets,”—

“_Soule of the Age!_
The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!”

“TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED, THE AUTHOR, ~Mr. William
Shakespeare~: _and what he has left us_;”—such the dedication when
Jonson declared,—

“_Thou art a Moniment without a tombe._
. . . . . .
_And art aliue still, while thy Booke doth liue_
And we haue wits to read, and praise to giue.”

[Illustration: _Giovio, ed. 1556._]

-----

Footnote 180:

Can this be an allusion to Holbein’s _Last Judgment_ and _Escutcheon
of Death_ in his _Simulachres de la Mort_, ed. 1538?

Footnote 181:

“Cicero dict que Alcidamus vng Rheteur antique escripuit les louanges
de la Mort, en les quelles estoient cõtenuz les nombres des maulx des
humains, & ce pour leur faire desirer la Mort. Car si le dernier iour
n’amaine extinction, mais commutation de lieu, Quest il plus a
desirer? Et s’il estainct & efface tout, Quest il rien meilleur, que
de s’ endormir au milieu des labeurs de ceste vie & ainsi reposer en
vng sempiternel sommeil.”

Footnote 182:

For many other instances of similarities in the use of old words, see
the APPENDIX, I. p. 497.

Footnote 183:

Were it only for the elegance and neat turn of the lines, we insert an
epigram on a dog, by Joachim du Bellay, given in his Latin Poems,
printed at Paris in 1569,—

“Latratu fures excepi;—mutus amantes;
Sic placui domino, sic placui dominæ.”

[Sidenote: _i.e._]

“With barking the thieves I awaited,—in silence the lovers;
So pleased I the master,—so pleased I the mistress.”

Footnote 184:

“Tarre,” _i.e._ provoke or urge; see Johnson and Steevens’
_Shakespeare_, vol. ix. p. 48, note.

Footnote 185:

See “Horace his Arte of Poetrie, pistles, and satyres, englished” by
Thomas Drant, 410, 1567.

Footnote 186:

The character, however, of the animal is named in _Midsummer Night’s
Dream_ (act ii. sc. 1, l. 181), where Titania may look—

“On meddling monkey, or on busy ape.”

Footnote 187:

See woodcut in this volume, p. 37.

-----

------------------------------------------------------------------------

APPENDIX

COINCIDENCES BETWEEN SHAKESPEARE AND WHITNEY IN THE USE AND APPLICATION
OF WORDS NOW OBSOLETE, OR OF OLD FORM.

N.B. After the words the References are to the pages and lines of
Whitney’s Emblems; in the Dramas to the act, scene, and line, according
to the Cambridge Edition, 8vo, in 9 vols. 1866.

Accidentes p. vi. line 2 yet they set them selues a
worke in handlinge suche
accidentes, as haue bin done
in times paste.

p. vii. l. 21 this present time behouldeth
the accidentes of former
times.

_Tempest_, v. 1. 305 And the particular accidents
gone by.

_1 Hen. IV._ i. 2, And nothing pleaseth but rare
199 accidents.

_W. Tale_, iv. 4, As the unthought-on accident
527 is guilty.

affectioned p. vi. l. 5 one too much affectioned, can
scarce finde an ende of the
praises of Hector.

_Twelfth N._ ii. 3, An affectioned ass.
139

_L. L. Lost_, i. 2, I do affect the very ground.
158.

aie, or aye p. 21, l. 7 With theise hee lines, and
doth rejoice for aie.

p. 111, l. 12 Thy fame doth liue, and eeke,
for aye shall laste.

_M. N. Dr._ i. l. 71 For aye to be in shady
cloister mew’d.

_Pericles_, v. 3, 95 The worth that learned charity
aye wears.

_Tr. and Cr._ iii. To feed for aye her lamp and
2, 152 flames of love.

alder, or elder p. 120, l. 5 And why? theise two did alder
time decree.

_2 Hen. VI._ i. l. With you my alder, liefest
28 sovereign.

_Tr. and Cr._ ii. 2, Virgins and boys, mid-age and
104 wrinkled eld.

_Rich. II_. ii. 3, — which elder days shall
43 ripen.

amisse p. 211, l. 16 That all too late shee
mourn’d, for her amisse.

_Hamlet_ iv. 5, 18 Each toy seems prologue to
some great amiss.

_Sonnet_ cli. 3 Then gentle cheater urge not
my amiss.

_Sonnet_ xxxv. 7 Myself corrupting, salving thy
amiss.

annoyes p. 219, l. 9 His pleasures shalbee mated
with annoyes.

_Rich. III._ v. 3, Guard thee from the boar’s
156 annoy!

_Tit. An._ iv. 1, 50 — root of thine annoy.

_3 Hen. VI._ v. 7, — farewell, sour annoy!
45

assaie p. 34, l. 13 But when the froste, and
coulde, shall thee assaie.

p. 40, l. 3 With reasons firste, did
vertue him assaie.

_1 Hen. IV._ v. 4, I will assay thee; so defend
34 thyself.

_Hamlet_, ii. 2, 71 Never more to give the assay
of arms against your
majesty.

a worke p. vi. l. 2 They set them selues a worke
in handlinge.

_2 Hen. IV._ iv. 3, for that sets it a-work.
108

_K. Lear_, iii. 5, 6 set a-work by a reproveable
badness.

Baie, or baye p. 213, l. 3 Wherefore, in vaine aloude he
barkes and baies.

p. 191, l. 4 And curteous speeche, dothe
keepe them at the baye.

_Cymb._ v. 5, 222 — set the dogs o’ the street
to bay me.

_J. Cæs._ iv. 3, 27 I had rather be a dog, and bay
the moon.

_T. of Shrew_, v. 2, Your deer does hold you at a
56 bay.

_2 Hen. IV._ i. 3, — baying him at the heels.
80

bale p. 180, l. 7 A worde once spoke, it can
retourne no more,

But flies awaie, and ofte thy
bale doth breede.

p. 219, l. 16 Lo this their bale, which was
her blisse you heare.

_1 Hen. VI._ v. 4, By sight of these our baleful
122 enemies.

_Coriol._ i. 4, 155 Rome and her rats are at the
point of battle;

The one side must have bale.

bane or bayne p. 141, l. 7 Euen so it happes, wee ofte
our bayne doe brue.

p. 211, l. 14 Did breede her bane, who
mighte haue bath’de in
blisse.

_Tit. An._ v. 3, 73 Lest Rome herself be bane unto
herself.

_M. for M._ i. 2, Like rats that ravin down
123 their proper bane.

_Macbeth_, v. 3, 59 I will not be afraid of death
and bane.

banne p. 189, l. 10 And in a rage, the brutishe
beaste did banne.

_Hamlet_, iii. 2, With Hecate’s ban thrice
246 blasted.

_1 Hen. VI._ v. 4, Fell, banning hag,
42 enchantress, hold thy
tongue!

_2 Hen. VI._ iii. 2, Every joint should seem to
319 curse and ban.

betide p. 9, l. 2 Woulde vnderstande what
weather shoulde betide.

_3 Hen. VI._ iv. 6, A salve for any sore that may
88. betide.

_T. G. Ver._ iv. 3, Recking as little what
40. betideth me.

betime p. 50, l. 1 Betime when sleepe is sweete,
the chattringe swallowe
cries.

_Hamlet_, iv. 5, 47 All in the morning betime.

_2 Hen. VI._ iii. 3, And stop the rage betime.
285

bewraye p. v. l. 30 bewrayeth it selfe as the
smoke bewrayeth the fire.

p. 124, l. 5 Theire foxes coate, theire
fained harte bewraies.

_1 Hen. VI._ iv. 1, Bewray’d the faintness of my
107 master’s heart.

_K. Lear_, ii. 1, He bewray his practice.
107

_3 Hen. VI._ i. 1, Whose looks bewray her anger.
211

bleared p. 94. l. 7 What meanes her eies? so
bleared, sore, and redd.

_T. of Shrew_, v. 1, While counterfeit supposes
103 blear’d thine eyne.

_M. Venice_, iii. 2, Dardanian wives with blear’d
58 visages.

bloodes p. 99, 1. 18 Can not be free, from guilte
of childrens bloodes.

_Cymb._ i. 1, 1 Our bloods no more obey the
heavens than our courtiers.

broache p. 7, l. 2 And bluddie broiles, at home
are set a broache.

_Rom. and J._ i. 1, Who set this ancient quarrel
102 new abroach?

_2 Hen. IV._ iv. 2, Alack what mischiefs might he
14 set a broach.

budgettes p. 209, l. 10 The quicke Phisition did
commaunde that tables should
be set

About the misers bed, and
budgettes forth to bring.

_W. Tale_, iv. 3, 18 If tinkers may have leave to
live,

And bear the sow-skin
budget.

Carle p. 209, l. 5 At lengthe, this greedie carle
the Lythergie posseste.

_Cymb._ v. 2, 4 — this carl, a very drudge of
nature’s.

_As Like it_, iii. And he hath bought the cottage
5, 106 and the bounds

That the old carlot once was
master of.

carpes p. 50, 1. 3 Which carpes the pratinge
crewe, who like of bablinge
beste.

_K. Lear_, i. 4, 194 — your insolent retinue do
hourly carp and quarrel.

_1 Hen. VI._ iv. 1, This fellow here, with envious
90 carping tongue.

catch’de p. 77, l. 6. Yet, with figge leaues at
lengthe was catch’de, & made
the fisshers praie.

_Rom. and J._ iv. 5, But one thing to rejoice and
47 solace in,

And cruel death hath catch’d
it from my sight!

cates p. 18, l. 9 Whose backe is fraighte with
cates and daintie cheare.

p. 202, l. 12 And for to line with CODRVS
cates: a roote and barly
bonne.

_T. of Shrew_, ii. My super-dainty Kate, all
1, 187 dainties are all Kates.

_1 Hen. VI._ ii. 3, That we may taste of your
78 wine, and see what cates you
have.

_C. Errors_, iii. 1, But though my cates be mean,
28 take them in good part.

caytiffe p. 95, l. 19 See heare how vile, theise
caytiffes doe appeare.

_Rom. and J._ v. 1, Here lives a caitiff wretch.
52

_Rich. II._ i. 2, 53 A caitiff recreant to my
cousin Hereford.

clogges p. 82, l. 9. Then, lone the onelie crosse,
that clogges the worlde with
care.

_Macbeth_, iii. 6, You’ll rue the time that clogs
42 me with this answer.

_Rich. II._ i. 3, Bear not along the clogging
200 burden of a guilty soul.

cockescombe p. 81, l. 5 A motley coate, a cockescombe,
or a bell.

_M. Wives,_ v. 5, Shall I have a coxcomb of
133 frize?

_K. Lear_, ii. 4, She knapped ’em o’ the
119 coxcombs with a stick.

consummation p. xi. l. 23 wee maie behoulde the
consummatiõ of happie ould
age.

_Cymb._ iv. 2, 281 Quiet consummation have.

_Hamlet_, iii. 1, 63 ’Tis a consummation devoutly
to be wish’d.

corrupte p. xiv. l. 19 too much corrupte with
curiousnes and newfanglenes.

_1 Hen. VI._ v. 4, Corrupt and tainted with a
45 thousand vices.

_Hen. VIII._ i. 2, @span 4: the mind growing once
116 corrupt,@

They turn to vicious forms.

corse p. 109, l. 30 But fortie fiue before, did
carue his corse.

_W. Tale_, iv. 4, Like a bank, for love to lie
130 and play on; not like a
corse.

_Rom. and J._ v. 2, Poor living corse, clos’d in a
30 dead man’s tomb.

create p. 64, l. 1 Not for our selues alone wee
are create.

_Hen. V._ ii. 2, 31 With hearts create of duty and
of zeal.

_K. John_, iv. 1, Being create for comfort.
107

Deceaste p. 87, l. 13 Throughe Aschalon, the place
where he deceaste.

_Cymb._ i. 1, 38 His gentle lady—deceas’d as he
was born.

delight p. xiii l. 37 Lastlie, if anie deuise herein
shall delight thee.

_Hamlet_, ii. 2, 300 Man delights not me.

_Much Ado_, ii 1, None but libertines delight
122 him.

dernell p. 68, l. 2 The hurtfull tares, and
dernell ofte doe growe.

_1 Hen. VI._ iii. 2, ’Twas full of darnel; do you
44 like the taste?

_K. Lear_, iv. 4, 4 Darnel, and all the idle weeds
that grow.

determine p. x. l. 9 healthe and wealthe—determine
with the bodie.

_Coriol._ iii. 3, 43 Must all determine here?

_Coriol._ v. 3, 119 I purpose not to wait,—till
these wars determine.

distracte p. 102, l. 17 Which when hee sawe, as one
distracte with care.

_K. Lear_, iv. 6, Better I were distract: so
281 should my thoughts be
severed from my griefs.

_2 Hen. VI._ iii. 3, My hair be fix’d on end as one
318 distract.

doombe p. 30, l. 4 Wronge sentence paste by
AGAMEMNONS doombe.

_As Like it_, i. 3, Firm and irrevocable is my
79 doom, which I have pass’d
upon her.

_Rom. and J._ iii. Then, dreadful trumpet, sound
2, 67 the general doom.

doubt p. 148, l. 3 The boye no harme did doubt,
vntill he felt the stinge.

_Rich. II._ iii. 4, ’Tis doubt he will be.
69

_Coriol._ iii. 1, More than you doubt the change
152 on’t.

dulcet p. 128, l. 11 And biddes them feare, their
sweet and dulcet meates.

_As Like it_, v. 4, According to the fool’s bolt,
61 Sir, and such dulcet
diseases.

_Twelfth N._ ii. 3, To hear by the nose is a
55 dulcet in contagion.

dull p. 103, l. 12 For ouermuch, dothe dull the
finest wittes

_Hen. V._ ii. 4, 16 For peace itself should not so
dull a kingdom.

_Sonnet_ ciii. l. 8 Dulling my lines and doing me
disgrace.

Eeke, or eke p. 2, l. 8 Before whose face, and eeke on
euerye side.

p. 45, l. 10 And eke this verse was grauen
on the brasse.

_M. N. Dr._ iii. l. Most brisky juvenal, and eke
85 most lovely Jew.

_All’s Well_, ii. 5, With true observance seek to
73 eeke out that.

_M. Wives_, ii. 3, And eke Cavaleiro Slender.
67

englished Title, l. 5 Englished and Moralized.

_M. Wives_, i. 3, 44 — to be English’d rightly, is,
I am Sir John Falstaff’s.

ercksome p. 118, l. 4 With ercksome noise, and eke
with poison fell.

_T. of Shrew_, i. 2, I know she is an irksome
181 brawling scold.

_2 Hen. VI._ ii. 1, Irksome is this music to my
56 heart.

erste p. 194, l. 20 As with his voice hee erste
did daunte his foes.

_As Like it_, iii. Thy company, which erst was
5, 94 irksome to me.

_2 Hen. VI._ ii. 4, That erst did follow thy proud
13 chariot wheels.

eschewed p. vii. l. 19 examples—eyther to bee
imitated, or eschewed.

_M. Wives_, v. 5, What cannot be eschew’d, must
225 be embraced.

eternised p. ii. l. 32 — learned men haue eternised
to all posterities.

_2 Hen. VI._ v. 3, Saint Alban’s battle won by
30 famous York

Shall be eterniz’d in all age
to come.

euened p. 131, l. 6 If ÆGYPT spires, be euened
with the soile.

_K. Lear_, iv. 7, 80 To make him even o’er the time
he has lost.

_Hamlet_, v. 1, 27 Their even Christian.

extincte p. iv. l. 32 deathe—coulde not extincte nor
burie their memories.

_Othello_, ii. 1, 81 Give renew’d fire to our
extincted spirits.

_Rich. II._ i. 3, — be extinct with age.
222

Facte p. 79, l. 22 Thinke howe his facte, was
ILIONS foule deface.

_M. for M._ v. 1, Should she kneel down in mercy
432 of this fact.

_2 Hen. VI._ i. 3, A fouler fact did never
171 traitor in the land commit.

fardle p. 179, l. 9 Dothe venture life, with
fardle on his backe.

_Hamlet_, iii. 1, 76 Who would fardels bear, to
groan and sweat under a
weary life?

_W. Tale_, v. 2, 2 I was by at the opening of the
fardel.

falls p. 176, l. 7 Euen so, it falles, while
carelesse times wee spende.

_J. Cæs._ iii. 1, I know not what may fall; I
244 like it not.

feare p. 127, l. 11 Who while they liu’de did
feare you with theire
lookes.

_Ant. and C._ ii. 6, Thou canst not fear us,
24 Pompey, with thy sails.

_M. for M._ ii. 1, 2 Setting it up to fear the
birds of prey.

fell p. 3, l. 12 Hath Nature lente vnto this
Serpent fell.

_M. N. Dr._ v. 1, A lion-fell, nor else no
221 lion’s dam.

_2 Hen. VI._ iii. 1, This fell tempest shall not
351 cease to rage.

filed p. 30, l. 5 But howe? declare, Vlysses
filed tonge

Allur’de the Iudge, to giue a
Iudgement wronge.

_Macbeth_, iii. 1, If’t be so, for Banquo’s issue
63 have I fil’d my mind.

fittes p. 103, l. 11 Sometime the Lute, the Chesse,
or Bowe by fittes.

_Tr. and Cr._ iii. Well, you say so in fits.
1, 54

floate p. 7, l. 10 This, robbes the good, and
setts the theeues a floate.

_J. Cæs._ iv. 3, 220 On such a full sea are we now
afloat.

_Macbeth_, iv. 2, 21 But float upon a wild and
violent sea.

foile p. 4, l. 10 And breake her bandes, and
bring her foes to foile.

_Tempest_, iii. 1, Did quarrel with the noblest
45 grace she ow’d,

And put it to the foil.

fonde p. 223, l. 7 Oh worldlinges fonde, that
ioyne these two so ill.

_M. for M._ v. 1, Fond wretch, though know’st
105 not what thou speak’st.

_M. N. Dr._ iii. 2, How simple and how fond I am.
317

forgotte p. 5, l. 7 Yet time and tune, and
neighbourhood forgotte.

_Othello_, ii. 3, How comes it, Michael, you are
178 thus forgot?

_Rich. II._ ii. 3, That is not forgot which ne’er
37 I did remember.

foyles p. xvii. l. 18 PERFECTION needes no other
foyles, suche helpes comme
out of place.

_1 Hen. IV._ iv. 2, That which hath no foil to set
207 it off.

fraies p. 51, l. 6 Unto the good, a shielde in
ghostlie fraies.

_1 Hen. IV._ i. 2, To the latter end of a fray,
74 and the beginning of a
feast.

_M. Venice_, iii. 4, And speak of frays, like a
68 fine bragging youth.

frende p. 172, l. 14 As bothe your Towne, and
countrie, you maye frende.

_Macbeth_, iv. 3, 10 As I shall find the time to
friend.

_Hen. VIII._ i. 2, Not friended by his wish.
140

frettes p. 92, l. 1 The Lute ... lack’de bothe
stringes, and frettes.

_T. of Shrew_, ii. She mistook her frets.
1, 148

fustie p. 80, l. 6 Or fill the sacke, with fustie
mixed meale.

_Tr. and Cr._ i. 3, at this fusty stuff,
161

The large Achilles ... laughs
out a loud applause.

Gan p. 156, l. 3 At lengthe when all was gone,
the pacient gan to see.

_Macbeth_, i. 2, 54 The thane of Cawdor began a
dismal conflict.

_Coriol._ ii. 2, 112 — the din of war gan pierce
his ready sense.

ghoste p. 141, l. 5 Beinge ask’d the cause, before
he yeelded ghoste.

_1 Hen. VI._ i. 1, — cause him once more yield
67 the ghost.

_Rich. III._ i. 4, — often did I strive to yield
36 the ghost.

ginnes p. 97, l. 3 For to escape the fishers
ginnes and trickes.

_Twelfth N._ ii. 5, Now is the woodcock near the
77 gin.

_2 Hen. VI._ iii. 1 Be it by gins, by snares.

gladde p. 198, l. 10 And CODRVS had small cates,
his harte to gladde.

_3 Hen. VI._ iv. 6, — did glad my heart with hope.
93

_Tit. An._ i. 2, 166 The cordial of mine age to
glad my heart!

glasse p. 113, l. 6 An acte moste rare, and glasse
of true renoume.

_Twelfth N._ iii. 4, I my brother know yet liuing
363 in my glasse.

_C. Errors_, v. 1, Methinks you are my glass, and
416 not my brother.

_J. Cæs._ i. 2, 68 So well as by reflection, I,
your glass.

_Rich. II._ i. 3, Even in the glasses of thine
208 eyes I see thy grieved
heart.

glosse p. 219, l. 17 O loue, a plague, thoughe
grac’d with gallant glosse.

_L. L. Lost_, ii. 1, The only soil of his fair
47 virtue’s gloss.

_Hen. VIII_ v. 3, 71 Your painted gloss
discovers,—words and
weakness.

gripe p. 75, l. 2 Whose liuer still, a greedie
gripe dothe rente.

p. 199, l. 1, 2 If then, content the chiefest
riches bee,

And greedie gripes, that doe
abounde be pore.

_Cymb._ i. 6, 105 Join gripes with hands made
hard with hourly falshood.

_Hen. VIII._ v. 3, Out of the gripes of cruel
100 men.

guerdon p. 15, l. 10 And shall at lenghte Actæons
guerdon haue.

_Much Ado_, v. 3, 5 Death in guerdon of her
wrongs.

_1 Hen. VI._ iii. 1, — in reguerdon of that duty
170 done.

guide p. 33, l. 5 And lefte her younge, vnto
this tirauntes guide.

_Timon_, i. 1, 244 Pray entertain them; give them
guide to us.

_Othello_, ii. 3, My blood begins my safer
195 guides to rule.

guise p. 159, l. 9 Inquired what in sommer was
her guise.

_Macbeth_, v. 1, 16 This is her very guise; and,
upon my life, fast asleep.

_Cymb._ v. 1, 32 To shame the guise o’ the
world.

Hale, hal’de p. 71, l. 2 In hope at lengthe, an happie
hale to haue.

p. 37, l. 10 And AJAX gifte, hal’de HECTOR
throughe the fielde.

_1 Hen. VI._ v. 4, Although ye hale me to a
64 violent death.

_Tit. An._ v. 3, 143 Hither hale that misbelieving
Moor.

_1 Hen. VI._ ii. 5, Even like a man new haled from
3 the rack.

happe p. 147, l. 13 So ofte it happes, when wee
our fancies feede.

p. 201, l. 29 Wherefore, when happe, some
goulden honie bringes?

_T. of Shrew_, iv. Hap what hap may, I’ll roundly
4, 102 go about her.

_Rom. and J._ ii. 2, His help to crave, and my dear
190 hap to tell.

harmes p. 183, l. 7 In marble harde our harmes wee
always graue.

_1 Hen. VI._ iv. 7, My spirit can no longer bear
30. these harms.

_Rich. III._ ii. 2, None can cure their harms by
103. wailing.

hatche p. 180, l. 9 A wise man then, selles hatche
before the dore.

_K. John_, i. 1, 171 In at the window, or else o’er
the hatch.

_K. Lear_, iii. 6, Dogs leap the hatch and all
71 are fled.

haughtie p. 53, l. 7 In craggie rockes, and
haughtie mountaines toppe.

_1 Hen. VI._ iv. 1, Valiant and virtuous, full of
35 haughty courage.

hauocke p. 6, l. 6 Till all they breake, and vnto
hauocke bringe.

_J. Cæs._ iii. 1, Cry “Havock,” and let slip the
274 dogs of war.

_K. John_, ii. 1, Wide havock made for bloody
220 power.

heste p. 87, l. 10 And life resigne, to tyme, and
natures heste.

_Tempest_, i. 2, 274 Refusing her grand hests,

_Tempest_, iii. 1, I have broke your hest to say
37 so.

hidde p. 43, l. 1 By vertue hidde, behoulde, the
Iron harde.

_Much Ado_, v. 1, Adam, when he was hid in the
172 garden.

_M. Venice_, i. 1, Two grains of wheat hid in two
115 bushels of chaff.

Impe p. 186, l. 14 You neede not THRACIA seeke,
to heare some impe of
ORPHEVS playe.

p. 19, l. 9. But wicked Impes, that lewdlie
runne their race.

_2 Hen. IV._ v. 5, The heavens thee guard and
43 keep, most royal imp of
fame.

_L. L. Lost_, v. 2, Great Hercules is presented by
581 this imp.

indifferencie p. xiv. l. 29 those that are of good
iudgemente, with
indifferencie will reade.

_K. John_, ii. 1, Makes it take head from all
579 indifferency.

_2 Hen. IV._ iv. 3, An I had but a belly of any
20 indifferency.

ingrate p. 64, l. 3 And those, that are vnto
theire frendes ingrate.

_T. of Shrew_, i. 2, — will not so graceless be, to
266 be ingrate.

_1 Hen. IV._ i. 3, As this ingrate and canker’d
137 Bolingbroke.

ioye p. 5, l. 5 And bothe, did ioye theire
iarringe notes to sounde.

_T. of Shrew_, Ind. Oh, how we joy to see your wit
2, 76 restored.

_2 Hen. VI._ iii. 2, Live thou to joy thy life.
364

Kinde p. 49, l. 16 And spend theire goodes, in
hope to alter kinde.

p. 178, l. 8 And where as malice is by
kinde, no absence helpes at
all.

_Ant. and C._ v. 2, Look you, that the worm will
259 do his kind.

_J. Cæs._ i. 3, 64 Why birds and beasts, from
quality and kind.

_As Like it_, iii. If the cat will after kind,
2, 93

So, be sure, will Rosalind.

knitte p. 76, l. 2 And knittes theire subiectes
hartes in one.

_M. N. Dr._ iv. 1, These couples shall eternally
178 be knit.

_Macbeth_, ii. 2, 37 Sleep that knits up the
ravell’d sleave of care.

knotte p. 142, l. 10 Yet, if this knotte of
frendship be to knitte.

_Cymb._ ii. 3, 116 To knit their souls ... in
self-figur’d knot.

_M. Wives_, iii. 2, He shall not knit a knot in
64 his fortune.

Launch’de p. 75, l. 11 Which being launch’de and
prick’d with inward care.

_Rich. III._ iv. 4, Whose hand soever lanced their
224 tender hearts.

_Ant. and C._ v. 1, We do lance diseases in our
36 bodies.

leaue p. 50, l. 5 For noe complaintes, coulde
make him leaue to steale.

_Tr. and Cr._ iii. What some men do, while some
3, 132 men leave to do!

let p. 89, l. 8 But Riuers swifte, their
passage still do let.

p. 209, l. 9 But, when that nothinge coulde
OPIMIVS sleepinge let.

_Hamlet_, i. 4, 85 By heaven, I’ll make a ghost
of him that lets me.

_T. G. Ver._ iii. 1, What lets, but one may enter
113 at her window.

like p. xi. 1. 14 if it shall like your honour
to allowe of anie of them.

_K. Lear_, ii. 2, 85 His countenance likes me not.

_T. G. Ver._ iv. 2, The music likes you not.
54

linke, linckt p. 226, l. 8 Take heede betime: and linke
thee not with theise.

p. 133, l. 4 And heades all balde, weare
newe in wedlocke linckt.

_1 Hen. VI._ v. 5, Margaret, he be link’d in
76 love.

_Hamlet_, i. 5, 55 though to a radiant angel
linked.

liste p. 63, l. 3 And with one hande, he guydes
them where he liste.

_T. of Shrew_, iii. Now take them up, quoth he, if
2, 159 any list.

lobbe p. 145, l. 6 Let Grimme haue coales: and
lobbe his whippe to lashe.

_M. N. Dr._ ii, 1, Farewell, thou lob of spirits;
16 I’ll be gone.

lotterie p. 61 Her Maiesties poesie, at the
great Lotterie in London.

_M. Venice_, i. 2, The lottery—in these three
25 chests of gold, silver and
lead.

_All’s Well_, i. 3, — ’twould mend the lottery
83 well.

lustie p. 9, l. 1 A YOUTHEFVLL Prince, in prime
of lustie yeares.

_As Like it_, ii. 3, Therefore my age is as a lusty
52 winter.

_T. G. Ver._ iv. 2, Let’s tune, and to it lustily
25 a while.

Meane p. 23, l. 12 The meane preferre, before
immoderate gaine.

_M. Venice_, i. 2, 6 It is no mean happiness,
therefore, to be seated in
the mean.

mid p. 160, l. 1 A Satyre, and his hoste, in
mid of winter’s rage.

_Rich. III._ v. 3, About the mid of night come to
77 my tent.

misliked p. xiv. l. 22 Some gallant coulours are
misliked.

_2 Hen. VI._ i. 1, ’Tis not my speeches that you
135 do mislike.

_3 Hen. VI._ iv. 1, Setting your scorns and your
24 mislike aside.

misse p. 149, l. 15 Or can we see so soone an
others misse.

_1 Hen. IV._ v. 4, O, I should have a heavy miss
105 of thee.

mockes and mowes p. 169, l. 4 Of whome both mockes, and
apishe mowes he gain’d.

_Othello_ v. 2, 154 O mistress, villainy hath made
mocks of love!

_Cymb._ i. 7, 40 — contemn with mows.

motley p. 81, l. 5 A motley coate, a cockes
combe, or a bell.

_Hen. VIII._ Prol. A fellow in a long motley
15 coat, guarded with yellow.

_As Like it_, ii. 7, I am ambitious for a motley
43 coat.

muskecattes p. 79, l. 1, 2 Heare LAIS fine, doth braue it
on the stage,

With muskecattes sweete, and
all shee coulde desire.

_All’s Well_, v. 2, — fortune’s cat,—but not a
18 musk-cat.

Neare p. 12, l. 3 Where, thowghe they toile, yet
are they not the neare.

_Rich. II._ v. 1, 88 Better far off, than—near, be
ne’er the near.

newfanglenes p. xiv. l. 19 too much corrupte with
curiousnes and newfanglenes.

_L. L. Lost_, i. 1, Than wish a snow in May’s new
106 fangled shows.

_As Like it_, iv. 1, — more new-fangled than an
135 ape.

nones p. 103, l. 10 And studentes muste haue
pastimes for the nones.

_Hamlet_, iv. 7, 159 I’ll have prepared him a
chalice for the nonce.

_1 Hen. IV._ i. 2, I have cases of buckram for
172 the nonce.

Occasion p. 181, l. 1 What creature thou? Occasion I
doe showe.

_K. John_, iv. 2, Withhold thy speed, dreadful
125 occasion.

_2 Hen. IV._ iv. 1, And are enforced from our most
71 quiet there,

By the rough torrent of
occasion.

ope p. 71, l. 9 Let Christians then, the eies
of faithe houlde ope.

_C. Errors_, iii. 1, I’ll break ope the gate.
73

_2 Hen. VI._ iv. 9, Then, heaven, set ope thy
13 everlasting gates.

Packe p. 42, 1. 9 Driue VENVS hence, let BACCHVS
further packe.

_C. Errors_, iii. 2, ’Tis time, I think, to trudge,
151 pack and be gone.

_T. of Shrew_, ii. If she do bid me pack, I’ll
1, 176 give her thanks.

paine p. 85, l. 8 The Florentines made
banishement theire paine.

_M. for M_. ii. 4, Accountant to the law upon
86 that pain.

_Rich. II._ i. 3, — against dice upon pain of
153 life.

pelfe p. 198, 1. 8 No choice of place, nor store
of pelfe he had.

_Timon_, i. 2 Immortal gods, I crave no
pelf,

I pray for no man but myself.

personage p. 187, l. 8 And dothe describe theire
personage, and theire guise.

_Twelfth N._ i. 5, Of what personage and years is
146 he?

_M. N. Dr._ iii. 2, And with her personage, her
292 tall personage.

pickthankes p. 150, l. 4 With pickthankes, blabbes, and
subtill Sinons broode.

_1 Hen. IV._ iii. 2, By smiling pick-thanks, and
24 base news mongers.

pikes p. 41, l. 17. And thoughe long time, they
doe escape the pikes.

_Much Ado_, v. 2, 18 You must put in the pikes with
a vice.

_3 Hen. VI._ i. 1, The soldiers should have
244 toss’d me on their pikes.

pill p. 151, l. 4 His subiectes poore, to shaue,
to pill, and poll.

_Timon_, iv. 1, 11 Large handed robbers your
grave masters are

And pill by law.

pithie p. x. l. 31 a worke both pleasaunte and
pithie.

_T. of Shrew_, iii. To teach you gamut in a
1, 65 briefer sort,

More pleasant, pithy, and
effectual.

poastes p. 39, l. 7 And he that poastes, to make
awaie his landes.

_Tr. and Cr._ i. 3, And posts, like the
93 commandment of a king.

prejudicate p. xiii. l. 44 with a preiudicate opinion to
condempne.

_All’s Well_, i. 2, Wherein our dearest friend
7 prejudicates the business.

proper p. iv. l. 7 that which hee desired to haue
proper to him selfe.

_M. for M._ v. 1, Faults proper to himself: if
110 he had so offended.

purge p. 68, l. 5. When graine is ripe, with siue
to purge the seede.

_M. N. Dr._ iii. 1, I will purge thy mortal
146 grossness so.

_Rom. and J._ v. 3, And here I stand, both to
225 impeach and purge

Myself condemned and myself
excused.

Quaile p. 111, l. 5 No paine, had power his
courage highe to quaile.

_Ant. and C._ v. 2, But when he meant to quail and
85 shake the orb.

_3 Hen. VI._ ii. 3, This may plant courage in
54 their quailing breasts.

queste p. 213, l. 5 But yet the Moone, who did not
heare his queste.

_M. for M._ iv. 1, Run with these false and most
60 contrarious quests.

_C. Errors_, i. 1, Might bear him company in the
130 quest of him.

Reaue p. 25, l. 3 Or straunge conceiptes, doe
reaue thee of thie rest.

_All’s Well_, v. 3, To reave her of what should
86 stead her most.

_2 Hen. VI._ v. 1, To reave the orphan of his
187 patrimony.

rente p. 30, l. 3 What is the cause, shee rentes
her goulden haire?

_Tit. An._ iii. 1, Rent off thy silver hair
261 (_note_).

_2 Hen. VI._ i. 1, torn and rent my very heart.
121

ripes p. 23, l. 1 When autumne ripes, the
frutefull fieldes of graine.

_As Like it_, ii. 7, We ripe and ripe and then.
26

_2 Hen. IV._ iv. 1, He is retired, to ripe his
13 growing fortunes.

roomes p. 186, l. 12 the trees, and rockes, that
lefte their roomes, his
musicke for to heare.

_3 Hen. VI._ iii. 2, the unlook’d for issue—take
131 their rooms, ere I can place
myself.

_Rom. and J._ i. 5, — give room! and foot it,
24 girls.

ruthe p. 4, l. 1 Three furies fell which turne
the worlde to ruthe.

_Rich. II._ iii. 4, Rue even for ruth.
106

_Coriol._ i. 1, 190 Would the nobility lay aside
their ruth.

ruthefull p. 13, l. 1 Of NIOBE, behoulde the
ruthefull plighte.

_3 Hen. VI._ ii. 5, O, that my death would stay
95 these ruthful deeds.

_Tr. and Cr._ v. 3, Spur them to ruthful work,
48 rein them from ruth!

Sauced p. 147, l. 4 He founde that sweete, was
sauced with the sower.

_Tr. and Cr._ i. 2, His folly sauced with
23 discretion.

_Coriol._ i. 9, 52 — dieted in praises sauced
with lies.

scanne p. 95, l. 6 Theise weare the two, that of
this case did scanne.

_Othello_, iii. 3, I might entreat your honour to
248 scan this thing no further.

_Hamlet_, iii. 3, 75 That would be scann’d; a
villain kills my father.

scape p. 24, l. 4 And fewe there be can scape
theise vipers vile.

_K. Lear_, ii. 1, 80 the villain shall not scape.

sillye p. 194, l. 7 For, as the wolfe, the sillye
sheep did feare.

_3 Hen. VI._ ii. 5, — looking on their silly
43 sheep.

_Cymb._ v. 3, 86 there was a fourth man in a
silly habit.

sith p. 109, l. 3 And sithe, the worlde might
not their matches finde.

_3 Hen. VI._ i. 1, Talk not of France, sith thou
110 hast lost it all.

_Othello_, iii. 3, But, sith I am enter’d in this
415 cause so far.

sithe p. 225, l. 6 For, time attendes with
shredding sithe for all.

_L. L. Lost_, i. 1, That honour which shall bate
6 his scythe’s keen edge.

_Ant. and C._ iii. I’ll make death love me, for I
13, 193 will contend

Even with his pestilent
scythe.

skante p. 199, l. 8 And, whilst wee thinke our
webbe to skante.

_Ant. and C._ iv. 2, Scant not my cups.
21

_K. Lear_, iii. 2, Return, and force their
66 scanted courtesy.

skap’d p. 153, l. 1 The stagge, that hardly skap’d
the hunters in the chase.

_3 Hen. VI._ ii. 1, I wonder how our princely
1 father scap’d.

_Hamlet_, i. 3, 38 Virtue itself ’scapes not
calumnious strokes.

soueraigne p. 161, l. 8 But that your tonge is
soueraigne, as I heare.

_Coriol._ ii. 1, 107 The most sovereign
prescription in Galen is but
empyric.

spare p. 60, l. 5 VLYSSES wordes weare spare,
but rightlie plac’d.

_As Like it_, iii. As it is a spare life look
2, 18 you.

_2 Hen. IV._ iii. 2, O give me the spare men, and
255 spare me.

square p. 140, l. 8 Each bragginge curre, beginnes
to square, and brall.

_Ant. & C._ iii. 13, Mine honesty and I begin to
41 square.

_Tit. An,_ ii. 1, 99 And are you such fools to
square for this?

stall’d p. 38, l. 10 And to be stall’d, on sacred
iustice cheare.

_All’s Well_, i. 3, Leave me; stall this in your
116 bosom.

_Rich. III._ i. 3, Deck’d in thy rights, as thou
206 art stall’d in mine.

starke p. ix. l. 31 whose frendship is frozen, and
starke towarde them.

_1 Hen. IV._ v. 3, Many a nobleman lies stark and
40 stiff.

_Rom. and J._ iv. 1, Shall stiff, and stark and
103 cold, appear like death.

stithe p. 192, l. 5 For there with strengthe he
strikes vppon the stithe.

_Hamlet_, iii. 2, 78 And my imaginations are as
foul as Vulcan’s stithy.

_Tr. and Cr._ iv. 5, By the forge that stithied
255 Mars his helm.

swashe p. 145, l. 5 Giue PAN, the pipe; giue
bilbowe blade, to swashe.

_Rom, and J._ i. 1, Gregory, remember thy swashing
60 blow.

_As Like it_, i. 3, We’ll have a swashing and a
116 martial outside.

Teene p. 138, l. 14 Not vertue hurtes, but turnes
her foes to teene.

_L. L. Lost_, iv. 3, Of sighs, of groans, of
160 sorrow, and of teene.

_Rom. and J._ i. 3, To my teen be it spoken.
14

threate p. 85, l. 11 And eke Sainct Paule, the
slothful thus doth threate.

_Rich. III._ i. 3, What threat you me with
113 telling of the king?

_Tit. An._ ii. 1, 39 Are you so desperate grown to
threat your friends?

Vndergoe p. 223, l. 3 First, vndergoes the worlde
with might, and maine.

_Much Ado_, v. 2, 50 Claudio undergoes my
challenge.

_Cymb._ iii. 5, 110 — undergo those employments.

vnmeete p. 81, l. 12 And fooles vnmeete, in
wisedomes seate to sitte.

_M. for M._ iv. 3, A creature unprepar’d, unmeet
63 for death.

_Much Ado_, iv. 1, Prove you that any man
181 convers’d with me at hours
unmeet.

vnneth p. 209, l. 5, 6 At lengthe, this greedie carle
the Lethergie posseste:

That vnneth hee could stere a
foote.

_2 Hen. VI._ ii. 4, Uneath may she endure the
8 flinty streets.

vnperfecte p. 122, l. 10 Behoulde, of this vnperfecte
masse, the goodly worlde was
wroughte.

_Othello_, ii. 3, One unperfectness shews me
284 another.

vnrest p. 94, l. 12 It shewes her selfe, doth
worke her owne vnrest.

_Rich. III._ iv. 4, Rest thy unrest on England’s
29 lawful earth.

_Rich. II._ ii. 4, Witnessing storms to come, woe
22 and unrest.

vnsure p. 191, l. 3 So, manie men do stoope to
sightes vnsure.

_Macbeth_, v. 4, 19 Thoughts speculative their
unsure hopes relate.

_Hamlet_, iv. 4, 51 Exposing what is mortal and
unsure.

vnthriftes p. 17, l. 18 And wisedome still, againste
such vnthriftes cries.

_Rich. II._ ii. 3, My rights and royalties—given
120 away to upstart unthrifts.

_M. Venice_, v. 1, And with an unthrift love did
16 run from Venice.

Wagge p. 148, l. 14 The wanton wagge with poysoned
stinge assay’d.

_L. L. Lost_, v. 2, Making the bold wag by their
108 praises bolder.

_W. Tale_, i. 2, 65 Was not my lord the verier wag
of the two.

weakelinges p. 16, l. 10 Wee weakelinges prooue, and
fainte before the ende.

_3 Hen. VI._ v. 1, And, weakling, Warwick takes
37 his gift again.

wighte p. 24, l. 7 The faithfull wighte, dothe
neede no collours braue.

_M. Wives_, i. 3, 35 I ken the wight: he is of
substance good.

_Othello_, ii. 1, She was a wight, if ever such
157 wight were.

Yerke p. 6, l. 5 They praunce, and yerke, and
out of order flinge.

_Hen. V._ iv. 7, 74 With wild rage, yerk out their
armed heels.

_Othello_, i. 2, 5 I had thought to have yerked
him here under the ribs.

younglinge p. 132, l. 20 Before he shotte: a younglinge
thus did crye.

_T. of Shrew_, ii. Youngling! thou canst not love
1, 329 so dear as I.

_Tit. An._ iv. 2, 93 I tell you, younglings, not
Enceladus.

[Illustration: _Sambucus, 1564. p. 15._]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

II.

SUBJECTS OF THE EMBLEM-IMPRESE AND ILLUSTRATIONS, WITH THEIR MOTTOES AND
SOURCES.

The * denotes there is no device given in our volume.

DEVICE. PAGE. MOTTO. SOURCE.

Actæon and Hounds 275 _In receptatores Alciat, _Emb._ 52,
sicariorum_ Ed. 1551, p. 60.

276 _Ex domino servus_ Aneau’s _Picta
Poesis_, Ed.
1552, f. 41.

277 _Voluptas Sambucus, Ed.
ærumnosa_ 1564, p. 128.

278 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 15.

Adam hiding in the 416 _Dominus viuit & Whitney’s _Emb._
Garden videt_ Ed. 1586, p.
229.

416 _Vbi es?_ Montenay’s _Emb._
Ed. 1584.

416 _Vbi es?_ _Stamm Buch_, Emb.
65, Ed. 1619, p.
290.

Adam’s Apple. Pl. X. 132 _Vijt Adams Appel Vander Veen’s
Sproot Ellende _Zinne-beelden_,
Zonde en Doodt._ Ed. 1642.

Adamant on the Anvil 347 _Qvem nvlla Le Bey de
pericvla Batilly’s _Emb._
terrent_ 29, Ed. 1596.

Æneas bearing 191 _Pietas filiorum Alciat, _Emb._
Anchises in parentes_ 194, Ed. 1581.

191 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
163.

Alciat’s Device 211 _Virtuti fortuna Giovio, _Dev. &c._
comes_ Ed. 1561.

*Annunciation of the 124 _Fortitudo ejus Drummond’s
Virgin Mary Rhodum tenuit_ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Ants and Grasshopper 149 _Contraria Freitag’s _Myth.
industriæ ac Eth._ Ed. 1579,
desidiæ præmia._ p. 29.

148 _Dum ætatis ver Whitney’s _Emb._
agitur: consule Ed. 1586, p.
brumæ._ 159.

Ape and Miser’s Gold 128, _Malè parta malè Whitney’s Emb. Ed.
487 dilabuntur_ 1586, p. 169.

486 ” ” Paradin’s _Dev.
Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 174.

128 _Ut parta Cullum’s
labuntur_ _Hawsted_, Ed.
1813, p. 159.

486 Symeoni’s
_Imprese_, &
_c._

Apollo receiving the 379 _Poetarum gloria_ Le Bey de
Christian Muse Batilly’s _Emb._
51, Ed. 1596.

*Apple-tree on a 123 _Per vincula Drummond’s
Thorn crescit_ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Arion and the 280 _In auaros, vel Alciat, _Emb._ 89,
Dolphin quibus melior Ed. 1581, p.
conditio ab 323.
extraneis
offertur._

280, _Homo homini Whitney’s _Emb._
281 lupus_ Ed. 1586, p.
144.

*Arrow through three 123 _Dederit ne viam Drummond’s
Birds Casusve Deusve._ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Arrow wreathed on a 183 _Sola viuit in Paradin’s _Dev.
Tomb illo_ Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 30.

126 ” ” _Gent. Mag._ Nov.
1811, p. 410.

Ass and Wolf 53 _Dyalogus
Creaturarum_,
Ed. 1480.

54 _Scelesti hominis _Apologi Creat._
imago, et Ed. 1584, f. 54.
exitus._

Astronomer, Magnet, 335 _Mens immota Sambucus’ _Emb._
and Pole-star. manet_ Ed. 1584, p. 84.

335 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 43.

Athenian Coin 8 ΑΘΕ Eschenburg’s
_Man._ Ed. 1844,
p. 351.

*Atlas 245 _Sustinet nec Giovio’s
fatiscit_ _Dialogue_, Ed.
1561, p. 129.

Bacchus 247 _Ebrietas_ Boissard’s _Theat.
V. H._ Ed. 1596,
p. 213.

247, r_Le Microcosme_,
248 Ed. 1562.

248 _In statuam Alciat, _Emb._ Ed.
Bacchi_ 1581, p. 113.

248 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
187.

Ban-dog 482 _Canis queritur Sambucus’ _Emb._
nimium nocere._ Ed. 1599, p.
172.

483 _Feriunt summos Whitney’s _Emb._
fulmina montes._ Ed. 1586, p.
140.

Barrel full of Holes 332 _Hac illac Paradin’s _Dev.
perfluo_ Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 88.

331 _Frustrà_ Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 12.

Bear and Ragged 236 Whitney’s _Emb._
Staff Ed. 1586,
Frontispiece.

Bear, Cub, and Cupid 348 _Perpolet incultum _Tronus Cupid._
paulatim tempus Ed. _about_
amorem._ 1598, f. 2.

349 Boissard’s _Emb._
43, Ed. 1596.

Bees types of a 358 Πῶς λαοῦ πειθήνιου Horapollo, Ed.
well-governed βασιλεῖ 1551, p. 87.
People.

360 _Principis Alciat, _Emb._
clementia_ 148, Ed. 1551,
p. 161.

Bees types of Love 361 _Patria cuique Whitney’s _Emb._
for our Native chara_ Ed. 1586, p.
Land. 200.

Bellerophon and 299 _Consilio et Alciat, _Emb._ 14.
Chimæra virtute Chimæram Ed. 1581.
superare, id
est, fortiores
et deceptores._

Bible of the Poor, 46 _Ecce virgo Humphrey’s
Pl. VI. concipiet et Fac-simile from
pariet filium, Pl. 2,
&c._ _Block-book_,
1410–20.

Bird caught by an 130 _Speravi et perii_ Cullum’s
Oyster (_see_ _Hawsted_, Ed.
Mouse). 1813.

*Bird in Cage and 124 _Il mal me preme Drummond’s
Hawk. et me spaventa a _Scotland_, Ed.
Peggio._ 1665.

Block Book, 46 _Ecce virgo Humphrey’s
specimens. Pl. VI. concipiet et Fac-simile from
pariet filium, Pl. 2,
&c._ _Block-book_,
1410–20.

Pl. VII. 49 _Conversi ab Tracings
idolis, &c._ photo-lithed
from _Hist. S.
Joan. Euang._
About 1430.

Pl. VIII. 49 _Datæ sunt Tracings
muliebri duæ alæ photo-lithed
aquitæ, &c._ from _Hist. S.
Joan. Euang._
About 1430.

Block Print. Pl. XV. 407 _Seven ages of _Archæologia_,
man_ vol. xxxv.,
1853, p. 167, a
print from
original in
_Brit. Museum_.

Brasidas and his 195 _Perfidvs Aneau’s _Picta
Shield familiaris_ Poesis_, Ed.
1552, p. 18.

195 Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
141.

Brutus, Death of 202 _Fortuna virtutem Alciat, _Emb._
superans._ 119, Ed. 1581,
p. 430.

202 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb_.
Ed. 1586, p. 70.

Butterfly and 151 _Cosi vino piacer Paradin’s _Dev.
Candle. conduce à Her._ Ed. 1562.
morte._

152 _La guerre doulce Corrozet’s
aux _Hecatomg._ Ed.
inexperimentez._ 1540.

152 _Brevis et damnosa Camerarius, Ed.
voluptas._ 1596.

152 ” ” Vænius’ _Emb. of
Love_, Ed. 1680,
p. 102.

152 _Breue gioia_ Vænius’ _Emb. of
Love_, Ed. 1608,
p. 102.

153 _D’amor soverchio_ Symeoni’s
_Imprese_, Ed.
1561.

*Camel and his 283 _Homo homini Deus_ Cousteau’s
Driver. _Pegma_, Ed.
1555, p. 323.

*Camomile trodden 124 _Fructus calcata Drummond’s
down. dat amplos._ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Cannon bursting 344 Beza’s _Emb_. 8;
Ed. 1580.

Canoness (_see_ Nun) 469

Cebes, Tablet of 12 _Picture of Human Ed.
Life_ “Francphordio,”
anno 1507.

Pl. I. 13 ” ” Ed. Berkeli, 1670,
De Hooghe.

Pl. I._b._ 68 ” ” Old Woodcut.

Chaos 448 _Il Caos_ Symeoni’s _Ovid_,
Ed. 1559, p. 12.

ΧΑΟΣ 449 _Sine ivstitia Aneau’s _Picta
confvsio._ Poesis_, Ed.
1551. p. 49.

450 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb_.
Ed. 1586, p.
122.

Chess an Emblem of 320 _La fin nous faict Perriere’s _Th.
Life. tous egaulx_ Bons Engins_,
27; Ed. 1539.

321 ” ” Corrozet’s
_Hecatomg._ Ed.
1540

Child and motley 484 _Fatuis leuia Whitney’s _Emb_.
Fool commitito._ Ed. 1586, p. 81.

484 ” ” Sambucus.

Chivalry, Wreath of 169
(_see_ Wreath).

Christian Love 32 Vænius’ _Amoris
presenting the Div. Emb._ Ed.
Soul to Christ. 1615.
Pl. II.

Circe transforming 250 _Cauendum à Alciat, _Emb._ 76,
Ulysses’ men. meretricibus_ Ed. 1581, p.
184.

250 _Homines Whitney’s _Emb_.
voluptatibus Ed. 1586, p. 82.
transformantur._

252 _Improba Siren Reusner’s _Emb._
desidia_ Ed. 1581, p.
634.

*Cleopatra applying 131 _Chimneypiece_,
the Asps. Lower Tabley
Hall.

*Conscience, Power 420 _Hic murus aheneus _Emb. of Horace_,
of esto_ Ed. 1612, pp. 58
and 70.

Countryman and Viper 197 _Maleficio Freitag’s _Myth.
beneficium Eth._ Ed. 1579.
compensatum_

198 _Merces anguina_ Reusner’s _Emb_.
Ed. 1581, p. 81.

199 _In sinu alere Whitney’s _Emb._
serpentem_ Ed. 1586, p.
189.

Crab and Butterfly 15 _Festina lente_ Symeoni’s _Dev._
Ed. 1561, p.
218.

Creation and 35 _La creatione & Symeoni’s _Ovid_,
Confusion. Pl. confusione del Ed. 1559, p. 13.
III. mondo._

Crescent Moon 127 _Donec totem Iovio’s _Dial. des
impleat orbem_ Dev._ Ed. 1561,
p. 25.

123 ” ” Drummond’s
_Scotland_, Ed.
1655.

*Crossbow at full 126 _Ingenio superat _Gent. Mag._ Nov.
stretch. vires_ 1811, p. 416.

Crowns of Victory 221
(_see_ Wreaths,
Four).

*Crowns, Three, one on the Sea.
124 _Aliamque moratur_ Drummond’s
_Scotland_, Ed.
1655.

*Crucifix and 123 _Undique_ Drummond’s
kneeling Queen. _Scotland_, Ed.
1655.

Cupid and Bear 348
(_see_ Bear, Cub,
and Cupid).

Cupid and Death 401 _De morte et Whitney’s _Emb_.
amore: Iocosum_ Ed. 1586, p.
132.

401 ” ” Alciat, _Emb_. Ed.
1581.

403 _De Morte et Peacham’s _Min_.
Cvpidine_ Ed. 1612, p.
172.

Cupid blinded, 329 Perriere’s _Th.
holding a Sieve. Bons Engins_,
1539, p. 77.

*Cupid felling a 324 “_By continuance_” Vænius, Ed. 1608,
Tree. p. 210.

Daphne changed to a 296 Aneau’s _Picta
Laurel. Poesis_, Ed.
1551, p. 47.

Dedication page. v Alciat’s _Emb_.
Ed. 1661,
Title-page.

Diana. 3 _Qvodcvnqve petit, Symeoni’s _Ovid_,
conseqvitvr_ Ed. 1559, p. 2.

Diligence and 145 Perriere’s _Th.
Idleness. Bons Engins_,
Ed. 1539, Emb.
101.

146 _Otiosi semper Whitney’s _Emb_.
egentes_ Ed. 1586, p.
175.

Dog baying at the 270 Beza’s _Emb_. Ed.
Moon. 1580, Emb. 22.

269 _Inanis ineptis_ Alciat, _Emb_.
164, Ed. 1581,
p. 571.

269 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb_.
Ed. 1586, p.
213.

270 _Despicit alta Camerarius, Ed.
Canis_ 1595, p. 63.

Dolphin and Anchor. 16# _Propera tarde_ Symeoni’s
_Imprese_, Ed.
1574, p. 175.

16 Giovio’s
_Dialogo_, Ed.
1574, p. 10.

D. O. M. 464 _Domino Optimo Whitney’s _Emb_.
Maximo_ Ed. 1586,
Frontispiece.

*Doves and winged 245 Corrozet’s
Cupid. _Hecatomg_. Ed.
1540, f. 70.

Drake’s Ship. 413 _Auxilio diuino_ Whitney’s _Emb_.
Ed. 1586, p.
203.

Eagle renewing its 368 _Renovata Camerarius, _Emb._
Feathers. ivventvs_ 34, Ed. 1596.

*Eclipses of Sun and 124 _Ipsa sibi lumen Drummond’s
Moon. quod invidet _Scotland_, Ed.
aufert._ 1665.

Elephant and 196 _Nusquam tuta Sambucus’ _Emb._
undermined Tree. fides_ Ed. 1564, p.
184.

196 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
150.

Elm and Vine 307 _Amicitia etiam Alciat, _Emb._
post mortem 159, Ed. 1581,
durans._ p. 556.

307 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 62.

308 ” ” Camerarius, Ed.
1590, p. 36.

Envy 432 _Inuidiæ Whitney’s _Emb._
descriptio_ Ed. 1586, p. 94

431 ” ” Alciat, _Emb._ 71,
Ed. 1581.

Falconry 366 _Sic maiora Giovio’s _Sent.
cedvnt_ Imprese_, Ed.
1562, p. 41.

Fame armed with a 446 _Pennæ gloria Whitney’s _Emb._
Pen. immortalis_ Ed. 1586, p.
197.

446 ” ” Junius, Ed. 1565.

Fardel on a Swimmer 480 _Auri sacra fames Whitney’s _Emb._
quid non?_ Ed. 1586, p.
179.

481 Perriere’s _Th.
Bons Engins_,
Ed. 1539, p. 70.

February 135 _Iddio, perche è Spenser’s _Works_,
uecchio, Fa suoi Ed. 1616.
al suo
essempio._

Fleece, Golden, and 229 _Diues indoctus_ Alciat, _Emb._
Phryxus. 189, Ed. 1581.

229 _In diuitem Whitney’s _Emb._
indoctum_ Ed. 1586, p.
214.

Fleece, Golden, 228 _Precium non vile Paradin’s _Dev.
Order of. laborum_ Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 25.

*Flourishes of Arms, 124 _Dabit Deus his Drummond’s
&c. quoque finem_ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

*Forehead measured 129 _Fronte nulla Cullum’s
by Compasses. fides_ _Hawsted_, Ed.
1813.

129 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
100.

129 ” ” Sambucus, _Emb._
Ed. 1564, p.
177.

Forehead shows the 129 _Frons hominem Symeoni’s _Dev.
Man. præfert_ Her._ Ed. 1561,
p. 246.

Fortune 261 _L’ymage de Corrozet’s
fortune_ _Hecatomg_. Ed.
1540, Emb. 41.

Fox and Grapes 310 _Ficta eius quod Freitag’s _Myth.
haberi nequit Eth._ Ed. 1579,
recusatio._ p. 127.

310 _Stultitia sua Faerni’s _Fables_,
seipsum Ed. 1583.
saginari_

311 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 98.

Gem in a Ring of 418 _Beaulté compaigne Corrozet’s
Gold de bonté._ _Hecatomg._ Ed.
1540, p. 83.

Gemini 355 _Tratta della Brucioli, Ed.
Sphera_ Venice, 1543.

Gold on the 175 _Sic spectanda Paradin’s _Dev.
Touchstone fides_ Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 100.

178 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
139.

177 _Pecunia sanguis Crispin de Passe,
et anima about 1589.
mortalium._

Good out of Evil 447 _Ex malo bonum_ Montenay, Ed.
1574.

Halcyon days (_see_ 391
King-fisher).

Hands of Providence. 489 _Dominus pauperem Coornhert, Ed.
Pl. XVI. facit, et 1585, p. 6.
ditat._

Hares biting a dead 305 _Cum laruis non Whitney’s _Emb._
Lion luctandum._ Ed. 1586, p.
127.

305 ” ” Alciat, _Emb._
153, Ed. 1581.

306 ” ” Reusner’s _Emb._
Ed. 1581.

Harpocrates guarding 208 _Silentium_ Whitney’s _Emb._
his Mouth Ed. 1586, p. 61.

209 _The Goddess _Pegma_, Ed. 1555,
Ageniora_ p. 109.

Hawk on Mummy-case 26 Πῶς δηλοῦσι ψυχήν Cory’s _Horapollo_
Ed. 1840, p. 15.

Hen eating her own 411 _Quæ ante pedes_ Whitney’s _Emb._
Eggs Ed. 1586, p. 64.

411 ” ” Sambucus, _Emb._
Ed. 1564, p. 30.

Hives of Bees (_see_ 358,
Bees). &c.

Hope and Nemesis 182 _Illicitum non Whitney’s _Emb._
sperandum_ Ed. 1586, p.
139.

Hydra slain by 374 _Multiplication de Corrozet’s
Hercules proces_ _Hecatomg._ Ed.
1540.

Icarus and his ill 288 _In astrologos_ Alciat, _Emb_.
Fortune. 103. Ed. 1581.

288 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 28.

289 _Faire tout par Corrozet’s
moyen_ _Hecatomg._ Ed.
1540, Emb. 67.

Idiot-Fool, and 472 Holbein’s _Imag.
Death Mortis_, Lyons,
1547.

*Introductory Lines 464 Whitney.
(_see_ D. O. M.).

Inverted Torch 171 _Qvi me alit me Symeoni’s _Sent.
extingvit_ Imprese_, 1561,
p. 35.

Inverted Torch 173 _Qvi me alit me Paradin’s _Dev.
extingvit_ Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 169.

173 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
183.

*Jackdaw in 313 _Qvod sis esse Camerarius, Ed.
Peacock’s velis_ 1596, Emb. 81.
Feathers.

Janus, Double-headed 139 _Prudentes_ Alciat, Ed. 1581,
p. 92.

139 _Respice, et Whitney’s _Emb._
prospice_ Ed. 1586, p.
108.

140 Perriere’s _Th.
Bons Engins_,
Ed. 1539.

John, St. 49 _Block-book_,
(Apocalypse). Pl. about 1430.
VIII.

John, St., the 49 _Block-book_,
Evangelist, about 1430.
History of. Pl.
VII.

June 136 Spenser’s _Works_,
Ed. 1616.

King-fisher, Emblem 392 _Novs scavons bien Giovio’s _Sent.
of Tranquillity. le temps_ Imprese_, Ed.
1561, p. 107.

125 _Mediis Drummond’s
tranquillus in _Scotland_, Ed.
undis._ 1665.

Lamp burning 456 _Quo modo vitam_ Horapollo, Ed.
1551, p. 220.

Laurel, Safety 422 _Conscientious Sambucus, _Emb._
against integra, laurus_ Ed. 1564, p. 14.
Thunderbolts.

423 _Murus æneus, sana Whitney’s _Emb._
conscientia._ Ed. 1586, p. 67.

423 Camerarius, Ed.
1590, p. 35.

*Leafless Trees and 128 _Jam satis_ Paradin’s _Dev.
Rainbow. Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 38.

128 Cullum’s
_Hawsted_, Ed.
1813.

*Lion and Whelp 124 _Unum quidem, sed Drummond’s
leonem_ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

*Lion in a Net, and 124 _Et lepores Drummond’s
Hares. devicto _Scotland_, Ed.
insultant 1665.
leone._

Loadstone (_see_ 335
Astronomer).

*Loadstone towards 123 _Maria Stuart, sa Drummond’s
the Pole. virtu m’attire._ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

*Lotterie in London, 208 _Video, et taceo_ Whitney’s _Emb._
1568. Ed. 1586, p. 62.

*Lucrece 131 _Lower Tabley Old
Hall_, 1619.

Macaber, Dance of 39 MS. of the 14th
(_see_ Brunet’s century.
_Manuel_, vol. v.
c. 1559–60).

*Man measuring his 129 _Fronte nulla Cullum’s
Forehead. fides_ _Hawsted_, Ed.
1813.

Man swimming with a 480
Burden (_see_
Fardel on a
Swimmer).

Map of inhabited 351 _Partium_ τῆς Sambucus’ _Emb._
World. οἰκουμένης Ed. 1564, p.
_symbola_. 113.

Medeia and the 189 _Ei qui semel sua Alciat, _Emb._ 54,
Swallows. prodegerit, Ed. 1581.
aliena credi non
oportere._

190 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 33.

Mercury and Fortune. 255 _Ars Naturam Alciat, _Emb._ Ed.
adiuuans_ 1551, p. 107.

Mercury charming 123 _Eloquium tot Drummond’s
Argus. lumine clausit._ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Mercury mending a 256 _Industria naturam Sambucus’ _Emb._
Lute. corrigit._ Ed. 1564, p. 57.

256 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 92.

Michael, St., Order 227 _Immensi tremor Paradin’s _Dev.
of Oceani_ Her._ Ed. 1562,
p. 12.

*Milo caught in a 344 _Qvibvs rebvs Le Bey de Batilly,
Tree confidimvs, iis Ed. 1596, Emb.
maxime 18.
evertimvs._

Moth and Candle 151
(_see_ Butterfly).

Motley Fool (_see_ 484
Child).

Mouse caught by an 130 _Captiuus ob Alciat, _Emb._ 94,
Oyster. gulam_ Ed. Paris, 1602,
p. 437.

130 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
128.

130 Freitag’s _Myth.
Eth._ Ed. 1579,
p. 169.

Narcissus viewing 294 Φιλαυτία Alciat, _Emb._ 69,
himself. Ed. 1581, p.
261.

295 _Amor sui_ Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
149.

295 _Contemnens alios, Aneau’s _Picta
arsit amore Poesis_, Ed.
sui._ 1552, p. 48.

Nemesis and Hope 182
(_see_ Hope).

Niobe’s Children 292 _Superbia_ Alciat, _Emb._ 67.
slain Ed. 1581, p.
255.

293 _Superbiæ vltio_ Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 13.

Nun or Canoness 469 Holbein’s
_Simulachra,
&c._, Sign.
liiij. 1538.

Oak and Reed, or 315 _Vincit qui Whitney’s _Emb._
Osier. patitur_ Ed. 1586, p.
220.

314 Εἴξας νικᾶ, or Junius’ _Emb._ Ed.
_victrix animi 1565.
equitas_.

Occasion. Pl. XII. 265 _Dum Tempus David’s _Occasio_,
labitur, Ed. 1605. p.
Occasionem 117.
fronte
capillatam
remorantur._

Occasion, or 259 _In occasionem._ Alciat, _Emb._ Ed.
Opportunity. Διαλογιστικῶς. 1551, p. 133.

260 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
181.

258 Perriere’s _Th.
Bons Engins_,
Ed. 1539.

261 _L’image Corrozet’s
d’occasion_ _Hecatomg._ Ed.
1540, p. 84.

Olive and Vine 249
(_see_ Vine).

Order, &c. (_see_ 228
Fleece, Golden,
_and_

Michael, St., Order 227
of).

Orpheus and Harp 271 _La force Cousteau’s
d’eloquence_ _Pegme_, Ed.
1560, p. 389.

272 _Musicæ, et Reusner’s _Emb._
poeticæ vis_ Ed. 1581, p.
129.

272 _Orphei musica_ Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
186.

Ostrich eating Iron 233 _Spiritus Giovio’s _Sent.
durissima Imprese_, Ed.
coquit_ 1561, p. 115.

234 ” ” Camerarius, _Emb._
Ed. 1595, p. 19.

126 ” ” _Gent. Mag._ Nov.
1811, p. 416.

Ostrich with 370 _Nil penna, sed Paradin’s _Dev.
outspread Wings. usus_ Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 23.

370 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 51.

Palm Tree 124 _Ponderibus virtus Drummond’s
innata _Scotland_, Ed.
resistit._ 1665.

Pegasus 141 _Ars rhetor, Bocchius, _Symb._
triplex movet, 137, Ed. 1555,
&c._ p. 314.

143 _Non absque Reusner’s _Emb._
Theseo_ Ed. 1581, p. 1.

Pegasus (_see_ 299
Bellerophon).

Pelican and Young 393 ΠΕΡΙ ΤΗΣ ΠΕΛΕΚΑΝΟΣ Epiphanius, S.,
Ed. 1588, p. 30.

394 _Pro lege et Reusner’s _Emb._
grege_ Ed. 1581, p. 73.

394 ” ” Camerarius, Ed.
1596, p. 87.

395 _Quod in te est, Junius’ _Emb._ 7,
prome_ Ed. 1565.

395 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 87.

Phaeton and the 285 _In temerarios_ Alciat, _Emb._ 56,
Sun’s Chariot. Ed. 1551.

284 _Phaethontis Plantinian _Ovid_,
casvs_ Ed. 1591, pp.
46–9.

281 _Fetonte fulminato Symeoni’s _Ovid_,
da Gioue_ Ed. 1559, p. 34.

Phœnix, Emblem of 381 _Juuenilia studia Freitag’s _Myth._
New Birth, &c. cum prouectiori Eth. Ed. 1579,
ætate p. 249.
permutata._

123 _En ma fin git mon Drummond’s
commencement._ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Phœnix, Emblem of 23 Πῶς ψυχὴν ἐνταῦθα Horapollo, Ed.
Duration πολὺν χρόνον 1551, p. 52.
διαβέβουσαν.

Phœnix, Emblem of 234 _Sola facta solum Paradin’s _Dev.
Loneliness. Deum sequor_ Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 165.

235 _Sola facta solvm Giovio’s _Sent.
Devm seqvor_ Imprese_, Ed.
1561.

Phœnix, Emblem of 385 _Vnica semper Paradin’s _Dev.
Oneliness. auis_ Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 53.

385 ” ” Reusner’s _Emb._
Ed. 1581, p. 98.

387 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
177.

Phœnix with two 384 _Eadem inter se. Hawkin’s ΠΑΡΘΕΝΟΣ,
Hearts. Sunt eadem vni Ed. 1633.
tertia._

Phryxus (_see_ 229
Fleece, Golden).

*Pilgrim travelling 128 _Dum transis, Cullum’s
time_ _Hawsted_, Ed.
1813.

Pine-trees in a 476 _Nimium rebus ne Whitney’s _Emb._
Storm fide secundis._ Ed. 1586, p. 59.

475 ” ” Sambucus’ _Emb._
Ed. 1569 p. 279.

Poets, Insignia of 218
(_see_ Swan).

Porcupine 231 _Cominvs et Giovio’s _Sent.
eminvs_ Imprese_, Ed.
1561, p. 56.

124 _Ne volutetur_ Drummond’s
_Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

*Portcullis 124 _Altera securitas_ Drummond’s
_Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Progne, or Procne 193 _Impotentis Aneau’s _Picta
Vindictæ Fœmina_ Poesis_, Ed.
1552, p. 73.

Prometheus chained 266 _Quæ supra nos, Alciat, _Emb._
nihil ad nos._ 102, Ed. 1551.

267 _Cvriositas Aneau’s _Picta
Fvgienda_ Poesis_, Ed.
1552, p. 90.

267 _Microcosme_, Ed.
1579, p. 5.

268 _O vita, misero Reusner’s _Emb._
longa_ Ed. 1581, p. 37.

268 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 75.

Providence and 413
Girdle (_see_
Drake’s Ship).

*Pyramid and Ivy 124 _Te stante virebo_ Drummond’s
_Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Various Authors.

Quivers of Cupid and 401
Death (_see_ Cupid
and Death).

*Rock in Waves 125 _Rompe ch’il Drummond’s
percote_ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Rose and Thorn 333 _Post amara Whitney’s _Emb._
dulcia_ Ed. 1586, p.
165.

332 ” ” Perriere’s _Th.
Bons Engins_,
Ed. 1539, Emb.
30.

333 _Armat spina Otho Vænius, Ed.
rosas, mella 1608, p. 160.
tegunt apes._

Ruins and Writings 443 _Scripta manent_ Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
131.

442 Costalius’
_Pegma_, Ed.
1555, p. 178.

Salamander 126 _Nvtrisco et Jovio’s
extingvo_ _Dialogue_, Ed.
1561, p. 24.

123 ” ” Drummond’s
_Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Satan, Fall of. Pl. 133 _Lapsvs Satanæ_ Boissard’s
XI. _Theatrum_, Ed.
1596, p. 19.

Sepulchre and Cross 183 &
(_see_ Arrow 126
wreathed).

Serpent and 197 _Maleficio Freitag’s _Myth.
Countryman (_see_ beneficium Eth_. Ed. 1579,
Countryman). compensatum._ p. 177.

*Serpent and 198 _Merces anguina_ Reusner’s _Emb._
Countryman. Ed. 1581, p. 81.

*Serpent in the 199 _In sinu alere Whitney’s _Emb._
Bosom serpentem_ Ed. 1586, p.
189.

Seven Ages of Man. 407 _Rota vitæ que _Archæologia_,
Pl. XV. septima vol. xxxv. 1853,
notatur._ p. 167.

*Shadows Fled and 468 _Mulier vmbra Whitney’s _Emb._
Pursued. viri_ Ed. 1586, p.
218.

Shield, 195
Untrustworthy
(_see_ Brasidas
and his Shield).

Ship on the Sea. 125 _Durate_ Drummond’s
_Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Ship tossed by the 435 _Res humanæ in Sambucus’ _Emb._
Waves. summo Ed. 1564, p. 46.
declinans._

435 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 11.

Ship sailing forward 436 _Constantia comes Whitney’s _Emb._
victoriæ_ Ed. 1586, p.
137.

436 ” ” Alciat, _Emb._ 43,
Ed. 1581.

*Ship with Mast 124 _Nusquam nisi Drummond’s
overboard rectum_ _Scotland_. Ed.
1665.

Sieve held by Cupid 329
(_see_ Cupid).

Sirens and Ulysses 253 _Sirenes_ Alciat, _Emb._ Ed.
1551.

254 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 10.

Skull, human 337 _Ex Maximo Aneau’s _Picta
Minimvm_ Poesis_, Ed.
1552, p. 55.

338 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
229.

Snake fastened on 342 _Quis contra nos?_ Paradin’s _Dev.
the Finger. Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 112.

342 _Si Deus nobiscum, Whitney’s Emb. Ed.
quis contra 1586, p. 166.
nos?_

126 _Quis contra nos?_ _Gent. Mag._ Nov.
1811, p. 416.

Snake in the Grass 340 _Latet anguis in Paradin’s _Dev.
herba_ Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 41.

340 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p. 24.

Speculum,— 44 _Speculum humanæ An exact MS. copy
_Photoliths in salvationis._ in the
small size_. Pl. collection of H.
IV. and V. Yates Thompson,
Esq.

Stag wounded 398 _Esto tiene sv Giovio and
remedio y non Symeoni’s _Sent.
yo._ Imprese_, Ed.
1561.

398 _Esto tienne su Paradin’s _Dev.
remedio, y non Her._ Ed. 1562,
yo._ f. 168.

399 _Vvlnvs, salvs et Camerarius, Ed.
vmbra_ 1595, Emb. 69,
p. 71.

Star, Hieroglyphic 25 Τί ἀστέρα Leeman’s
γράφοντες _Horapollo_, Ed.
δηλοῦσι. 1835, Fig. 31.

25 ” ” Cory’s
_Horapollo_, Ed.
1840, p. 30.

Storks, their Purity 28 Epiphanius, S.,
and Love. Ed. 1588, p.
106.

Student entangled in 441 _In studiosum Whitney’s _Emb._
Love. captum amore._ Ed. 1586, p.
135.

441 ” ” Alciat, _Emb._
108, Ed. 1581.

Sun and Moon 52 _De sole et luna_ _Dyal. Creat._
Lyons Ed. 1511.

*Sun in Eclipse 124 _Medio occidet Drummond’s
die_ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Sun Setting 323 _Tempus omnia Whitney’s _Emb._
terminat_ Ed. 1586, p.
230.

Sun, Wind, and 165 _Plus par doulceur Corrozet’s
Traveller. que par force._ _Hecatomg._ Ed.
1540, Emb. 28.

166 _Moderata vis Freitag’s _Myth.
impotenti Eth._ Ed. 1579,
violentia p. 27.
potior._

Swan, Insignia of 218 _Insignia Alciat, _Emb._ Ed.
Poets. poëtarum_ 1551, p. 197.

217 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
126.

Swan (Old Age 215 _Facvnda senectvs_ Aneau’s _Picta
eloquent). Poesis_, Ed.
1552, p. 28.

Swan (Pure Truth) 216 _Simplicitas veri Reusner’s _Emb._
sana_ Ed. 1581, p. 91.

217 _Sibi canit et Camerarius, Ed.
orbi_ 1595, Emb. 23.

Swan singing at 213 Πῶς γέροντα Horapollo, Ed.
Death μουσικόν 1551, p. 136.

Sword broken on an 326 Perriere’s _Th.
Anvil. Bons Engins_,
Ed. 1539, p. 31.

327 _Importunitas Whitney’s _Emb._
euitanda_ Ed. 1586, p.
192.

*Sword to weigh Gold 124 _Quid nisi victis Drummond’s
dolor_ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Sword with a Motto 138 _Si Fortune me Douce’s _Illustr._
tourmente vol. i. p. 452.
L’Esperance me
contente._

Testing of Gold 173
(_see_ Gold on
Touchstone).

Theatre of Human 405 _Theatrum omnium Boissard’s
Life. miserarium._ _Theatrum_,
1596. Pl. XIV.

Things at our Feet 411
(_see_ Hen eating
her Eggs).

Thread of Life. 454 _Quo pacto mortem Horapollo, Ed.
seu hominis 1551, p. 219.
exitum_.

Time flying, &c. 466 _Quæ sequimur Sambucus, Ed.
fugimus, nosque 1564.
fugiunt_.

467 Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
199.

Time leading the 491 _Tempus Vænius, _Emb.
Seasons, and of irrevocabile_ Hor._ Ed. 1612,
Eternity a Symbol. p. 206. Pl.
XVII.

Timon. 427 Μισάνθροπος Τίμων Sambucus, Ed.
1564.

Title-page, 57 _Navis stultorum_ Brant’s and
_Photolith Locher’s _Navis
fac-simile._ Pl. stultifera_, Ed.
IX. 1497.

*Tongue with Bats’ 128 _Quò tendis?_ Cullum’s Hawsted,
Wings. Ed. 1813.

128 ” ” Paradin’s _Dev.
Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 65.

Torch (_see_ 171
Inverted Torch).

Tree of Life (_see_ 183
Arrow wreathed).

*Tree planted in a 124 _Pietas revocabit Drummond’s
Churchyard. ob orco_ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

*Triangle, Sun, 124 _Trino non Drummond’s
Circle convenit orbis_ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

*Trophy on a Tree, 124 _Ut casus dederet_ Drummond’s
&c. _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Turkey and Cock. 357 _Jus Freitag’s _Myth.
hospitalitatis Eth._ Ed. 1579,
violatum_ p. 237.

357 _Rabie svccensa Camerarius, Ed.
tvmescit_ 1596, Emb. 47.

Unicorn, Type of 371 _Victrix casta Reusner’s _Emb._
Faith undefiled. fides_ Ed. 1581, p. 60.

372 _Nil inexplorato_ Camerarius, Ed.
1595, Emb. 12.

372 _Hoc virtutis Camerarius, Ed.
amor_ 1595, Emb. 13.

372 _Pretiosum quod Camerarius, Ed.
utile_ 1595, Emb. 14.
pp. 14–16.

*Venus dispensing 328 _Amoris Van Veen’s _Emb._
Cupid from his ivsivrandvm of Love, p. 140.
Oaths. pœnam non
habet_.

Vine and Olive. 249 _Prudentes vino Whitney’s _Emb._
abstinent_ Ed. 1586, p.
133.

249 ” ” Alciat, _Emb._ 24,
Ed. 1602, p.
164.

*Vine watered with 124 _Mea sic mihi Drummond’s
Wine. prosunt_ Scotland, Ed.
1665.

*Waves and Siren 125 _Bella Maria_ Drummond’s
_Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

*Waves, with Sun 125 _Nunquam Drummond’s
over siccabitur æstu_ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

Wheat among Bones 184 _Spes altera vitæ_ Camerarius, Ed.
1595, p. 102.

184 ” ” Paradin’s Dev.
Her. Ed. 1562.

Wheel rolling into 124 _Piena di dolor Drummond’s
the Sea. voda de _Scotland_, Ed.
Sperenza._ 1665.

Wings and Feathers 124 _Magnatum Drummond’s
scattered vicinitas_ _Scotland_, Ed.
1665.

World, 351
Three-cornered
(_see_ Map, &c.).

Wreath of Chivalry 169 _Me pompæ prouexit Paradin’s _Dev.
apex_ Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 146.

Wreath of Oak 224 _Seruati gratia Paradin’s _Dev.
ciuis_ Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 147.

Wreaths, Four on a 221 _Fortiter et Whitney’s _Emb._
Spear. feliciter_ Ed. 1586, p.
115.

222 _His ornari avt Camerarius, Ed.
mori_ 1590, Emb. 99.

Wrongs engraved on 457 _Scribit in Giovio and
Marble. marmore læsus_ Symeoni’s _Sent.
Imprese_, Ed.
1562, p. 24.

458 ” ” Paradin’s _Dev.
Her._ Ed. 1562,
f. 160.

460 ” ” Whitney’s _Emb._
Ed. 1586, p.
183.

Zodiac, signs of. 353 _Trattato della Brucioli, Ed.
Pl. XIII. sphera_ Venetia, 1543,
Title.

[Illustration: _David, ed._ 1601.]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

III.

REFERENCES TO PASSAGES FROM SHAKESPEARE, IN THE ORDER OF THE PLAYS AND
POEMS OF MACMILLAN’S EDITION, 1866, AND TO THE CORRESPONDING DEVICES AND
SUBJECTS OF THE EMBLEMS TREATED OF IN THIS WORK.

N. B. The subjects printed in _italics_ have no corresponding device.

THE TEMPEST

VOL. PAGE. ACT. SC. LINE. DEVICE OR SUBJECT. PAGES.

I. 20 I. 2 387 _Appreciation of 116
music_

36 II. 2 7 Ape and miser’s gold 488

48 III. 2 135 Hands of Providence. 489
Plate XVI.

50 III. 3 21 Unicorn 373

50 III. 3 21 Phœnix 373, 385

50 III. 3 22 Phœnix, type of 234, 236
oneliness

53 III. 3 95 Laurel, type of 422, 424
conscience

54 IV. 1 1 Thread of life 454, 455

57 IV. 1 110 Diligence and idleness 145, 146

64 V. 1 21 _rarer action in v462#
virtue_

THE TWO GENTLEMAN OF VERONA.

I. 112 II. 6 24 _a swarthy Ethiope_ 162

121 III. 1 153 Phaeton 285, 286

129 III. 2 68 Orpheus and harp 273, 274

135 IV. 2 38 Gem in ring of gold 418, 419

143 IV. 4 87 The Fox and Grapes 310, 312

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

I. 177 I. 3 64 _East and West Indies_ 351, 352

186 II. 1 106 Actæon and hounds 275, 276

190 II. 2 5 Gemini,—Zodiac. Plate 353, 355
XIII.

196 II. 2 187 Shadows fled and 466, 468
followed

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

I. 296 I. 1 28 Hen eating her own 411, 412
eggs

303 I. 2 158 Zodiac, signs of. 353, 354
Plate XIII.

324 II. 2 149 Gold on the touchstone 175, 180

327 II. 4 1 Student entangled in 441
love

334 III. 1 6 Idiot-fool, and death, 472
Holbein’s
_Simulachres_

334 III. 1 17 Sleep and death, 469, 470
Holbein’s
_Simulachres_

340 III. 1 175 Gem in ring of gold 417, 418

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS.

I. 411 II. 1 97 Eagle renewing its 369
feathers

417 II. 2 167 Elm and vine 307, 309

425 III. 2 27 Sirens and Ulysses 253, 254

429 III. 2 131 _America_ 351, 352

437 IV. 2 53 _Time turning back_ 473

455 V. 1 210 Circe transforming men 252

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

II. 22 II. 1 214 _Withered branch_ 181

69 V. 1 4 _Water through a 329, 331
sieve_

75 V. 1 170 Adam hiding 415, 416

LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST.

II. 97 I. 1 1 Ruins and writings 443, 444

97 I. 1 4 Time leading the 491
Seasons. Plate XVII.

114 II. 1 56 Bear, cub, and Cupid 349, 350

138 IV. 2 100 Oak and reed, or osier 315, 316

144 IV. 3 97 Rose and thorn 333, 334

144 IV. 3 111 _Juno but an Ethiope 162
were_

151 IV. 3 308 Bacchus 247, 249

MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.

II. 204 I. 1 168 _arrow with a golden 404
head_

205 I. 1 180 Astronomer and magnet 335, 336

206 I. 1 232 Bear, cub, and Cupid 349

215 II. 1 148 _Appreciation of 116
melody_

216 II. 1 155 Cupid and Death 401, 404

216 II. 1 173 Drake’s ship 413, 415

216 II. 1 181 Ape and miser’s gold 488

217 II. 1 194 Astronomer and magnet 335, 336

218 II. 1 227 Daphne changed to a 296, 297
laurel

218 II. 1 231 _Gelding’s Ovid used_ 244

225 II. 2 145 Countryman and serpent 197, 198

239 III. 2 200 _Coats in heraldry_ 218, 220

240 III. 2 237 Ape and miser’s gold 488

241 III. 2 260 Snake on the finger 342, 343

250 IV. 1 37 Vine and elm 307, 309

258 V. 1 1 _Æsop_ 302

258 V. 1 12 The poet’s glory 379, 380

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

II. 280 I. 1 50 The two-headed Janus 139, 140

281 I. 1 77 The world a stage 133

281 I. 1 77 The world a stage. 407, 410
Plate XV.

284 I. 1 161 Golden fleece and 229, 230
Phryxus

286 I. 2 24 _The old man 213, 215
prophesying_

286 I. 2 4 Lottery 208, 209

296 II. 1 11 Lottery 208, 209

312 II. 7 4 _A casket scene_ 150

312 II. 7 20 “_golden mind_,” 404
“_golden bed_”

313 II. 7 62 _Casket scene_ 150

318 II. 9 63 _Casket scene_ 151

319 II. 9 79 Moth and candle 151, 153

325 III. 2 41 Insignia of Poets 218, 219

328 III. 2 115 _A painter’s power_ 112

345 IV. 1 75 The mountain pine 476

347 IV. 1 124 Envy, description of 432, 433

360 V. 1 54 _Appreciation of 116
melody_

361 V. 1 70 Power of music 271, 273

AS YOU LIKE IT.

II. 391 I. 3 69 _Juno’s swans_, 244
Golding’s _Ovid_

393 I. 3 120 _Ganymede_, Golding’s 244
_Ovid_

394 II. 1 29 The wounded stag 397, 398

400 II. 4 43 Sword broken on an 326, 327
anvil

405 II. 7 13 A motley fool 485

406 II. 7 43 “_A motley coat_” 485

409 II. 7 136 Theatre of human life. 405, 406
Plate XIV.

409 II. 7 137 Theatre of human life 133, 405

409 II. 7 139 The seven ages of man. 407, 409
Plate XV.

427 III. 3 67 Hawking 366, 368

442 IV. 3 15 The Phœnix 234, 236

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

III. 10 Ind. 2 41 Hawking 366, 367

10 Ind. 2 47 _Mythological pictures 114
by Titian_

10 Ind. 2 47 _Cytherea, Io, Daphne, 115
Apollo_

10 Ind. 2 52 _Jupiter and Io_ 246

10 Ind. 2 55 Daphne and Apollo 296, 297

23 I. 2 24 _Two Italian 163
sentences_

45 II. 1 338 _Beautiful furniture 112
described_

67 IV. 1 174 Falconry 366, 367

78 IV. 3 165 “_honour peereth in 490
the meanest habit._”
Plate XVI.

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

III. 112 I. 1 76 _Symbolical imagery_ 377

119 I. 2 58 Bees,—and native land 361, 365

123 I. 3 73 A lottery 208, 210

127 I. 3 182 Cupid and the sieve 329, 330

132 II. 1 40 “_cicatrice an emblem 9
of war_”

133 II. 1 59 The Fox and the Grapes 310, 311

201 V. 3 5 Niobe’s children slain 292, 293

TWELFTH NIGHT.

III. 223 I. 1 9 Actæon and the hounds 277, 278

224 I. 1 33 “_The rich golden 404
shaft_”

225 I. 2 10 Arion and the dolphin 280, 282

231 I. 3 127 Zodiac,—Taurus. Plate 353, 355
XIII.

234 I. 5 50 Mottoes,—Latin, &c. 138

240 I. 5 214 _Power of judging 113
artistic skill_

257 II. 5 15 A turkey-cock 357

257 II. 5 27 A turkey-cock 357

265 III. 1 68 _Snatches of French_ 163

271 III. 2 73 _New map with the 352
Indies_

285 III. 4 340 Whitney’s Introduction 464

THE WINTER’S TALE.

III. 323 I. 2 115 The wounded deer 398, 400

371 IV. 1 7 _Old Time, power of_ 473

382 IV. 4 116 _Proserpina_,—see 244
_Ovid_

383 IV. 4 135 _Poetic ideas_, or 379
symbolical imagery

420 V. 2 8 “_Julio Romano_” 110

422 V. 3 14 _Description of 109
statuary_

423 V. 3 18 Sleep and death, 469, 470
Holbein’s
_Simulachres_

424 V. 3 63 _Description of 189
statuary_

KING JOHN.

IV. 17 II. 1 134 Hares biting a dead 305, 306
lion

26 II. 1 373 Theatre of human life. 405, 406
Plate XIV.

37 III. 1 96 Gold on the touchstone 177, 180

42 III. 1 258 Snake on the finger 342, 343

65 IV. 2 125 Occasion, 259; or 261, 264
Fortune

67 IV. 2 170 Mercury mending a lute 256, 257

76 IV. 3 155 Wind, sun, and 166
traveller

91 V. 7 1 The swan, the Poet’s 218, 219
badge

RICHARD II.

IV. 116 I. 1 202 Wreath of chivalry 169, 170

125 I. 3 129 Envy 432, 433

130 I. 3 275 “_no virtue like 347
necessity_”

131 I. 3 294 “_the frosty 347
Caucasus_”

137 II. 1 53 Wreath of chivalry 169, 170

140 II. 1 120 The Pelican 393, 396

145 II. 1 270 _hollow eyes of death_ 339

164 III. 2 12 Snake in the grass 340, 343

164 III. 2 24 _Cadmus and the 245
serpent’s teeth_

164 III. 2 29 Human dependence 465

165 III. 2 37 Drake’s ship 413, 415

168 III. 2 129 Countryman and serpent 197, 198

179 III. 3 178 Phaeton and the 285, 286
Sun-chariot

210 V. 3 57 Countryman and serpent 197, 198

FIRST PART HENRY IV.

IV. 317 IV. 1 97 Ostrich with spreading 370
wings

318 IV. 1 104 Mercury 255, 257

323 IV. 3 30 _Sir Walter Blount_ 160

337 V. 2 82 Time leading the 491
Seasons. Plate XVII.

342 V. 4 25 Hydra slain by 374, 375
Hercules

SECOND PART HENRY IV.

IV. 392 II. 2 41 Time terminates all 323

405 II. 4 165 Sword with Spanish 137, 138
motto

431 IV. 1 70 Occasion, 259; Fortune 261, 264

450 IV. 4 103 Hands of Providence. 489
Plate XVI.

453 IV. 5 35 Sleep and Death, 469, 470
Holbein’s
_Simulachres_

454 IV. 5 75 Bees 361, 364

474 V. 3 136 Prometheus chained 266, 358

KING HENRY V.

IV. 491 I. Chor. 5 Diligence and idleness 145, 146

493 I. 1 35 Hydra slain by 374, 375
Hercules

502 I. 2 178 Bees 360, 362

538 III. 4 1 _Snatches of French_ 163

543 III. 6 20 Image of Fortune 261, 262

544 III. 6 44 Thread of life 454, 455

549 III. 7 10 Pegasus 141, 142

550 III. 7 54 _French and Latin 144
proverb_

552 III. 7 130 _The mastiff praised_ 483

555 IV. 1 3 “goodness out of evil” 447

555 IV. 1 9 Time irrevocable. 491
Plate XVII.

564 IV. 1 256 _Sound sleep of the 147
slave_

574 IV. 4 2 _Snatches of French_ 163

582 IV. 7 82 _Human dependence_ 465

588 IV. 8 100 _Human dependence_ 465

591 V. 1 13 Turkey-cock 357, 358

596 V. 2 48 _Evils of war_ 147

598 V. 2 107 _Snatches of French_ 163

FIRST PART HENRY VI.

V. 8 I. 1 127 “_A Talbot! a 207
Talbot!_”

14 I. 2 129 Halcyon days 392

20 I. 4 49 Adamant on the anvil 347, 348

25 I. 6 6 _Adonis’ gardens_, 243
Golding’s _Ovid_

29 II. 1 78 The cry, “A Talbot! a 207
Talbot!”

32 II. 3 11 The cry, “A Talbot! a 207
Talbot!”

33 II. 3 36 _A picture gallery 114
named_

36 II. 4 30 Rose and thorn 333, 334

40 II. 5 28 _Death_ 469

68 IV. 1 188 Chaos,—_discord_ 450, 453

71 IV. 3 17 Prometheus bound 266, 268

72 IV. 3 47 Prometheus bound 267, 268

78 IV. 6 46 Icarus and his ill 288, 291
fortune

80 IV. 7 60 Order of St. Michael 227

80 IV. 7 60 Order of the Golden 227, 228
Fleece

82 IV. 7 92 Phœnix 386, 388

86 V. 3 30 Circe 252

SECOND PART HENRY VI.

V. 129 I. 4 16 Ban-dog 484

132 II. 1 1 Falconry 366, 367

145 II. 3 45 Pine-trees in a storm 477

153 III. 1 55 Fox and Grapes 310, 312

153 III. 1 69 _Jackdaw in peacock’s 312
feathers_

158 III. 1 224 Snake in the grass 340, 341

162 III. 1 343 Countryman and serpent 197, 198

162 III. 1 360 The porcupine 231, 232

168 III. 2 125 Bees 361, 363

171 III. 2 232 Conscience 421, 422

174 III. 2 310 Envy 432, 433

182 IV. 1 83 The pelican 393, 394, 397

185 IV. 2 27 Thread of life 454, 455

197 IV. 7 49 _Latin proverb, “bona 139
terra,” &c._

206 IV. 10 23 Ostrich eating iron 233, 234

213 V. 1 143 Bear and ragged staff 237, 239

215 V. 1 196 Bear and ragged staff 237, 240

217 V. 2 28 The game of chess 320

217 V. 2 28 French proverb, “_La 320
fin couronne_,” &c.

218 V. 2 45 Æneas and Anchises 191, 192

THIRD PART HENRY VI.

V. 244 I. 4 16 Phaeton 285, 286

245 I. 4 35 Phœnix 385, 386, 388

245 I. 4 39 _Leash of proverbs_ 318

252 II. 1 50 _Cupid felling a tree_ 324

252 II. 1 68 Human skull 337, 339

271 II. 6 10 Phaeton 285, 287

280 III. 2 48 _Many drops pierce the 324
stone_

281 III. 2 51 Inverted torch 171, 173, 174

284 III. 2 153 Bear, cub, and Cupid 349, 350

285 III. 2 188 Countryman and 197, 200
serpent, _Sinon_

309 IV. 4 32 _Olive branch and 223
laurel crown_

312 IV. 7 24 Fox and Grapes 310, 312

319 V. 1 34 _Atlas_ 245

319 V. 1 54 Wrongs on marble 458, 461

324 V. 3 1 Four wreaths on a 221, 222
spear

325 V. 4 1 Ships sailing 435, 436, 438

329 V. 5 25 _Æsop_ 303

332 V. 6 18 Icarus 288, 290

KING RICHARD III.

V. 473 I. 1 1 “_Sun of York_” 223

580 IV. 2 8 Gold on the touchstone 177, 180

583 IV. 2 65 D. O. M. 464

606 IV. 4 418 The phœnix 385, 389

615 V. 2 _Sir James Blount_ 160

617 V. 3 30 _Sir James Blount_ 160

625 V. 3 181 Laurel, type of 422, 425
conscience

KING HENRY VIII.

VI. 3 Prol. 15 A motley coat 485

45 II. 3 60 Gem in a ring of gold 418, 419

46 II. 3 75 Gem in a ring of gold 418, 420

56 III. 1 1 Orpheus and his harp 271, 274

76 III. 2 372 Laurel, type of 422, 424
conscience

79 III. 2 446 D. O. M. 465

84 IV. 1 81 _Emblems literally_ 9

87 IV. 2 27 Wrongs on marble 458, 459

88 IV. 2 77 Swan, the Poet’s badge 218, 219

103 V. 3 10 D. O. M. 464

104 V. 3 43 Envy 432, 433

114 V. 5 28 Phœnix 385, 390

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

VI. 130 I. 1 94 Daphne 295, 296

134 I. 2 100 _Epithet golden_ 403, 404

142 I. 3 33 Ship sailing forward 436, 439

142 I. 3 33 Perseus’ horse 299, 300

142 I. 3 39 Pegasus 143

143 I. 3 49 Oak and reed, or osier 315, 316

144 I. 3 75 Bees 360, 361, 363

144 I. 3 75 Chaos 449, 451

155 I. 3 391 Ban-dog, or Mastiff 483

164 II. 2 81 _Paris and Helen_ 463

164 II. 2 92 _Paris and Helen_ 463

168 II. 3 9 Mercury 255, 257

169 II. 3 18 Envy 432, 433

175 II. 3 189 _Cancer_,—Zodiac. 353, 355
Plate XIII.

177 II. 3 237 _Milo_ 297

178 II. 3 240 _Milo_ 244, 344

191 III. 2 169 Astronomer, magnet, 335, 337
polestar

198 III. 3 145 _Active exertion 378
demanded_

201 III. 3 196 Hand of Providence 489

228 IV. 5 183 Pegasus 299, 300

230 IV. 5 223 Setting sun 323

247 V. 3 37 “_kindness befitting a 282
lion_”

253 V. 5 11 _Sagittary_,—Zodiac. 353, 355
Plate XIII.

259 V. 9 21 Hares biting a dead 304, 305
lion

261 V. 11 16 Niobe and her children 292, 294

CORIOLANUS.

VI. 287 I. 3 7 Wreath of oak 224, 225

304 I. 9 58 Wreaths of victory 221, 225

312 II. 1 109 Wreath of oak 224, 226

323 II. 2 84 Wreath of oak 224, 225

344 III. 1 161 D. O. M. 465

369 IV. 1 44 Gold on the touchstone 175, 177, 181

380 IV. 5 100 Sword on an anvil 325, 326

403 V. 2 102 Oak and reed, or osier 315, 316

407 V. 3 101 _Great Roman names_ 201

411 V. 3 206 _Great Roman names_ 201

TITUS ANDRONICUS.

VI. 450 II. 1 5 The zodiac. 353
Plate XIII.

451 II. 1 14 Prometheus chained 266, 268

451 II. 1 18 Sirenes 253, 254

456 II. 2 1 _Tabley Old Hall, 131
chimneypiece_

459 II. 3 55 Actæon and hounds 277, 279

472 III. 1 12 “_to write in the 461
dust_”

483 III. 2 9 Theatre of human life. 405, 406
Plate XIV.

490 IV. 1 85 Wrongs on marble 458, 460

490 IV. 1 102 Wrongs on marble 458, 460

492 IV. 2 18 _Conscience, power_ 420

501 IV. 3 52 The zodiac. 353, 354
Plate XIII.

522 V. 2 192 Progne 193

527 V. 3 85 Countryman and 200
serpent,_Sinon_

ROMEO AND JULIET.

VII. 23 I. 4 4 Cupid hoodwinked 329, 331

30 I. 5 41 Gem set in gold 418, 420

42 II. 3 90 _Venus dispensing 327
Cupid from his oaths_

58 II. 4 187 Astronomer and magnet 187, 335

59 II. 5 8 Doves and winged Cupid 245

72 III. 2 1 Phaeton 285, 286

75 III. 2 69 Snake in the grass 340, 341

84 III. 3 126 _Dispensing from 327, 328
oaths_

117 V. 1 15 Time and eternity, 492
symbol. Plate XVII.

124 V. 3 61 D. O. M. 464

126 V. 3 111 Theatre of human life. 405, 406
Plate XIV.

TIMON OF ATHENS.

VII. 228 II. 1 28 _Jackdaw in borrowed 312, 314
plumes_

245 III. 3 1 Gold on the touchstone 175, 177, 180

254 III. 5 31 Wrongs on marble 458, 459

263 III. 6 103 _Timon’s intense 427, 428
hatred_

265 IV. 1 35 The extravagance of 429
Timon’s hatred

269 IV. 3 18 The extravagance of 429
Timon’s hatred

270 IV. 3 51 The extravagance of 429
Timon’s hatred

288 IV. 3 473 The extravagance of 429
Timon’s hatred

269 IV. 3 25 Gold on the touchstone 175, 177, 178

281 IV. 3 317 _Mention of many 375
animals_

281 IV. 3 324 _Mention of many 376
animals_

281 IV. 3 331 The unicorn 371, 373

283 IV. 3 377 Gold on the touchstone 177, 178

305 V. 4 69 _Timon’s epitaph_ 430

JULIUS CÆSAR.

VII. 322 I. 1 68 _Jackdaw in borrowed 312, 313
plumes_

326 I. 2 107 Æneas and Anchises 191, 193

329 I. 2 192 _Characteristics of 205
Brutus and Cassius_

334 I. 3 5 Oak and reed, or osier 315, 316

347 II. 1 203 Unicorn 371, 372

363 III. 1 58 Astronomer and magnet 335, 336

368 III. 1 205 The wounded stag 398, 399

375 III. 2 73 Wrongs on marble 458, 459

384 IV. 1 12 Three-cornered world 351, 352

389 IV. 3 21 Dog baying at the moon 269, 270

396 IV. 3 213 Occasion. Plate XII. 259, 260

409 V. 3 80 Wreath of victory 221, 224, 226

413 V. 5 25 Death of Brutus 202, 203

MACBETH.

VII. 438 I. 5 61 Snake in the 340, 341
strawberry

442 I. 7 44 “_I dare not_,” “_I 376
would_”

444 II. 1 7 D. O. M. 464

454 II. 2 71 Sleep and death, 469, 470
Holbein’s
_Simulachres_

454 II. 3 67 Gorgon, Golding’s 244
_Ovid_

459 II. 4 10 Falconry 366, 368

467 III. 2 22 “_After life’s fretful 492
fever he sleeps well_”

512 V. 5 19 Theatre of life. 405, 406
Plate XIV.

512 V. 5 24 Time leading on the 491
Seasons. Plate XVII.

HAMLET.

VIII. 14 I. 2 71 Time leading the 491
Seasons. Plate XVII.

35 I. 5 13 The porcupine 231, 232

63 II. 2 295 “_Man a God to man_” 283, 284

79 III. 1 62 Theatre of life. Plate 405, 406
XIV.

79 III. 1 60 Sleep and death, 469, 470
Holbein’s
_Simulachres_

79 III. 1 70 _Death’s praises, 471
life’s evils_

80 III. 1 76 Fardel on a swimmer 481

97 III. 2 259 The wounded stag 398, 399

111 III. 4 53 The herald Mercury 255, 256, 258

111 III. 4 55 _A poet’s artistic 112
description_

117 III. 4 205 Cannon bursting 344, 345

127 IV. 4 33 _The camel and his 283
driver_

135 IV. 5 135 The pelican 393, 394, 396

145 IV. 7 84 Pegasus 143, 144

153 V. 1 73 Human skull 337, 338

154 V. 1 86 Human skull 337, 338

158 V. 1 191 Human skull 337, 339

164 V. 2 8 Drake’s ship 413, 414

KING LEAR.

VIII. 280 I. 4 93 Child and motley fool 485

295 I. 5 33 “_why seven stars_” 356

307 II. 2 73 King-fishers 392, 393

317 II. 4 61 Ants and grasshopper 148, 149

320 II. 4 129 Prometheus and the 266, 358
vulture

342 III. 4 68 Pelican 393, 394, 396

366 IV. 1 64 Hands of Providence. 489
Plate XVI.

416 V. 3 171 _our pleasant vices, 425
&c._

OTHELLO.

VIII. 477 II. 1 129 “_Old fond paradoxes_” 474

498 II. 3 290 Hydra slain by 374, 375
Hercules

500 II. 3 326 _Symbols_ 2

505 III. 1 47 Occasion. Plate XII. 259, 261, 265

512 III. 3 145 _Confidence kept back_ 434

513 III. 3 159 _Calumny_ 434

574 V. 2 7 Light; the Canoness 469

581 V. 2 146 Swan 218

586 V. 2 249 Swan 213, 216, 218,
220

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

IX. 38 II. 2 201 _Appreciation of art_ 113

40 II. 2 245 The lottery 208, 211

48 II. 5 95 Narcissus at the 205, 206
stream

60 II. 7 101 Bacchus 246, 247

64 III. 2 7 The Phœnix 381, 387, 389

100 III. 13 195 Ostrich, or estridge 371, 372

109 IV. 6 5 Map, “three-nooked 351, 353
world”

118 IV. 12 3 Medeia, swallows on 190
her breast

123 IV. 14 46 Lamp, or torch of life 456

132 IV. 15 84 Lamp of life 456

150 V. 2 277 Time’s and eternity’s 491
emblems. Plate XVII.

151 V. 2 305 _Chimney-piece at the 131
Old Hall, Tabley_

CYMBELINE.

IX. 167 I. 1 130 The eagle renewing its 369
feathers

183 I. 6 12 The phœnix 234, 235, 236

183 I. 6 15 The phœnix, “Arabian 387, 390
bird”

184 I. 6 30 Ape and miser’s gold 488

185 I. 6 46 _Contrasts of 474
epithets_

191 I. 6 188 _Jewels and ornaments 8
of rare device_

207 II. 4 68 _Adornments of 111
Imogen’s chamber_

212 II. 5 33 Envy 432, 433

226 III. 4 57 Countryman and 197, 208
serpent, _Sinon_

240 III. 6 31 Diligence and idleness 145, 147

253 IV. 2 172 Pine-trees in a storm 477

257 IV. 2 259 The oak and reed, or 315
osier

PERICLES PRINCE OF TYRE.

IX. 325 I. 2 102 Thread of life 454, 455

343 II. 2 17 _The Triumph Scene_ 158, 159

343 II. 2 19 _A black Ethiope_ 160

343 II. 2 27 _Spanish motto_ 162

343 II. 2 30 Wreath of chivalry 168, 169

343 II. 2 32 Inverted torch 170, 171, 173

343 II. 2 33 _Quod_ or _qui me 170, 174
alit_

344 II. 2 36 Gold on the touchstone 175, 177

344 II. 2 43 _Withered branch_ 181, 183

345 II. 3 9 Wreath of victory 223, 224

366 III. 2 26 _Man a God to man_ 283, 284

375 IV. Intr. 12 Envy 432, 433

POEMS.

VENUS AND ADONIS.

VOL. PAGE. LINE. SONNET. DEVICE OR SUBJECT. PAGES.

IX. 436 _Dedication_ 475

RAPE OF LUCRECE.

IX. 544 1723 _The chimney-piece, Tabley 133
Old Hall_

515 869 Occasion or opportunity. 259, 264
Plate XII.

537 1513 Countryman and serpent, 197, 200
_Sinon_

SONNETS.

IX. 578 1 55 Ruins and writings 443, 445

583 1 65 Ruins and writings 443, 445

A LOVER’S COMPLAINT.

IX. 638 92 Phœnix 381, 385, 389

THE PH[OE]NIX AND THE TURTLE.

IX. 671 21 Phœnix 381, 385, 388

671 25 Phœnix with two hearts 384

671 37 Phœnix with two hearts 384

672 53 Phœnix’ nest 23, 381, 389

[Illustration:

_Hesius_, 1536.
_Per cæcum videt omnia punctum._
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

GENERAL INDEX,

ARRANGED ACCORDING TO _FOUR_ SUBJECTS:
=1.= EMBLEM WRITERS PREVIOUS TO A.D. 1616.
=2.= PROVERBS, SAYINGS, AND MOTTOES.
=3.= WORKS QUOTED OR REFERRED TO.
=4.= MISCELLANEOUS REFERENCES.

=A.=

A, _O. L._ Linacre’s _Galen_, Paris, 1538, p. 105;
_O. L._ _Nef des folz_, f. xvi., Paris, 1499, p. 188;
_O. L._ Alciat’s _Emblems_, 2, Paris, 1534, p. 377.

=1.= A. Bruck, _Emb. mor. et bellica_, 1615, p. 95;
_Emb. politica_, 1618, pp. 34, 97.
Æsop, _Fables_, Latin and German, 1473; Italian, 1479; Greek, 1480;
French and English, 1484; Spanish, 1489; thirty other editions
before 1500, p. 51.
Aesticampianus, _Tabula Cebetis_, 1507, pp. 12.
A. Ganda, _Spiegel van vrouwen_, 1606, p. 98;
_Emblemata amatoria nova_, 1613, p. 98.
Alberti, _Ecatonphyla_, 1491; French, 1536, p. 55.
Alciat, Andrew, _Emblematum libellus_, 1522, p. 69;
_Emb. liber_, 1531, its size compared with ed. 1621, p. 69;
in the interval above 130 editions; French, 1536; German, 1542;
Spanish and Italian, 1549; English (?), 1551, p. 70;
Commentators, 70;
arms or device, 211.
Aleander, _Explicatio antiq. fabulæ_, &c., 1611, pp. 95, 97.
Altorfinæ, _Emb. anniversaria_, 1597, p. 94.
Amman, _Biblical figures_, _Heraldry_, &c., 1564, p. 85.
Ammirato, _Il rota overo dell’ imprese_, 1562, pp. 79, 81.
Aneau, _French Alciat_, 1549, p. 70;
_Picta poesis_, and _L’imagination poetique_, 1552, p. 76.
Angeli, _Astrolabium planum_, 1488, p. 42.
Anjou, _La joyeuse et mag. entrée_, 1582, p. 87.
_Apocalypse_, a block-book, 48, 49.
Arias Montanus, _Hum. salutis monum._, 1572, pp. 88, 89.
_Ars memorandi_, a block-book, about 1410, p. 45.
Astronomical MS., about 1330, Chetham Library, 41.
Austria, Don John of, _On Sambucus_, 1572, p. 86.

=2.= _Aliamque moratur_, 124;
_Altera securitas,_ 124;
_Amicitia etiam post mortem durans_, and _Amicitiæ immortali_, 307;
_Amor certus in re incerta cernitur_, 179;
_Amoris jusjurandum pœnam non habet_, 328;
_Amor vincit omnia_, 7;
_Anchora speme_, 185;
_Armat spina rosas, mella tegunt apes_, 333;
_Ars naturam adjuvans_, 255;
_Ars rhetor triplex movet_, &c., 141;
_Au navire agité semble le jour de l’homme_, 437;
_Auri sacra fames quid non?_ 480;
_Auxilio divino_, 413;
_Ave gratiâ plena, dominus tecum_, 46;
_A vous entier: j’en suis contente_, 45.

=3.= Æschylus, _on Symbol_, p. 2;
Swan, 213.
Æsop’s _Fables_, low estimate of by Shakespeare, 302;
Antwerp, ed. 1593, p. 313;
Jackdaw and fine feathers, 312.
Aikin’s _General Biography_: Champier, 63;
Joachim, 67;
Pierius, 80.
Alciat, characterised, 69;
quoted, Janus, 139–40;
Hope, 182;
Æneas and Anchises, 191;
Medea and Progne, 191;
Brutus 201;
Zisca, 206;
Swan, 213;
Insignia of poets, 218;
Phrixus, 229;
Sirens, 253;
Mercury and Fortune, 255;
Occasion, 259;
Prometheus bound, 266;
Dog and moon, 270;
Actæon, 275;
Arion, 280;
Phaeton, 285;
Icarus, 288;
Niobe, 292;
Narcissus, 295;
Pegasus, 299;
Several fables, 303;
Friendship after death, 307;
Bees, 360;
Cupid and death, 401;
Envy, 431;
Ship-sailing, 435;
Student entangled in love, 440.
Amboise, 1620, named by Menestrier, 79.
Ames’ _Antiquities of printing_ names an English version of Alciat, 70.
Anacreon, the swan, 214.
Aneau, or Anulus quoted: Progne, 193;
Brasidas, 194;
Swan, 213;
Prometheus, 267;
Actæon, 276;
Narcissus, 295;
Daphne, 296;
Skull, 337;
Chaos, 449.
Animals, artistic books of, 1560–1586, p. 85.
Archæologia, lottery, 208;
Ages of man, 406.
Aristotle, the head an index of the mind, 129;
Halcyon’s nest, 391.
Arundel MS., ages of man, 406.
_Athenæ_ (Cantab. ii. p. 258), Spenser, 87.
Augustine, S., _Confessions_, 426.
Aulus Gellius, Androcles and lion, 281.
Ayscough, 461.

=4.= Achilles, shield of, 20.
Actæon, referred to by Alciat, 275;
Shakespeare, Aneau, Sambucus, 276;
Palæphatus, Ovid, Whitney, 278;
and Shakespeare, 279.
Adam hiding, by Shakespeare, Whitney, 416;
Montenay and Stamm Buch, 416.
Adam’s apple, reference to Milton, Plate X., 132.
Adamant, indestructibility: Le Bey de Batilly and Pliny, 347;
Shakespeare, 348.
Æneas, his shield, 20;
and Anchises, by Alciat and Whitney, 191;
Shakespeare, 193.
Albret, Madame, Queen of Navarre, 88.
Aldi, 1490–1563, device, 16;
Horapollo, 1505, p. 64.
Alphonso V., ancestor of Don Juan Manuel, 1575, p. 90.
America and West Indies ignored, 350, 352.
Androcles and the lion, 281.
Antefixæ, of Etruscan art, 19.
Ants and grasshopper, by Freitag, 148;
and Whitney, 148.
Ape and miser’s gold, by Cullum, 128;
Paradin, Whitney, and Symeoni, 486;
Shakespeare, 488.
Apollo and the Christian muse, Le Bey de Batilly, 379;
Shakespeare, 380.
Appendices, I. 497, II. 515, III. 531–542.
Architecture and statuary excluded, 11.
Argonauts and Jason, 229;
Shakespeare, 230.
Arion, by Alciat, 280;
Whitney, &c., 281;
Shakespeare and Microcosm, 282, 283.
Arms on Queen Mary’s bed, 123, 124.
Arran, earl of, 1549; patron of Aneau, 108, 121.
Arrow wreathed on a tomb, Paradin, 183.
Art, Shakespeare’s exquisite judgment of, 108–117.
Ascencian printing press, 1511, p. 63.
Ass and wolf, 53, 54.
Astronomer and magnet, Sambucus, 335;
Whitney, 335;
Shakespeare, 336.
Athenian coin, 8.
Atkinson’s gem, _Picta Poesis_, 76.
Atlas, by Giovio and Shakespeare, 245.
Augustus, his emblem, 15.

=B.=

=1.= Badius, _Stultif. navic. fatuarum mul._, 1500, 1502, p. 61;
_Nef des folles_, &c., 1501, p. 62;
Account of, 63.
Balsat, _Nef des princes_, &c., 1502, p. 63.
Barclay, _Shyp of folys of the worlde_, 1509, 1570, pp. 57, 65, 91,
119;
_Mirrour of good maners_, 1570, p. 58.
Bargagli, 79;
_Dell’ Imprese_, 1589, p. 87.
_Bedford Missal_, MS., 1425, p. 44.
Beham’s _Bible figures_, 1536, p. 72.
Bellerophon, _of Lust tot wysheyd_, 1614, p. 98.
Belloni, _Discorso_, 1601, p. 92.
Bernardetti, _Giornata prima_, &c., 1592, pp. 79, 92.
Beza, _Icones_, accedunt _emb._, 1581, p. 88.
_Bible figures_, 1503, p. 63;
1536, p. 72.
_Biblia pauperum_, 1410–1420, p. 45;
Plate VI., 46;
Description of, 46, 47.
_Biblische historien_, 1551, p. 73.
Billyng, _Five wounds of Christ_, MS., 1400, ed. 1814, p. 41.
Block-books: _Biblia pauperum_, Plate VI., 45–47;
_Book of Canticles_ and the _Apocalypse of S. John_, 48;
_Ars memorandi_, 45, 48;
_Historia S. Joan. Evangelist._, sold for 415_l._, not for 45_l._,
Plates VII. and VIII., 49;
Print, Plate XV., 407.
Bocchius, _Symbol. Quest._, libri v. 1555, p. 77.
Boissard, _Theatrum vitæ humanæ_, 1596, p. 31;
_Shawspiel Menschliches lebens_, 1597, p. 97;
_Fall of Satan_, Plate XI., 133;
_Human life a theatre_, Plate XIV., 405.
Boissart, _Mascarades recueillies_, 93, 94.
Bol, _Emb. evang. ad XII. signa_, 1585, p. 88.
Boner, _German fables_, about 1400, ed. 1461, p. 50.
Borcht, Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_, 1591, p. 94.
Boria, _Emprese morales_, 1581, p. 90.
Brandt, _Narren schyff_, 1494; _Stult. navis_, before 1500, Plate IX.,
ed. 1497, p. 57;
_Nef des fols_, 57;
Flemish version, 1504, Two English, 1509, p. 57;
_Hortulus animæ_, MS., ed. 1498, p. 58.
Broecmer, _Embl. moralia et œconomica_, 1609, pp. 95, 97.
Brosamer, _Biblische historien_, 1551, p. 73.
Bynneman, _Van der Noot’s theatre_, 1569, p. 91.

=2.= _Beaulté compaigne de bonté_, 418;
_Bella Maria_, 125;
_Bona terra, mala gens_, 139;
_Breue gioia_, 152;
_Brevis et damnosa voluptas_, 152.

=3.= Bacon’s _Adv. of learning_, 1.
Bateman’s ed. _Five wounds of Christ_, 40.
Bellay’s _Cupid and death_, 1569, p. 400;
_Dog_, 482;
Emblem writing, 136.
Berjeau’s _Biblia pauperum_, ed. 1859, pp. 45, 48.
Beza, quoted, Phrixus, 230;
_Dog and moon_, 270;
_Engineer and petard_, 344.
_Biographie Universelle_, Boner, 50;
Zainer, 55;
Badius, 63;
Shoeufflein, 67;
Manuel, 90;
Dinet, 94;
Van Visscher, 98.
Blanchet’s _Apologues orientaux_, 17.
Blandford, _Catalogue of emblem books_, 35, 55.
Blomfield’s _Norfolk_, Lottery, 208.
Bohn’s _Holbein_, ed. 1858, Lottery, 207;
_Edward VI._, 121.
Boissard quoted, _Satan’s fall_, 132, 133;
_Bacchus_, 247;
_Bear and whelp and Cupid_, 349;
_Human life_, 405.
See Messin, _Emblemes_.
Brucioli’s _Trattato della sphera_, 1543, Zodiac, Plate XIII., 353.
Brunet’s _Manuel du libraire_, 39;
_Speculum humanæ salvationis_, 43;
_Dyalogus Creaturarum_, 51;
_Ecatonphyla_, 55;
_Todtentanz_, 56;
_Figures du vieil Test._, 63;
_Turnierbuch_, 68;
_Figures of the Bible_, 73;
_Giovio_, &c., 78;
_Spelen van sinne_, 81;
Hoffer, 81; &c.
Bryan’s _Dict. of Engravers_, Zainer, 56;
Boissart, 94;
Van Veen, 96.
Brydges, Egerton, _Res literariæ_, 78, 100.

=4.= Bacchus, by Boissard, and _Microcosme_, 247;
Alciat, Whitney, 248;
Shakespeare, 249.
Badges, traced by Giovio, 14;
Of ancient usage, 14;
Augustus, 15;
Titus, 16.
Ban-dog, Sir T. More, Spenser, 481;
Sambucus, 482;
Whitney, 483;
Shakespeare, 484.
Barrel with holes, Paradin, Whitney, 332.
Bear and ragged staff, Whitney, 236, 239;
traced to the Earls of Warwick, 237, 239;
Shakespeare, 239.
Bear and cub, Boissard, 349;
_Tronus Cupidinis_, 348;
Shakespeare, 350.
Beauchamp, Thos. and Richd., their monuments, 237.
Beccafumi’s designs for seven ages, 407.
Bed of state, with emblems by Mary Stuart, 123, 126;
at Hinckley, 126.
Bees, types of good government, Horapollo, 358;
Alciat, 360;
King bee, Plato, Xenophon, Virgil, 359;
Types of love for native land, Whitney, 361;
Commonwealth, Shakespeare, 362-364.
Bellerophon and Chimæra, Alciat and Shakespeare, 299, 300.
Bird caught by an oyster, 130;
In a cage, and hawk, 124.
Black Ethiope reaching at the sun, 123, 160–162;
No exact resemblance found, Reusner, 160, 161.
Blount’s crest, an armed foot in the sun, 166;
Families of Blounts, 160.
Bodily signs emblematical, 17.
Bodleian library, its block-books, 49.
Bona of Savoy, the Phœnix her device, 234.
Brasidas and shield, Aneau and Whitney, 194, 195.
Bridgewater gallery, Diana bathing, 111.
Britain, emblem literature known in, 119–137.
Brutus, death of, Alciat and Whitney, 201, 202;
Shakespeare, 203, 204;
Characteristics of Brutus and Cassius, Shakespeare, 204, 205.
Bullogne, Godfrey of, his impresa, 123.
Butterfly and candle, Paradin, 151;
Corrozet, Camerarius, Vænius, 152;
Symeoni, 153;
Shakespeare, 153;
Boissard, 152.

C, _O. L._, Alciat, 38 _Ant._, 1581, p. 497.

=1.= Caburacci, _Trattato ... di fare le imprese_, 1580, pp. 79, 86.
Callia, _Emb. sacra, e libris Mosis excerpta_, 1591, p. 94.
Camerarius, _Symb. et emblematum_, &c., 1590, p. 89.
Camilli, _Imprese—co i discorsi_, &c., 1586, p. 87.
_Canticles, book of_, a block-book, 48.
Capaccio, _Delle imprese trattato_, 1592, pp. 34, 85.
Caputi, _La pompa_, 1599, p. 92.
Cartari, _Imagini dei Dei degli antichi_, 1556, p. 79.
_Cebes, Tablet of_, B.C. 390, p. 12;
Editions various, 1497–1507, pp. 13, 68;
De Hooghe’s and another’s delineation, Plates I. and I. b, 13, 68.
Champier, _La nef des dames vertueuses_, 1503, p. 63.
Chartier, _Les blasons de vertu par vertu_, 1574, pp. 87, 88.
Chiocci, _Delle imprese_, 1601, pp. 79, 92.
Cimolotti, _Il superbi_, 1587, p. 87.
Clamorinus, _Thurnier-buch_, 1590, p. 90.
Clemens of Alexandria, _Stromata_, 21.
Cœlius, _Emblemata sacra_, 1589, p. 89.
Combe, _Emblems_, about 1594, p. 120.
_Compost des bergers_, 1500–1705, p. 42.
Contile, _Ragionamento ... delle imprese_, 1574, pp. 79, 86.
Coörnhert, _Recht ghebruyck ende misbruyck_, 1585, p. 90.
Corrozet, _Hecatomgraphie_, 1540, and other works, 74.
Cory, _Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Nilous_, 1840, pp. 22, 24.
Costalius, _Pegma, cum nar. phil._, 1555, p. 77.
Costerius, Ὁ Μικρόκοσμος, 1584, p. 98.
Coustau, _Le pegme, avec les nar. phil._, 1560, p. 77.
Crosse, _His covert_, MS. about 1600, with reasons for that date, 100.

=2.= _Canis queritur nimium nocere_, 482;
_Canis reversus ad suum vomitum_, &c., 144;
_Captivus ob gulam_, 130;
_Cavendum à meretricibus_, 250;
_Certe tu vita es mihi_, 161;
_Christus bajulat crucem_, 43;
_Come l’oro nel foco_, 179;
_Cominus et eminus_, 231;
_Coney, so doth struggle in the net_, 319;
_Conscientia integra laurus_, 422;
_Consequitur quodcunque petit_, 3;
_Consilio & virtute chimæram superari_, &c., 299;
_Constantia comes victoriæ_, 436;
_Contraria industriæ ac desidiæ præmia_, 148;
_Cosi troppo piacer conduce à morte_, 153;
_Cosi vivo piacer conduce à morte_, #151;
_Creatione et confusione del mondo_, 35;
_Creavit dominus novum super terram_, &c., 47;
_Cucullus non facit monachum_, 138;
_Cum larvis non luctandum_, 305;
_Curiositas fugienda_, 267.

=3.= _Calendrier et compost des bergers_, 1705, p. 42.
Callimachus, _Perjuria ridet amantum_, 328.
Cambridge _Works of Shakespeare_, 1863, 1866, p. 157.
_Centifolium stultorum_, 1707, p. 33.
Chaucer, use of the word Emblem, 7.
Chrysostom, God loved and hated in man, 281.
Cicero, use of the word Emblem, 5.
Collier, J. Payne, _Phœnix’ nest_, 1593, reprint, 380.
Cotgrave’s _Dictionary_, Emblema 1.
Cowden Clarke’s _Concordance_, 388.
Cudworth’s _Intellectual System_, ed. 1678, pp. 2, 103.
Cullum, Sir John, _History and antiquities of Hawsted_, 1813, p. 127.

=4.= Cadmus, alluded to in _Rich. II._, 245.
Calcott, Lady, account of the seven ages of man inlaid on the pavement,
Siena, 407.
Calumny, Shakespeare, 434.
Camel and his driver, 283.
Camerarius, quoted for,—Butterfly and candle, 151;
Dog and moon, 270;
Eagle renewing youth, 369;
Elm and vine, 307;
Falconry, 366;
Jackdaw in fine feathers, 312;
Laurel and lightning, 423;
Ostrich, 234;
Pelican, 394;
Stag wounded, 398;
Swan, 217;
Turkey and cock, 357;
Unicorn, 372;
Wheat among bones, 184;
Wreaths on a spear, 223.
Cannon bursting, Beza and Shakespeare, 344.
Casket scenes, emblematical, 149–154, 186.
Cassius and Cæsar in the Tiber, 193.
Cervantes and Shakespeare died in 1616, 318.
Chaos, Ovid, Symeoni, 448;
Aneau, Whitney, 449, 450;
Shakespeare, 451, 453.
Charles I., his fine collection of paintings, 111.
Charles V. emperor, the _Tewrdannckh_ dedicated to him in 1517, p. 68.
Chatterton, Dr., on choice of a wife, 210.
Chess, emb. of life and equality in the grave, Perriere, 320;
Corrozet, 321.
Child and motley-fool, Whitney, Sambucus, 484;
Shakespeare, 485;
Drant, 486.
Chivalry, wreath of, Paradin, Shakespeare, 169.
Cholmeley, knight, Sir Hughe, 320.
Christian art, fulness of its emblems, 26.
Christian love, the soul, and Christ, Plate II., 32.
Circe, Alciat, 250;
Whitney, Horace, Reusner, 251;
Shakespeare, 252.
Classification of the correspondencies and parallelisms, 187.
Cliffords, father and son, 192.
Clip the anvil of my sword, Shakespeare, 325;
Perriere, 326;
Whitney, and meaning, 327.
Closet adorned with emblems, 127.
Coats of arms, often imaginative, 236.
Coincidences of Whitney and Shakespeare in the use of words, 478, 479,
497–514.
Coincidences and parallelisms in heraldic emblems, 240.
Coins and medals often emblematical, 13.
Columbus, tribulations on marble, 461.
Commonwealth of bees, Whitney and Shakespeare, 361–365.
Compress, difficulty to, 101.
Conclusion, Shakespeare acquainted with Emblem-books, 495.
Confidence kept back, Shakespeare, 434.
Conscience, power of, Horace, 420;
Vænius, 421;
Shakespeare, 421, 424, 425.
Coörnhert’s device of Providence making poor and making rich, Plate
XVI., 489.
Coriolanus, 201;
his civic crowns, 225.
Coronation scene, Anne Bullen’s, 9.
Correspondence of Whitney and Shakespeare in words, 477–479, 497–514.
Corrozet, quoted, Butterfly and candle, 152;
Chess, 321;
Doves and Cupid, 245;
Fortune, 261;
Gem in gold, 418;
Hydra, 374;
Icarus, 289;
Sun and wind, 165.
Corser of Stand, Rev. T., _Historia S. Joan_, sold for 415_l._, p. 49;
_De Sole et Luna_, 52;
_Figures du vieil Test. et du nouuel_, 63;
Alciat of 1531 p. 69;
_Dance of Death_, 71;
_Crosse his covert_, MS., 100.
Cotton, Richard, Esquier, of Combermere, 1586, p. 360.
Countryman and serpent, Freitag, Reusner, 197;
Shakespeare, 198.
Coustau, Camel and driver, 283;
Silence, 209;
Orpheus, 271;
Ruins and writings, 442.
Crab and butterfly, Symeoni, 15.
Creation and confusion, Ovid, Plate III., 35.
Crescent moon, Giovio, 125, 127.
Crests of ancient times, 14–16.
Crowns, civic and others, 221, 224.
Cupid felling a tree, 324;
Blinded, Perriere and Shakespeare, 329, 331;
and Bear, Boissard, 349;
_Tronus Cupidinis_, 348;
Cupid and Death, Alciat, 400;
Whitney, 401;
Haechtan, 400;
Peacham, 403;
Cupid in mid-air, Shakespeare, 404.
Curtius, a silver emblem ornament, 5.
Custom, a guide for Emblems, 37.

=D.=

=1.= _Dance of Death_. See _Holbein_.
_Danse Macabre_, ed. 1485, p. 56.
Dalle Torre, _Dialogo_, 1598, p. 92.
Daniell, _Worthy Tract of Paulus Iouius_, 1585, p. 77.
David, _Virtutis spectaculum_, 1597;
_Veridicus christianus_, 1601;
_Christelücke_, 1603;
_Occasio arrepta, neglecta_, 1605;
_Pancarpium marianum_, 1607;
_Messis myrrhæ et aromatum_, 1607;
_Paradisus sponsi et sponsæ_, 1607;
_Duodecim specula_, 1610, p. 95;
_Occasio_, quoted in illustration, Plate XII., 265.
Daza Pinciano, _Alciat in Spanish_, 1549, p. 70.
De Bry, T., _Stam und wapenbuch_, 1593, p. 32;
_Emb. nobilitate et vulgo scitu digna_, 1592, and _Emblemata
secularia_, 1593, p. 94;
_Emb. sec.—rhythmis Germanicis_, 1596, p. 97;
_Pourtraict de la cosmog. morale_, 1614, p. 94.
De la Perriere, _Theatre des bons engins_, 1539;
_Les cent considerations d’amour_, 1543;
_Les considerations des quatre mondes_, 1552;
_La Morosophie_, 1553, p. 74.
De Montenay, _Emblêmes ou devises chrestiennes_, 1574, pp. 87, 88.
De Passe, 96;
_Metamorphoseωn Ouid._, 1602, p. 95;
_Speculum heroicum—Homeri_, 1613, p. 36;
Original drawings at Keir, about 1600, p. 177;
Quoted, _Phaëton_, 284;
_Daphne_, 296;
_Tronus Cupidinis_, 348.
Derendel, _Historyke Portreatures_, 1553, pp. 73, 119.
De Romieu, _Le Pegme de P. Covstav_, 1560, p. 77.
De Soto, _Emblemas moralizadas_, 1599, p. 99.
Desprez, _Théatre des animaux_, &c., 1595, p. 93.
_Destructoriũ vitiorum (Dyalog. Creat.)_, 1509, p. 52.
_Dialoges of creatures moralyzed_, 1520, pp. 52, 119, 303.
Dinet, _Les cinq livres des hieroglyph._, 1614, p. 94.
Dolce, _Le prime imprese del conte Orlando_, 1572;
_Dialogo_, 1575, p. 86.
Domenichi, _Ragionamento_, 1556, 1574, pp. 77, 78.
Doni, _I mondi; I marmi; La moral filosofia_, 1552, 1553, p. 76.
Droyn, _La grãt nef des folz_, 1498, 1579, pp. 57, 87.
Dupont, _Satyriques grotesques_, 1513, p. 67.
Durer, _Ehrenpforte_, 1515; _Tewrdannckh_, 1517; and _Triumphwagen_,
1522, p. 67.
Dutch Emblem-books, _passim_, and 90, 97.
Duvet, _L’apocalypse figurée_, 1561, p. 81.
_Dyalogus creaturarum_, 1480, p. 51;
French ed. 1482, English, 1520, p. 51.

=2.= _Dabit Deus his quoque finem_, 124;
_Dederitne viam Casusve Deusve_, 123;
_Defecit in dolore vita mea, &c._, 131;
_De more et amore_, 401;
_De Morte et Cupidine_, 403;
_Descendet dominus sicut pulvia in vellus_, 47;
_Despicit alta canis_, 270;
_Dives indoctus_, 229;
_Divesque miserque_, 31;
_D. O. M._, 464;
_Dominus tecum virorum fortissime_, 47;
_Dominus vivit et videbit_, 416;
_Donec totum impleat orbem_, 123, 127;
_Dum ætatis ver agitur, consule brumæ_, 148;
_Dum tempus labitur, occasionem fronte capillatam remorantur_, 265;
_Dum transis, time_, 128;
_Durate et vosmet rebus servate secundis_, 125.

=3.= De Bry, _Icones virorum illustrũm_, 85.
De la Perriere, quoted for,—Chess emb. of life, 320;
Cupid blinded and sieve, 329;
Diligence, 145;
Fardel, 495;
Janus, 140;
Occasion, 258;
Sword broken on anvil, 326;
Thorns on the rose, 332.
Democritus, _Golden sentences_, 13.
De Montenay, quoted, Adam hiding, 416;
Fearlessness, 440;
Good out of evil, 447.
Dibdin, _Bibliographical Antiquarian_, 58;
_Bibliomania_, 51, 137;
_Bibliogr. Decameron_, 45;
_Bibliotheca Spenseriana_, 48;
_Tour_, 57.
_Dict. Greek and Roman Antiquities_, 20.
Diodorus Siculus, _History_, 20.
Donne, _Elegy_, Flowers, 18.
Doré, _Drawings for Elaine_, 30.
Douce, _Dissertation_, ed. 1833, pp. 56, 71;
_Remarks on Macaber_, 56;
_Illustrations of Shakspeare and of Ancient Manners_, 1807, pp. 106,
167, 172;
_Holbein’s Images_, ed. 1858, p. 121.
Drake, _Shakspeare and his Times_, 106, 107, 238;
on _Falconry_, 365;
_Timon of Athens_, 426.
Drant, _Horace’s Art of Poetry_, 1567, p. 486.
Drayton, _Baron’s Wars_, 1598, names, emblems, impresas, hieroglyphics,
132.
Drummond, _History of Scotland_, 1655, p. 123;
_Letter to Benjamin Johnson_, Emblems on a bed of state, 123–125;
Other letters naming devices or emblems, 124.
Dryden’s opinion of the _Pericles_, 157.
Dugdale, _Antiq. of Warwickshire_, 237.
Du Vondel, illustrious poet of Holland, 98.

=4.= Daphne to a laurel, Aneau, Ovid, 296;
Shakespeare, 297.
Death, its mention by Shakespeare, 339, 469.
Death and sleep, 469–471.
Death’s praises,—life’s evils, 471.
Dedalus and his sons, 287.
Diana, emblem and symbol in one, 3.
Diana of Poitiers, dedication to, 3, 172.
Dice an emblem of life, Le Bey de Batilly, 322.
Diligence and idleness,—Perriere, 145;
Whitney, 146;
not followed by Shakespeare, 147.
Direct References to Emblems, six in the _Pericles_, 156–188.
Di Terra Nova, Duke, emblem, 125.
Division into _three_ parts of Emblem-books, from 1500 to 1564, p. 60;
into _two_ parts, from 1564 to 1615, p. 84.
Dog baying the moon, Shakespeare and Alciat, 269;
Whitney and Camerarius, 270;
Beza, 271.
Dogs not praised by Shakespeare, 145, 483.
Dolphin and anchor, Symeoni and Giovio, 16;
The device of Titus, and of the Aldi, 16.
D. O. M., Whitney and Shakespeare, 464, 465.
Doubtful if certain books are Emblem-books, 51, 55.
Doves and winged Cupids, Shakespeare and Corrozet, 245.
Drake, Sir Francis, compared to Jason, 229.
Drake’s ship, Whitney, 413;
Shakespeare, 414.
Drawing and device or emblem, their difference, 49.
Drinking bout of Antony and his friends, 246.
Droppes manie pierce the stone, &c., Whitney, 324;
Shakespeare and Vænius, 324
Dudley, Ambrose, earl of Warwick, died 1589, p. 238.
Dudley, Robert, earl of Leycester, died 1588, p. 238;
Whitney’s _Emblems_ dedicated to him, 239.
Dupes emblematised, 33.
Dust, to write in, Sir T. More, 461;
Shakespeare, 460, 461.

=E.=

E, _O. L._ of uncertain origin, 241;
_O. L._ from Plato’s works, 710; Francfort, 1602, p. 346;
_O. L._, _Dial. of Creatures_, 62, ed. 1520, p. 463.

=1.= _Ecatonphyla_, 1491, centiesme amour, 1536. p. 55.
_Ehrenpforte_, or triumphal arch, about 1515, p. 67.
_Emb. Amat._, Afbeeldinghen, 1611, p. 98.
_Emblemata Evang. ad XII. signa_, 1585, p. 88.
_Emblesmes sur les actions—du Segnor Espagnol_, 1608, p. 93.
_Emblematum Philomilæ Thiloniæ Epidigma_, 1603, p. 95.
Emblem-books, in the tabulated forms, 86–99:—
Dutch or Flemish, 1585, p. 90;
1603–1614, pp. 97, 98.
English, 1569–1586, p. 91;
1591–1612, p. 99.
French, 1568–1588, p. 87;
1595–1614, pp. 93, 94.
German, 1576–1590, p. 90;
1596–1611, p. 97.
Italian, 1566–1589, pp. 86, 87;
1592–1609, p. 92.
Latin, 1568–1590, pp. 88, 89;
1591–1615, pp. 94, 95.
Spanish, 1575–1589, p. 90;
1599–1615, p. 99.
Emblem-books, in Greek; _Tablet of Cebes_, B.C. 390, pp. 12, 68;
Clemens of Alexandria, about A.D. 300, _Stromata_, 21;
Epiphanius, A.D. 367, p. 28;
Horapollo, originally Egyptian, about A.D. 400, p. 22;
translated into Greek by Philip, about A.D. 550, p. 22.
English Emblem-books down to Willet, 1598, p. 119;
_passim_, 91, 99–101.
Epiphanius, A.D. 367, _Physiologus_, 1587, p. 28.
Estienne, Henri, _Anthologia gnomica_, 1579, pp. 88, 89.

=2.= _Eadem inter se_, 384;
_Ecce, ancilla domini, fiat mihi_, 46;
_Ecce ascendimus Hierosolimam_, 66;
_Ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium_, 46;
_Ei qui semel sua prodegerit, aliena credi non oportere_, 189;
Εἴξας νικᾶ, 314;
_Eloquentia fortitudine præstantior_, 164;
_Eloquium tot lumina clausit_, 123;
_En ma fin git mon commencement_, 123;
_Erant signa in sole et luna_, 48;
_Esto tiene su remedio y non yo_, 398;
_Ex domino servus_, 276;
_Ex malo bonum_, 447;
_Ex maximo minimum_, 337.

=3.= Engravers, named, and referred to:—
Amman, Jost, 1564, pp. 74, 85.
Avibus, Gaspar ab, 1558, p. 80.
Bernard, Solomon, 1560, pp. 36, 73.
Bewick, Thomas, 1789, p. 71.
Boissart, Robert, 1590, p. 94.
Bonasone, Giulio, 1555, p. 77.
De Bry, Theodore, 1592, pp. 96, 348.
” John Theod., p. 96.
” John Israel, p. 96.
De Hondt, Jost, 1606, p. 98.
De Hooghe, Romyn, 1670, p. 13.
De Jode, Gerard, 1584, p. 53.
De Passe, Crispin, 1611, pp. 95, 97, also pp. 57, 177.
Durer, Albert, 1509, pp. 65, 67, 73.
Duvet, John, 1561, p. 81.
Feyrabend, Sigismund, about 1581, p. 90.
Fortoul, 1832, p. 71.
Holbein, Hans, 1538, pp. 71, 72.
Koster, Laurens, 1410, p. 46.
Lützenberge, Hans, 1538, p. 72.
Marcolini, Ant. Franc., 1552, p. 76.
Pytheus, named by Pliny, 5.
Raimondi, Marc Ant., 1516, p. 67.
Sadeler, Ægidius, 1600, pp. 96, 98.
Sadeler, John, 96.
Sadeler, Raphael, 96.
Schlotthauer (_Dance of Death_), 1832, p. 71.
Shaeufflein, Hans, 1517, p. 67.
Solis, Virgil, 1555, p. 77;
1560, p. 74.
Stimmer, Tobias, 1576, p. 90.
Stimmer, John Chr., 1591, p. 90.
Van der Borcht, 1591, p. 95.
Van Veen, or Vænius, Otho, 1607, p. 96.
Van Veen, Gilbert, 1607, p. 96.
Veneziano, Zoan And., 1500, p. 55.
Eschenburg’s _Manual class. lit._, 1844, pp. 7, 224.

=4.= Eagle renewing its youth, Camerarius, 368;
Shakespeare, 369, 370.
Edward VI., Emblem-books belonging to him, 121.
Egerton, Lord Chancellor, and Thomas Wilbraham, 467.
Elephant and undermined tree, Sambucus and Whitney, 196.
Elizabeth, Queen, devices, 124;
prayer-book, 137;
lottery, 208;
phœnix, 390;
flattered by Shakespeare, 404.
Elm and vine, Alciat and Boissard, 307;
Whitney and Camerarius, 308;
Vænius and Shakespeare, 309.
Ἔμβλεμα, ἐνβαλλεῖν, pp. 4, 5, 6.
Emblem defined, Cotgrave, Quarles, and Bacon, 1;
Whitney, 6;
Shakespeare, 9;
origin, 9;
definition seldom strictly observed, 30.
Emblems, original meaning, 4;
Chaucer, 7;
kept by Shakespeare and Milton, 9;
changes of meaning, 4;
classical and modern meaning, 4, 5, 11.
Emblem and Symbol, confounded, 1;
difference, 2;
united, 2, 3;
affinity of, 6.
Emblem, the word introduced into Latin, 5;
opposed by Tiberius, 5;
used by Cicero and Quinctilian, 5.
_Emblema nudum_, or bare, without a device or picture, 13, 51;
in Shakespeare, 149–154.
Emblem Artists and Artificers, 5, 20. See also _Engravers_.
Emblem Authors, number before 1616, p. 102;
men of literature and mental power, 102;
estimate in which they were held, 103;
introduce fables, 303.
Emblem-books our theme, 11;
preceded by writings, 119;
_three_ large collections, accessible for this work, at Keir, Stand,
and Thingwall, 86;
number composed from 1564 to 1590, pp. 91, 92;
number of original texts and versions, 770, before 1616, p. 102;
illuminated MS., 38–45, 50;
block books, 46–50.
Emblem Literature,—applied with great latitude; what appears essential
to it, 31;
_Instances_: proverbs and witty sayings, scenes from history,
armorial bearings, 31;
celebration of events, devotion and satire, 32, 33;
politics, 34;
classic poets, 34–36;
great latitude in using the phrase, Emblem Literature, custom the
general guide, 37;
includes ornamental devices in books, 38;
architecture, sculpture, and painting too extensive to be included,
38;
known in Britain, 119–137;
bed of state, with emblems wrought by Mary, Queen of Scots, 123–125;
ancient bed at Hinckley, 126;
painted closet at Hawsted, 127–130;
ancient hall at Lower Tabley, 131;
Drayton’s testimony, 1598, p. 132.
Emblems,—raised or carved figures and designs, a crust or framework, a
mosaic, figured ornaments, 9, 10;
devices on smooth surfaces; any drawing representative of thought,
character, &c.; a species of hieroglyphics, 11;
coins and medals, 13;
heraldry, 14–17;
signs, 17–19;
fictile ornamentation, 19, 20;
works by the silversmith, 20;
hieroglyphics, 21–26;
Christian art, 26, 27.
Emblems classified—by Whitney into _three_ kinds, 187;
for this work into eight divisions, 188:
—historical, 188–211;
heraldic, 212–240;
mythological, 241–301;
for fables, 302–317;
for proverbs, 318–345;
for objects in nature, 346–376;
for poetic ideas, 377–410;
moral and æsthetic, 411–462;
miscellaneous, 463–496.
Emperors:—Maximilian I., 1517, pp. 67, 68;
Charles V., 1517, p. 68;
Maximilian II., 1564, p. 85;
Rodolph II., 1576, pp. 85, 89, 96;
Matthias, and Ferdinand II., 96.
End crowns all; or the end makes all equal, Shakespeare, Messin,
Whitney, Perriere, 320;
Illustrated by chess, Perriere, 320;
Corrozet, 321, 322;
Whitney and Shakespeare, 323.
Engineer hoist with his own petar, from Beza and Le Bey de Batilly,
344;
Shakespeare, 345.
Envy, from Whitney, Alciat, 431, 432;
Shakespeare, 433.
Estridge, ostrich, or falcon? Paradin, 370;
Shakespeare, 371.
Eternity, emblem of, 37;
in Plate XVII., 491;
Horapollo, 491;
Shakespeare, 492.

=F.=

F, _O. L., Nef des folz_, Paris, 1499, xxv., p. vii.

=1.= Fables, German, about 1400, p. 50. See _Boner_.
Fabrici, _Delle allusioni, imprese & emblemi_, 1588, p. 87.
Faerno, _Fabvlæ centvm_, 1565, pp. 85, 303, 310, 311;
quoted, Fox and grapes, 311.
Farra, _Settenario dell’ humana riduttione_, 1571, pp. 79, 86.
Feyrabend, _Stam und wapenbuch_, 1579, p. 90.
_Figures du vieil Test. & du nouuel_, 1503, p. 63.
_Figures of the Bible_, 73.
Fiorino, _Opera nuova_, &c., 1577, p. 86.
Flemish books of emblems, _passim_, and, 90, 97.
Franceschino, _Hori Apollinis selecta hieroglyphica_, 1597, p. 94.
Fraunce, _Insignium armorum emblematum_, &c., 1588, p. 89.
Freitag, _Mythologia ethica_, 1579, p. 88;
_Viridiarium mor. phil. per fabulas_, 1594, p. 94.
Frellonius, Holbein’s _Historiarum veteris instrumenti_, 1547, p. 72.
French Emblem-books, _passim_, and, 87, 93.
Furmerus, _De rerum usu et abusu_, 1575, p. 88;
Hands of Providence, Plate XVI., 489.

=2.= _Facunda senectus_, 215;
_Faire tout par moyen_, 289;
_Fatuis levia commitito_, 484;
_Feriunt summos fulgura montes_, 475;
_Festina lente_, 15;
_Ficta ejus quod haberi nequit recusatio_, 310;
_Finis coronat opus_, 437;
_Fortiter et feliciter_, 221;
_Fortitudo ejus Rhodum tenuit_, 124;
_Fortuna virtutem superans_, 202;
_Fortunæ comites_, 124;
_Frons hominem præfert_, 129;
_Fronte nulla fides_, 129;
_Fructus calcata dat amplos_, 124;
_Frustra_, 329, 331.

=3.= Farmer, Dr., on _Pericles_, 156.
Flintner, _Nebulo nebulonum_, 1620, p. 65.
Freitag, quoted for,—
Mouse caught by an oyster, 130;
Ants and grasshopper, 148;
Countryman and serpent, 197;
Fox and grapes, 309;
Phœnix, 381;
Sun, wind, and traveller, 166;
Turkeycock and cock, 356.

=4.= Fables: doubtful if strictly emblems, 51;
The best emblem writers introduce them, 303;
A floating literature, interchanged throughout the world, 302;
Shakespeare’s estimation of them, 303;
Early editions, 303.
Fables, emblems illustrative of, 302–317;
Fly and candle, 151–153;
Sun, wind, and traveller, 164–167;
Elephant and tree, 196;
Countryman and serpent, 197;
Hares biting the dead lion, 304–306;
Elm and vine, or elm and ivy, 307–309;
Fox and grapes, 309–312;
Jackdaw in fine feathers, 312–314;
Oak and reed, 314–316.
Facts in Nature, emblems from, and from the properties of animals,
346–376:
—Frosty Caucasus, 346;
Adamant on the anvil indestructible, 347;
Bear, cub, and Cupid—natural affection, 348–350;
The inhabited, or three-cornered world, 351–353;
Signs of the zodiac, 353–356;
The cock and turkeycock, 356–358;
The vulture, 358;
Bees, types of a well governed people, and of love for our native
land, 358–365;
Falconry, 365–368;
Eagle renewing its feathers, 368;
Ostrich with outspread wings, 370;
Unicorn, type of faith undefiled, 371–373;
Hydra slain by Hercules, 373–375;
Various animals named, 375, 376.
Falconry, from Dr. Drake, 365;
Camerarius and Giovio, 366;
Shakespeare, 367, 368.
Fame armed with a pen, from Junius and Whitney, 445, 446;
Shakespeare, 444, 445.
Fardel on a swimmer, 480, 481.
Ferdinand II., emperor, 96.
Fictile ornamentation, 19, 20.
Fin couronne les œuvres, from Shakespeare, 320–323.
See _End_.
Firmin Didot, 40.
Flower language, emblematical, 18.
Fly and candle. See _Butterfly_.
Forehead, index of the mind, 129.
Fortune, from Corrozet, 261. See _Occasion_.
Fox and grapes, from Freitag, 310;
Faerni, 310;
Whitney, 311;
Shakespeare, 311, 312.
Francis I., impresa, 123, 125, 126.
Friendship after death, 307.
See _Elm and Vine_.
Frosty Caucasus, 346.

=G.=

G, _O. L._, an altered C, from Linacre’s _Galen_, Paris, 1538, p. 543.

=1.= Ganda. See _À Ganda_.
German Emblem-books, _passim_, and, 90, 97.
_Geschlechtes Buch_, editions 1550, 1580. p. 75.
Geyler, _Navicula sive speculum fatuorum_, 1511, and _Navicula
penitentiæ_, 1511, several reprints before 1520, —the first book
with the imperial privilege, 66;
Two German translations, 66;
Latin version of _Narren Schyf_, 1498, p. 66.
Giovio, _Dialogo dell’ imprese_, or _Ragionamento_, 1555, p. 77;
1574, pp. 14, 15, 16;
English version, 1585, p. 77;
Menestrier, 79.
Giovio, Symeoni, and Domenichi, _Dialogo dell’ imprese_, &c., 1574, p.
78;
_Twenty-seven_ editions between 1553 and 1585, p. 78.
Glissenti, _Discorsi morali_, &c., 1609, pp. 92, 93.
Golding, _Ovid’s Metamorphoses_, 1565, p. 243.
Goulart, _Les vrais pourtraits_, 1581, p. 87.
Grapheus, _Entry of Philip of Spain_, 1550, p. 75.
Grevin, _Emblemes d’ Adrian la Jeune_, 1568, p. 87.
Guazzo, _Dialoghi piacevoli_, 1585, p. 87.
Gueroult, _Premier livre des emblemes_, 1550, p. 75.
Guillim, _A display of heraldry_, 1611, pp. 99, 120.
Gulden, _Den gulden winckel_, 1613, p. 98.
Guzman, _Triumphas morales_, 1557, p. 90.

=2.= _Gang forward; I am ready_, 14;
_Giuramento sparso al vento_, 328.

=3.= Gale’s _Opus mythol._, 13.
_Gentleman’s Magazine_, 126, 208.
German book—the first in pure German,—a book of fables printed in 1461,
p. 50.
Giovio, quoted from,—
Alciat’s device, 211;
Atlas, 245;
Crescent moon, 125, 127;
Dolphin and anchor, 16;
Falconry, 365;
Kingfisher, 392;
Ostrich and iron, 233;
Phœnix, 235;
Salamander, 125, 126.
Giovio and Symeoni, quoted,—Porcupine, 231;
Wrongs on marble, 457.
Golding’s _Ovid_, 1567, p. 243;
Shakespeare indebted to it, 243;
The epithet _golden_, 400.
Gough, on the _Bedford missal_, 1794, p. 44.
Gower’s _Conf. am.—pur reposer_, 7.
Green’s _Never too late_, 1610, p. 128.

=4.= Gem in a ring of gold, by Corrozet, 418;
Shakespeare, 419, 420.
Gemini, 355.
Geography, 350–353;
more correct, 415.
Glance only, at times, to emblem subjects by Shakespeare, 269, 317.
Glyptic art as exemplified in hieroglyphics, 21–26.
Gold on the touchstone, by Paradin, 175;
Whitney, 178;
Crispin de Passe, 177;
Shakespeare, 175, 180;
Vænius, 179.
Golden, the epithet, Douce, Sidney, Golding’s _Ovid_, 400;
Bellay, Alciat, 400;
Whitney, 401;
Peacham, Whitney, 403;
Shakespeare, 404.
Golden fleece, order of, 228.
Gonsaga, Hanibal, saying on surrendering his sword and himself, 138.
Good out of evil, Shakespeare and Montenay, 447.
Gravella, Cardinal, his impresa, 125, _note_.
Greatest out of least, from Anulus, 337;
Whitney, 338;
Shakespeare, 338, 339.
Grecian coins, 13.

=H.=

H, _O. L._, _Nef des folz_, xv., Paris, 1499, p. 187;
Monogram, H. G., a construction, _preface_, xii.

=1.= Haller, _Chartiludium logicæ_, 1507, p. 64.
Held, _Alciat in German_, 1542, p. 70.
Hesius, _Emblemata sacra_, 1581, p. 88.
Hillaire, _Speculum Heroicum ... Homeri_, 1613, pp. 36, 95.
_Historia S. Joan. Euangelist._, block-book, 1420, p. 49;
MS. of, belonged to Henry II., 49.
_Histories of Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther_, earliest printed
book with text and engravings, 1461, p. 45.
Hoffer’s _Icones catecheseos_, 1560, p. 81.
Holbein, _Les simulachres & Historiees faces de la mort_, 1538, pp. 72,
350, 487;
Previous to 1600 at least _fifteen_ editions, 72;
_Historiarum veteris instrumenti icones_, 1538, p. 72;
Spanish, ed. 1543, English, ed. 1549, within the century _twelve_
other editions, 73;
The canoness or nun, 469;
Sleep and death compared, 469, 470;
Wrong done to the soul, 433;
Praises of death, evils of life, 470, 471;
The last judgment, and escutcheon of death, 470.
Hollar, _Dance of death_, 1790, p. 56.
Homeri, _Speculum heroicum_. See _Hillaire_.
Horapollo, account of, 22;
_De sacris notis et sculpturis_, 1551, example, the Phœnix, 22, 23;
Other examples from Leemans and Cory, 24–26 (see _Leemans_ and
_Cory_);
First printed edition by Aldus, 1505, Latin, French, Italian, and
German, before 1535;
_sixteen_ other editions before 1616, p. 64.
_Horatii Emblemata_, 1607 and 1612, p. 36.
Horozco, _Emblemas morales_, 1589, _Symbolæ sacræ_, 1601, p. 90.
Hortinus, _Icones_, 1585, p. 88;
_Emblemata sacra_, 1589, p. 89.
_Hortulus rosarum_, 1499, p. 58.
Hunger, Alciat, _Cum rhythmis Germanicis versus_, 1542, p. 70.

=2.= _Heart of Jesus the well of everlasting life_, 40;
_Homines voluptatibus transformantur_, 250;
_Homo homini Deus_, 283;
_Homo homini lupus_, 280, 283;
_His ornari aut mori_, 222.

=3.= Haechtan’s _Parvus mundus_, 1579, p. 400.
Hallam, on _Pericles_, 157.
Halliwell, on _Astron._, MS., Chetham Library, 42.
Haslewood, reprint _Dialogues of Creatures_, 1816, p. 303.
Hawkins’ Η ΠΑΡΘΕΝΟΣ, 1633, p. 383.
Heraldry, ornamental, 16th century, 1868, p. 14.
Herodotus, the Scythian arrow, mouse, &c., 18;
the phœnix, 382.
Hesiod, shield of Hercules, 20.
Hessells on _Spelen van sinnen_, 81, 82.
Hippocrates, Seven ages of man, 406.
Holbein’s _Simulachres_, the canoness, 469;
Heath and sleep, 469;
Death and fool, 472.
Holland’s _Pliny_, a work of art by Pytheus, to be put on or taken
off,—a literal Emblem, 5;
Hardnesse of a diamant, 348;
The phœnix, 382;
Halcyones, 391.
Homer, _Iliad_, shield of Achilles, 20;
Word Emblem illustrated, 4;
Death not unbecoming the defender of his country, 222;
Insults to Hector’s dead body, 304;
_Odyssey_, Circe, 250.
Hood’s Miss Kilmansegg, to illustrate “golden,” 403.
Horace, conscience, 420, 421;
Circe and Sirens, 251;
Pine-trees in a storm, 490;
The swan, 214;
Time leading the seasons, 490.
Horapollo, quoted, Bees, 358;
Hawk on mummy case, 26;
Lamp burning, 456;
Phœnix, 23;
Star, 25;
Swan, 213;
Thread of life, 454.
Humphrey’s _Hist. of art of printing_, 1867, p. 43;
Plates from block-books, _Biblia pauperum_, 43, 46;
_Ars memorandi_, 45;
_Dance of death_, 469.

=4.= Halcyon. See _Kingfisher_.
Hands of Providence, by Furmer and Coornhert, Plate XVI., 489;
Shakespeare, 489.
“Happe some goulden honie brings,” Whitney, 364;
Shakespeare, 365.
Hares biting a dead lion, _Iliad_, Alciat, Shakespeare, 304;
Alciat, Whitney, 305;
Reusner, 306;
Shakespeare, 306.
Harpocrates, _Silence_, Whitney, 208;
_Pegma_, 209.
See _Lottery_.
Hawk on a mummy case, its meaning, 26.
Hawsted and Hardwick, emblems there, 127–130.
Hen eating her own eggs, Whitney, Sambucus, 411;
Shakespeare, 412.
Henry II. of England, 50.
Henry II. of France, his impresa, 123, 125, 127.
Henry VIII., collection of pictures, 111, 114;
his impresa, 124.
Heraldic Emblems, 212–240;
in three divisions;—
I. Poetic Heraldry, 212–221:—
The swan singing at death, Horapollo, 213;
Virgil, Horace, Pindar, Anacreon, 214;
On death poets take the form of swans, Ovid, Plato, 214;
type of old age eloquent, Aneau, 215;
of the simplicity of truth, Reusner, 215;
fine thought by Camerarius, 217;
insignia of poets, Alciat and Whitney, 218;
Shakespeare combines various of these emblems, or of their spirit,
219–221;
Shakespeare’s beautiful comparison of heraldry, 221.
II. Heraldry of Reward for heroic achievements, 221–230:—
Wreath of chivalry, Whitney, Camerarius, 222;
Shakespeare, 223;
Victors’ crowns, Paradin, 224;
Eschenburg, 224;
Shakespeare, 225–227;
Honours from sovereign princes, Shakespeare, Talbot, 226;
Order of St. Michael, Paradin, 227;
Order of the golden fleece, Paradin, 228;
Argonauts, Whitney, 229;
Phrixus, Alciat, 229;
Whitney, 230;
Beza, 230;
Shakespeare, 230.
III. Imaginative Devices, 231–240:—
Porcupine, Giovio, 231;
Camerarius, 232;
Shakespeare, 232;
Ostrich and iron, Giovio, 233;
Camerarius, 234;
Shakespeare, 234;
Phœnix, Lady Bona of Savoy, Paradin, 234;
Giovio, 235;
Shakespeare, 236;
Bear and ragged staff, Whitney, 236;
Dugdale, 237;
Dudley, 238;
Shakespeare, 239.
Heraldry, Emblems its language, 14, 17, 82;
Its close connection with Emblems, 212;
Beautiful comparison from, 220.
Heraldry of poetry, 212–221.
Heraldry of heroic achievements, 221–230.
Heraldry of imaginative devices, 231.
Hercules, his shield, 20.
Hieroglyphics, their emblem character, 21, 25;
Subjects, 21, 26;
Examples, 24, 26;
Meanings of several, 26.
Hinckley, bed at, with emblems, 126, 127.
Historical Emblems, 188—211:—
Medeia, Alciat, Whitney, 189, 190;
Æneas and Anchises, Alciat and Whitney, 191, 192;
Shakespeare, 192;
Progne, Aneau, Shakespeare, 193, 194;
Sinon, illustrated from Brasidas and his shield, Aneau, 194;
Whitney, 195;
The elephant and undermined tree, Sambucus, 196;
Countryman and viper, Freitag, 197;
Shakespeare, 198;
Siege of Antwerp, Whitney, 199;
Sinon often alluded to by Shakespeare, 200;
Coriolanus, 201;
Death of Brutus, Alciat, Whitney, 201;
Shakespeare, 203, 204;
Characteristics of Brutus and Cassius, 204, 205;
Formidable after death, Alciat, Whitney, 205;
Shakespeare, 207;
The lottery, video et taceo, Whitney, 208;
Costalius, 209;
Shakespeare, 209–211.
Hives of bees, 371. See _Bees_.
Homo homini lupus, Whitney, Chrysostom, 281;
Androclus and the lion, 281;
Shakespeare, 282.
Homo homini Deus, Coustau, 283;
Reusner, 283;
Shakespeare, “in apprehension how like a god,” 284.
Honours from sovereign princes, 226.
Hope, illustrated by Alciat, Paradin, Whitney, and Sambucus, 182–185;
Camerarius, 184;
Spenser, 185.
Human life a theatre, Plate XIV., 405.
Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, the _Tewrdannckh_, 67.
Hydra slain by Hercules, Corrozet, 374;
Shakespeare, 375.

=I.=

I, _O. L._, Giovio’s _Ragionamento_, Venetia, 1556, p. 30;
_O. L._, Alciat’s _Diverse Imprese_ (p. 2), Lyons, 1551, p. 84.

=1.= Ieucht, _Den nieuwen Ieucht spieghel_, 1610, p. 98.
Italian emblem-books, _passim_, and, 86, 92.

=2.= _Iddio, perche é vecchio, fa suoi al suo essempio_, 136;
_Il caos_, 448;
_Il fine corona l’opere_, 437;
_Illicitum non sperandum_, 182;
_Il mal me preme et mi spaventa Peggio_, 124;
_Immensi tremor oceani_, 227;
_Importunitas evitanda_, 327;
_Impotentis vindictæ fœmina_, 193;
_Improba siren desidia_, 252;
_In astrologos_, 288;
_In avaros vel quibus melior conditio ab extraneis offertur_, 280;
_In divitem indoctum_, 229;
_Industria naturam corrigit_, 256;
_Ingenio superat vires_, 126;
_In hac spe vivo_, 159, 181, 185;
_In morte vita_, 185;
_In occasionem_, 259;
_In receptatores sicariorum_, 275;
_In sinu alere serpentem_, 199;
_Insonti qui insidias struit, ipse perit_, 54;
_In spe fortitude_, 182;
_In statuam Bacchi_, 248;
_In studiosum captum amore_, 441;
_In temerarios_, 285;
_Invidiæ descriptio_, 432;
_Ipsa sibi lumen quod invidet aufort_, 124;
_Isaac portat ligna sua_, 43.

=3.= Image or symbol of St. Matthew, 48.

=4.= Icarus and ill-fortune, Alciat, 288;
Whitney, 288;
Corrozet, 289;
Shakespeare, 291.
Idiot-fool and death, Holbein and Shakespeare, 472.
Index, General, 543–571.
Indian hieroglyphics, 18.
Industry. See _Diligence and Idleness_, 145.
Introductory lines,—
Whitney, D. O. M., 464;
Shakespeare, 464.
Inverted torch,—
Shakespeare, Symeoni, 171;
Paradin, Whitney, 173;
Shakespeare, 170;
Vænius, 171;
Corrozet, 175.
Io, 245. See _Jupiter_.

=1.= Joachim, Abbot, died 1201;
editions 1475, 1515, _Prophetia dello Abbate Joachimo circa le
Pontefici & Re_, 67.
_Joan. S., Euangelist._, block-book. See _Historia_.
Jodelle, _Recueil_, 1558;
_Austriacis gentis imagines_, 1558, 1569, 1573, p. 80.
John, Don, of Austria, _Notes on Alciat_, 1572, p. 86.
Joseph, Daniel, _Judith and Esther_.
See _Histories of_, 45.
Jovius. See _Giovio._
Junius, _Emblemata_, 1565;
and 10 others, 86.

=2.= _Jam satis_, 128;
_Jus hospitalitatis violatum_, 357;
_Juvenilia studia cum provectiori ætate permutata_, 381.

=3.= Jode, Gerard de, 89, 282, 298, 313.
Johnson and Steevens’ _Shakspeare_, 483.
Johnson, Dr., 426.
Jones, Mr., Chetham Library, on Joachim, 67, 123.
Jonson’s testimony to Shakespeare, 496.
Junius, quoted:—
Fame armed with a pen, 446;
Oak and reed, 314;
Pelican and young, 395;
The caged cat and the rats; The crocodile and her eggs, 303.

=4.= Jackdaw in fine feathers, Camerarius, Æsop, _Microcosme_,
Shakespeare, 313.
James VI. of Scotland, Beza’s emblems, 122;
Epigram on, 122.
Janus, two-headed, Alciat, Whitney, 139, 140;
Shakespeare, 140.
Jar, with Emblems, named by Pliny, 5.
Jason, 229, 230.
Jove laughs at lovers’ perjuries, Shakespeare, 327;
Van Veen, Callimachus, Tibullus, 328;
Shakespeare, 328.
June, illustration from Spenser, ed. 1616, p. 136.
Jupiter and Io, Symeoni, Ovid, Shakespeare, 245, 246.

=K.=

K, _O. L._, Plato’s _Works_ (p. 153), Francfort, 1602, p. 212.

=1.=_Kalendrier des Bergers_, MS., 1330, p. 42;
Kindred works in Latin, Italian, and German, 1475, p. 42.

=3.= Kenrick’s _Anc. Egypt_, p. 21.
King’s _Vale Royal_, 211.
Knight’s _Pictorial Shakspere_, 156;
Acknowledging Shakespeare’s acquaintance with Whitney, 396.
Kugler’s _Handbuch de geschichte der malerei_, Berlin, 1847, pp. 110,
111, 114.

=4.= Katherine, Queen of France, her emblem, 128.
Keir, near Dunblane, N. B., its library:
—_Astrolabium planum_, 1488, p. 42;
Alciat’s _Emblems_, 1531, p. 69;
_Entry of Philip of Spain into Antwerp_, 1549, p. 75;
Gueroult’s _Premier livre des emblemes_, 1550, p. 75;
Doni’s _Emblem Works_, 1552, 1553, p. 76;
Remark, 86;
Guillim’s _Heraldry_, 100;
_Thirty-five_ original _Emblem Drawings_ by Crispin de Passe, 177.
King-emperor, or master-bee, 359–363.
Kingfisher, Halcyon-days, Ovid, Aristotle, and Pliny, 391;
Giovio, Shakespeare, 392.
Knowledge of Emblem-books in Britain, 119–137.
Koster of Haarlem, about 1430, p. 43;
Earliest engraver of block-books, 1410–1420, p. 45.

=L.=

L, _O. L._, Camerarius (i. 35), Norimberg, 1605, p. #383;
_O. L._, David’s _Veridicus Christianus_ (70), Antverpiæ, 1606, p.
60.

=1.= L’Anglois, _Discours des hierog. Égyptiens_, 1583, p. 87.
Le Bey de Batilly, _Emblemata_, 1596, p. 94.
Leemans, _Horapollinis Niloi Hierogl._, 1835, examples from, pp. 24,
25.
Lefevre, _Emblemes de Maistre A. Alciat_, 1536, p. 70.
Le Vasseur, _Devises des Emp. Rom._, 1608, p. 93;
_Devises des Rois de France_, 1609, p. 93.
_Libri cronicarum_, 1493, p. 56.
Locher, _Stultifera navis_, before 1500, Plate IX., 57.
Lonicer, J. A., _Stand und Orden_, 1585, p. 90;
_Venatus et aucupium icon._, 1582, p. 88.
Lonicer, Ph., _Insignia sacræ Cæsaræ maj._, 1579, p. 88.
Lydgate’s _Dance of Macaber_, about 1430, p. 56;
Hollar’s account, 1790, quoted, 56.

=2.= _La fin couronne les œuvres_, 139, 320, 322;
_La fin nous faict tous egaulx_, 321;
_La force d’eloquence_, 273;
_La guerre doulce aux inexperimentez_, 152;
_Latet anguis in herba_, 340;
_La vie de Memoire_, 444;
_Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au
bourbier_, 144;
_Loues triall_, 179;
_Lucet et ignescit, sed non rubus igne calescit_, 64;
_Lux tua vita mea_, 160;
_Lux tua vita mihi_, 160;
_L’ymage de Fortune_, 261.

=3.= Langhorne’s _Plutarch_, Timon, 430.
Le Bey de Batilly, quoted:—Adamant on anvil, 347;
Apollo and Christian Muse, 379;
Milo caught in a tree, 344;
Life like a game of dice, 322.
Lindsay, Lord, _Christian Art_, 293;
_Seven Ages_, 407.

=4.= Labour in vain:—Cupid and sieve, Perriere, 329;
Shakespeare, 330;
A tun with holes, Paradin, Whitney, 331, 332.
Laing, D., letter, 1867, Queen Mary’s bed, 123, _note_.
Lamp-burning, Horapollo, Shakespeare, 456.
Land-jewels of the Netherlands, what, 83.
Languages, snatches of, by Shakespeare, 163.
Laurel, safety against lightning, Sambucus, 422;
Whitney, Camerarius, 423;
Shakespeare, 424, 425.
Life, its seven ages, Plate XV., 407.
Life, evils of, Holbein’s _Simulachres_, Shakespeare, 471.
Limbert, Stephen, of Norwich School, 461.
Limner’s art in Emblems, 38.
Loft, Capel, his opinion of Shakespeare, 106, 107.
Logomaniacs, reproved by Cudworth, 103.
Lorrain, Card. of, his impresa, 124.
Lottery of 1569, Whitney, 208;
Shakespeare, 209–211.
Louis XI., Order of St. Michael in 1469, p. 227;
his impresa, 231.
Louis XIV., history of, in medals, &c., 13.
Love, its transforming power, Shakespeare, 349.

=M.=

M, _O. L._, Linacre’s _Galen_, f. 35, Paris, 1538, p. 119.

=1.= _Macaber, Dance of_, 14th century, p. 39;
ed. 1484, p. 39;
_La Danse Macabre_, 1485, and several other editions, 56.
Mansion, _Dialogue des creatures moralizie_, 1482, p. 52.
Manuel, _El conde Lucanor_, 1575, p. 90.
Marquale, _Diverse imprese_, 1547, p. 70.
Martin, _Orus Apollo de Ægypte_, 1543, p. 22.
Mercerius, _Emblemata_, 1592, p. 94.
Mercier, Horapollo, 1551, p. 22.
Messin, Boissard’s _Emblêmes_, 1588, pp. 87, 164, 307, 320, 383, 444.
_Microcosme, le_, 1562, p. 247.
Mignault, or Minos, _Emblemes d’Alciat_, 1583, p. 70;
_Omnia Andreæ Alciati Emblemata. Adj. comm._, 1573 and 1581, pp. 71,
79.
ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΣ, _Parvus mundus_, 1579 and 1592, pp. 88, 267.
Modius, _Liber ordinis eccl. origo_, 1585, and _Pandectæ triumphales_,
1586, pp. 88, 89.
Moerman, _Apologi creaturarum_, 1584, pp. 53, 88;
_De Cleyn Werelt_, 98.
Montenay. See _De Montenay_.
More’s “pageauntes,” 1496, p. 120.
Murner, _Chartiludium logicæ_, 1507, p. 64;
_Narren Beschwörung_, 1512, 1518, p. 65.

=2.= _Maleficio beneficium compensatum_, 197;
_Malè parta, malè dilabuntur_, 128, 502;
_Manie droppes pierce the stone_, 324;
_Materiam superabat opus_, 124;
_Maulvaise nourriture_, 175;
_Mea sic mihi prosunt_, 124;
_Medio occidet die_, 124;
_Mediis tranquillus in undis_, 125, _note_;
_Mens immota manet_, 335;
_Me pompæ provexit apex,_ 158, 168;
_Merces anguina_, 198;
ΜΙΚΡΟΝ ΦΡΟΝΤΙΣΑΝΤΕΣ ΣΩΚΡΑΤΟΥΣ, 155;
_Moderata vis impotenti violentia potior_, 166;
_Mort vivifiante_, 185;
_Much rain wears the marble_, 324;
_Multiplication de proces_, 374;
_Mulier umbra viri_, 468;
_Murus æneus, sana conscientia_, 423.

=3.= Magnat, _On flower signs_, 1855, p. 18.
Martin, _Shakespeare’s seven ages_, 1848, p. 407.
Menestrier, _Philosophia_ and _Judicium_, 1595, pp. 78, 79.
_Microcosm_, quoted:—Fortune, 263;
Prometheus, 267;
Arion, 280;
Milo, 298.
Mignault, quoted:—Symbols, Coats of Arms, and Emblems, ed. 1581, or
1608, p. 2;
Narcissus, 295;
Hares and dead lion, 304, 305.
Milton, Emblem, 9;
_Paradise Lost_, curiously portrayed in _Adams appel_, 1642, p. 132;
in Boissard’s _Theatrum_, The fall of Satan, Plate XI., 133.
Moerman quoted, Wolf and ass, 53, 54.
Moine’s _Devises_, Roy des abeilles, 363.
Montalde, P. Horatius, 79.
More, Sir T., quoted, 120, 461, 481.
Motley, _Dutch Republic_, 81, 82.
Mulgrave, _Voyage to the North Sea_, 348.

=4.= Maidens, Hindoo and Persian, and flowers, 18.
Manchester Free Library, Faerno’s _Fables_, 1565, p. 85.
Man, like a wolf, 281;
like a god, 283.
Man measuring his forehead, 129.
Man swimming with a burden, from Perriere, 480;
Whitney, 480;
Shakespeare, 481.
Man’s greatness, Coustau, 283;
Reusner and Shakespeare, 283, 284.
Manuscript Emblem-books, Macaber, 39;
Astronomical, 41;
_Speculum humanæ salvationis_, 42, 44;
Bedford _Missal_, 44;
_Hortulus animæ_, 58;
Crosse, 100;
Eng. Alciat, 101.
Map of the world, Sambucus, 351;
Shakespeare, 352.
Marble, writings on, 457–462.
Marcus Curtius, 5.
Marquetry or mosaic work, in Emblems, 4.
Mary of Lorrain, her impresa, 123.
Mary, queen of Scotland, educated in France, 1548, p. 121;
Bed of state wrought by her with many emblems, 123;
Account of it, 123–125.
Matthias, emperor, 96, 97.
Maximilian I., _Tewrdannckh_ attributed to him, 1517, p. 67;
_Ehrenpforte_ and _Triumphwagen_ in his honour, 67.
Maximilian II., patron of Sambucus, 85.
Maxwell. See _Stirling-Maxwell_.
Mead, Dr., his copy of the _Dance of Death_, 40.
Medeia and the swallows, as shown by Alciat, 190;
Whitney, 190;
Shakespeare, 192.
Mercury and fortune, Alciat, 255;
Mercury charming Argus, Drummond, 123;
Mercury mending a lute, Sambucus, Whitney, 256;
Shakespeare, 257, 258.
Metrical renderings or translations:
Diana, 3;
the Fool, 34;
Wolf and ass, 54;
Oarsman’s cry, 61, 62;
Epigram on James I., 122;
Janus, 140;
Diligence, 145;
Sun of the soul, 161;
Sun and wind, 165;
Inverted torch, 171;
Money, 178;
Hope, 184;
Snake, 198;
Drums, 206;
Wreaths, 222;
Porcupine, 232;
Courage, 233;
Lady Bona, 235;
Wine, 249;
Sloth, 251;
Fortune, 255, 262;
Prometheus, 266;
Dog and moon, 271;
Eloquence, 272;
Assassin, 276;
Actæon, 277;
Arion, 280;
Man to man a god, 283;
Phaeton, 285;
Daphne, 297;
Pegasus, 299;
Insult to Hector, 304;
Dead lion, 306;
Elm and vine, 308;
False feathers, 312;
Ash and reed, 314;
Cupid and the sieve, 330;
Mind unmoved, 335;
Adamant, 348;
Wasps, 360;
Falcon, 367;
Renewed youth, 369;
Unicorn, 372;
Law’s delay, 374;
Glory of poets, 380;
Phœnix, 383;
Alcyone, 391;
King-fisher, 392;
Pelican, 394, 395;
Wounded stag, 398;
Theatre, 405;
State of man, 408;
The hen, 411;
Beauty, 419;
Integer vitæ, 421;
Laurel, 422;
Timon, 428;
Constancy, 436;
Cupid and a ship, 437;
Chaos, 448, 449;
Wrongs on marble, 457;
We flee what we follow, 467;
Ban-dogs, 482;
Riches and poverty, 489.
Michael, St., order of, 1469, p. 227.
Milo, in a tree, De Batilly, 344;
Bull-bearing, Shakespeare;
_Microcosm_, 296.
Minerva superintending the Argo, 20.
Minnesingers, or troubadours, remains of, 1461, p. 50.
Miscellaneous Emblems:
Words and forms of thought, Paris and Helen, 463;
D. O. M., 464, 465;
Time flying, &c., 466–468;
Shadows fled and pursued, 468;
Death and sleep, 469–471;
Death’s fool, 471;
Old time, 473, 474;
Similarity of dedications, 475;
Pine-trees in a storm, 475–477;
Correspondencies in words, 477–479;
Man swimming with a burden, 480;
Ban-dogs, 481–483;
Child and motley fool, 484;
Ape and miser’s gold, 487;
Hands of Providence, 489;
Time leading the seasons, 491;
Eternity, 491.
Montgomerie, Earl of, Shakespeare’s dedication to, 122.
Moral and æsthetic Emblems, allusions to, Corrozet, Montenay, Le Bey de
Batilly, Shakespeare, 411–462:
—Things at our feet, 411–413;
Drake’s ship, 413–415;
Adam in the garden, 415, 416;
Gem in a ring of gold, 417–420;
Conscience, 420–422;
Laurel, safety of, against lightning, 422–425;
Pleasant vices, 425;
Timon of Athens, 426–431;
Envy, 431–433;
Ship tossed on the sea, 434–440;
Student in love, 440–442;
Ruins and writings, 443–445;
Fame armed with a pen, 446;
Good out of evil, 447;
Il Caos, 448;
Chaos, 449–454;
Thread of life, 454, 455;
Lamp burning, 456;
Wrongs on marble, 457–461;
Write in dust, 461;
Higher morality, 462.
Moth and candle, 151–153. See _Butterfly_.
Motley fool and child, 499.
Mouse caught in an oyster, Alciat, Whitney, Freitag, 130.
Mulcaster, of Merchant Tailors’ school, 1561, p. 100.
Music, Shakespeare’s appreciation of, 116.
Mythological characters, Emblems for, 241–301:
—Instances, 243, 244;
Milo, 244;
Cupid’s wings, 245;
Cadmus, 245;
Atlas, 245;
Jupiter and Io, 245;
Bacchus, 246–248;
Circe, 250;
Sirens, 253;
Mercury and Fortune, 255;
Mercury and the lute, 256;
Mercury, 257, 258;
Fortune, or occasion, and opportunity, 258–260;
Fortune, 261;
Fortune on the rolling stone, 263;
Occasion, 263–265;
Prometheus bound, 265–269;
The dog baying at the moon, 270;
Orpheus, 271–274;
Actæon and the hounds, 274–279;
Arion, 279–281;
The contrary sentiment, 281–283;
Phaeton, 284–287;
Dædalus and Icarus, 287–291;
Niobe, 291–294;
Narcissus, 294–296;
Daphne, 296, 297;
Milo, 297;
Pegasus, 298–300.
Mythology, a fruitful source of illustrations, 241;
Open to every one, 242;
Ovid the chief storehouse, 242.

=N.=

=1.= _Narren Beschwörung_, 65. See _Murner_.
_Narren Schyff_, 1494, p. 57;
Supplied texts for Geyler, 66. See _Brant_.
_Navicula_, 1511, p. 66. See _Geyler_.
_Navis stultifera_, before 1500, p. 57. See _Locher_.
_Nef des dames vertueuses_, 1503, p. 63. See _Champier_.
_Nef des folles, selon les cinq sens_, 1501, p. 61.
_Nef des princes_, 1502, p. 63. See _Champier_.
Nestor, _Histoire des hommes_—_de Medici_, ed. 1564, p. 80.
North, _Morall philosophie of Doni_, 1570 and 1601, pp. 76, 91, 120.

=2.= _Ne per morte_, 309;
_Nil penna sed usus_, 370;
_Nimium rebus ne fide secundis_, 476;
_Niuno vecchio, Spaventa Iddio_, 136;
_Nobil è quel, ch’ è di virtu dotata_, 366;
_Non absque Theseo_, 143;
_No pleasure without pain_, 333;
_Nous savons bien le temps_, 392;
_Nunquam siccabitur æstu_, 125, note;
_Nusquam nisi rectum_, 124;
_Nusquam tuta fides_, 196.

=3.=
_Nebulo nebulonum_, 1620, p. 65. See _Flintner_.
North’s _Plutarch_, 1579, Timon of Athens, 426;
Epitaph, 430, 431.
_Notes and queries_, 1862, p. 67.

=4.=
Napoleon’s return from Elba, 18.
Narcissus, from Mignault, Alciat, 294;
Aneau, Whitney, Shakespeare, 295, 296.
Nature, Emblems from facts in, and from properties of animals, 346–376:
—Natural, one of the divisions of emblems, 346;
Frosty Caucasus, 346;
Adamant indestructible, 347, 348;
Bear and cub, power of love, 348–350;
The inhabited world, 350–353:
Zodiac, 353–355;
Turkey, 356–358;
Vulture, 358;
Commonwealth of bees, 358–365;
Happe goulden honie bringes, 364;
Falconry, 365–368;
Eagle renewing its youth, 369;
Ostrich spreading its wings, 370;
Unicorn, 371–373;
Hercules and dragon, 373–375;
Various animals, 375, 376.
Nemesis and hope, 182. See _Hope_.
Niobe and her children, from Alciat, 292;
Aneau, Whitney, Shakespeare, 293.
Nowell, Dr. Alexander, 395.
Nun, or canoness, Holbein, 469.

=O.=

=1.= _Occulti academici_, &c., 1568. See _Rime_.
Orozco, _Emblemas morales_, 1610, pp. 31, 99.
Ovid, _Heroidum liber_, 1473, p. 242;
_Metamorphoses_, 1480, p. 242;
_M. cum figuris depictis_, 1497, p. 35;
_Metamorphoses_, Spanish, 1494, p. 242;
Italian, 1497, p. 242;
_Metamorphoses_, figurato, &c., 1559, pp. 35, 245;
Plantin’s ed. 1591, p. 246;
Golding’s English translation, 1565 and 1567, pp. 241, 243;
_La bible des poetes_, 242.

=2.=
_Orphei musica_, 272;
_Otiosi semper egentes_, 146;
_O vita misero longa_, 268.

=3.= Oetlinger, _Bibliog. biog. univ._, 97.
Ormerod, _History of Cheshire_, 211.
Ovid, _Metamorphoses_, quoted:—Singular subscription, 242;
Swan, 214;
Circe, 250;
Orpheus, 274;
Actæon, 278;
Phaeton, 284;
Niobe, 291;
Daphne, 296;
Phœnix, 385;
Halcyon, 391;
Wounded stag, 399;
Cupid’s arrow golden, 400;
Chaos, 448;
_2 Trist._, Jove’s thunderbolt, 209.

=4.= Oak and reed, Junius, Shakespeare, Vænius, 315;
Whitney, 316.
Oarsman’s cry, 61, 62.
Occasion, or opportunity, 258;
Alciat, 259;
Whitney, 260;
Shakespeare, 260, 264, 265;
Plate XII., 265.
Old men at death, Shakespeare, 215.
Old time, Shakespeare, 473.
Olive and vine, 249. See _Vine_.
Orange, Prince of, device, 125, _note_.
Order, of St. Michael, 227;
Of the golden fleece, 228.
Ornamentation of houses, Emblems used for, 126–130, 131.
Orpheus, Coustau, 271;
Reusner, Whitney, 272;
Ovid, 274;
Shakespeare, 273, 274.
Ostrich, eating iron, 126;
Giovio, 233;
Camerarius and Shakespeare, 234;
Spreading its wings, Paradin, 370;
Whitney and Shakespeare, 370, 371.

=P.=

P, _O. L._, Alciat’s _Emb._ p. xii., Antverp., 1581, p. 318.

=1.= Palazza, _I discorsi imprese_, &c., 1577, pp. 79, 86.
Paracelsus, _Prognosticatio_, 1536, p. 71.
Paradin, _Quadrins historiques de la Bible_, 1555, p. 75;
_Devises heroiques_, 1557, _Symbola heroica_, 1567, and other
editions before 1600, p. 75;
English version, 1591, p. 75;
Menestrier, 79.
Parker, _Tryumphes of Petrarcke_, 1564, p. 55.
Passæus, 95, 96. See _De Passe_.
Peacham, _Minerva Britanna_, 1612, pp. 99, 100.
Percivalle, _Versus et emblemata_, 1588, p. 79.
Pergaminus, _Dyalogus Creaturarum_, written in the 14th
century,—editions, Latin, 1480, 1483;
French, 1482;
and English, 1520, pp. 51, 52, 66.
Perriere, 60. See _De la Perriere_.
Personé, alluded to by Menestrier, 79.
Petrarch, _Trionphi_, 1475, 1510, and 1523, p. 55.
Pezzi, _La vigna del signore_, 1589, p. 87.
Pfintzing, _Tewrdannckh_, 1517;
love adventures of Maximilian I. and Mary of Burgundy, 67, 68.
Phasianinus, Latin version of _Horapollo_, 1517, p. 64.
Philieul, _Dialogue des Devises_, 1561, p. 78.
Pierius Valerian, _Hieroglyphica_, 1556, pp. 24, 80.
Pignorius, _Vetustissimæ tabulæ_, 1605, 95;
_Characters Ægyptii_, 1608, pp. 95, 97;
and _Short notes on Alciat_, 1618, p. 71.
Pinciano, _Los Emblemas de Alciato_, 1549, p. 70.
Pinedi, _Duodecim symbola in Jobum_, 1600, p. 79.
Pittoni, _Imprese di diversi principi_, 1566, p. 86.
Ponce de Leon, _Epiphanius_, 1587, p. 28.
Porri, _Vaso di verita_, 1597, p. 92.
Porro, _Il primo libro_, 1589, p. 87.

=2.= _Parfaite est l’amitie qui vit après la mort_, 307;
_Partium_ τῆς οἰκουμένης _symbola_, 351;
_Patria cuique chara_, 361;
_Paupertas immerita_, 489;
_Pecunia sanguis et anima mortalium_, 177;
_Perfidus familiaris_, 195;
_Pennæ gloria immortalis_, 446;
_Perpolit incultum paulatim tempus amorem_, 348;
_Per vincula crescit_, 123;
_Peu à peu_, 349;
Φιλαυτία, 295;
_Piena di dolor voda de sperenza_, 124;
_Pietas filiorum in parentes_, 191;
_Pietas revocabit ab orco_, 124;
_Piu por dulzura que por fuerza_, 162, 167;
_Plus par doulceur que par force_, 165;
_Plus virtute quàm armis_, or _Plvs par vertv qve par armes_, 164;
_Poetarum gloria_, 379;
_Ponderibus virtus innata resistit_, 124;
_Porta hæc clausa erit et non aperietur_, 47;
_Post amara dulcia_, 332;
Πῶς γέροντα μουσίκον, 213;
Πῶς λαὸν πειθήνιον βασιλεῖ, 358;
_Precipitio senza speranza_, 124;
_Precium non vile laborum_, 228;
_Principis bona imago_, 143;
_Principis clementia_, 360;
_Pro lege et grege_, 394;
_Propera tarde_, 16;
_Prudentes vino abstinent_, 249;
_Pur reposer_, 7.

=3.= Palæphatus, on _Actæon_, 278.
Paradin, quoted,—Ape and miser’s gold, 501;
Arrow wreathed on a tomb, 183;
Barrel full of holes, 332;
Butterfly and candle, 151;
Fleece, golden, 228;
Gold on the touchstone, 175;
Leafless trees and rainbow, 128;
Michael, order of St., 227;
Ostrich with stretched wings, 370;
Phœnix, 234, 385;
Snake on the finger, 342;
Stag wounded, 399;
Wheat among bones, 184;
Wreath of chivalry, 169;
Wreath of oak, 224;
Wrongs on marble, 458.
_Penny Cyclopædia_, on _Pericles_, 168;
on the plays of _Henry VI._, 238;
Unicorn, 372.
_Percy Reliques_, Dragon, 373.
Pfister, earliest printed book on scriptural subjects, 1462, p. 45;
Earliest German book, 1461, p. 50.
Pindar, on _Symbol_, 2.
Plantin, 1564–1590, _fifty_ editions of Emblem-books, 85.
Plato, the swan, 214;
king-bee, 359.
Plautus, “_life to me_,” 161.
Plutarch, _Timon of Athens_, 430;
Carking, 468.
Priestley, _Lectures on History_—on Grecian coins, 13.
Proclus, _Seven ages of man_, 407.

=4.= Painters referred to, Romano, 110;
Rubens, 96;
Titian, 111, 114.
Palm-tree, a device on Queen Mary’s bed, 124.
Parallelisms and correspondencies between Shakespeare and emblem
writers, numerous, 494.
Pegasus described, 141–144;
Alciat, 299;
Shakespeare, 300.
Pelican, Epiphanius, 393;
Camerarius and Reusner, 394;
Junius and Whitney, 395;
Shakespeare, 396;
Note in Knight, 396.
Pembroke, earl of, dedication to, 1668, p. 122.
_Pericles_, accepted as of Shakespeare’s authorship, 156, 157, 158;
the triumph-scene, 158;
First knight, _Lux tua vita mihi_, 160–162;
Second knight, _Piu por dulzura que por fuerza_, 162–167;
Third knight, _Me pompæ provexit apex_, 168–170;
Fourth knight, _Quod me alit, me extinguit_, 170–175;
Fifth knight, _Sic spectanda fides_, 175–181#;
Sixth knight, _In hac spe vivo_, 181–186.
Personification, especially in mythology, 258.
Perth, earl of, Emblems in a letter to, 124, _note_.
Phaeton, Ovid, 284;
Alciat, 285;
Symeoni, 284;
Shakespeare, 286, 287.
Philip, duke of Burgundy, 1429, Golden fleece, 228.
Phœnix, emblem for long life; for returning to friends; restoration
after long ages, 23;
Oneliness or loneliness, 235, 236;
Accounts of, 22, 23, 234–236;
Phœnix’ nest, 380;
Emblem of loneliness, Paradin, Giovio, 234, 235;
Shakespeare, 236;
Emblem of duration, Horapollo, 23;
Emblem of new birth, and resurrection, Freitag, 381;
Mary of Lorraine, 123;
Emblem of oneliness, Paradin and Reusner, 385;
Whitney, 387;
Shakespeare, 388–390;
Emblem of life eternal, 386.
Phœnix with two hearts, Hawkins, 383;
the Virgin mother and her son, entire oneness of affection, 384;
Shakespeare, 384.
Phryxus, or Phrixus, 229. See _Golden Fleece_.
Picture writing, 18, 30.
Picture and short poesie, marks of the Emblem, 31.
Pilgrim travelling, Cullurn’s _Hawsted_, 128.
Pine-trees in a storm, Horace, Sambucus, 475;
Whitney, 476;
Shakespeare, 477.
Plate, of emblematical character, 20.
Pleasant vices, their punishment, 425.
Poetic ideas, emblems for, 377–410;
Shakespeare’s splendid symbolical imagery, 377;
Glory of poets, 379, 380;
The phœnix, 381–383;
Phœnix with two hearts, 384;
The bird always alone, 384–390;
Kingfisher, 391–393;
Pelican, 393–398;
Wounded stag, 397–400;
Golden, the epithet, 400;
Death and Love, 404, 405;
Cupid in mid-air, 404;
Human life a theatre, 405, 406;
Seven ages of life, 407–410.
Poet’s badge, Alciat, 218;
Whitney, 217;
Shakespeare, 219.
Poet’s glory, 379;
Le Bey de Batilly, 380;
Shakespeare, 380.
Politics in emblems, _Il Principe_, 34.
Porcupine, Drummond, 124;
Giovio, 231;
Camerarius, Shakespeare, 232.
Portcullis, emblem used by Henry VIII., 124.
Powers granted for noble purposes, Whitney, Shakespeare, 412.
Printing with blocks, 45–49;
with moveable types, 50.
Progne or Procne, Aneau, Shakespeare, 193.
Prometheus bound, Alciat, 266;
Aneau, 267;
_Microcosme_, 267;
Reusner, Whitney, 268;
Shakespeare, 268, 269.
Proverbs, Emblems in connection with, 318–345:
—Proverbs suggestive of narrative or picture, 318;
_La fin couronne les œuvres_, 320–322;
_Manie droppes pierce the stone_, &c., 324;
_To clip the anvil of my sword_, 325–327;
_Jove laughs at lovers’ perjuries_, 328, 329;
_Labour in vain_, 329–332;
_Every rose its thorn_, 332–334;
_True as the needle to the pole_, 334–337;
_Out of greatest least_, 337–339;
_A snake in the grass_, 340, 341;
_Who against us?_ 342, 343;
_Hoist with his own petar_, 343, 344.
Providence, and girdle, 413 (see _Drake’s ship_);
Making poor and enriching, Plate XVI., 489.
Pyramid and ivy, Drummond, 124.

=Q.=

=1.= _Quadrins historiques de la Bible_, 1553–1583, _twenty-two
editions_ in various languages_73_.
_Quadrins historiques du Genèse_, 1553, p. 73.
_Quadrins historiques de l’Exode_, 1553, p. 73.

=2.= _Quæ ante pedes?_ 411;
_Quæ sequimur fugimus, nosque fugiunt_, 466;
_Quæ supra nos, nihil ad nos_, 260;
_Quel che nutre, estingue_, 175;
_Que mas puede la eloquençia que la fortaliza_, 164;
_Quem nulla pericula terrent_, 347;
_Quibus rebus confidimus, iis maxime evertimus_, 344;
_Quid nisi victis dolor_, 124;
_Qui me alit, me extinguit_, 171–173;
_Quis contra nos?_ 126, 342;
_Quod in te est, prome_, 395;
_Quod me alit, me extinguit_, 170, 174;
_Quod nutrit extinguit_, 174;
_Quod sis esse velis_, 312;
_Quo modo vitam_? 456;
_Quo pacto mortem seu hominis exitum?_ 454;
_Quo tendis?_ 128.

=3.= Quarles, definition of Emblem, 1.
Quinctilian, use of the word Emblem, 5.

=4.= _Qui_ or _quod_, variations in the reading, 174.

R, _O. L._, _Nef des folz_, xlix., Paris, 1499, p. 411;
_O. L._, of uncertain origin, p. 531.

=1.= Rabelais, _Les songes drolatiques de Pantagruel_, 1565, p. 86.
Rastall, _Dialogue of creatures_, 1520, p. 51.
Regiomontanus, or Muller, 1476, p. 42.
Regiselmus. See _Joachim_.
Reusner, _Emblemata_ 1581, _Aureolorum Emblem._, 1591, pp. 88, 89, 251.
_Rime de gli academici occulti_, 1568, p. 86.
Rinaldi, _Il mostruosissimo_, 1588, p. 87.
Ripa, _Iconologia_, &c., 1603, 1613, p. 92.
Riviere, _Nef des folz du monde_, before 1500, p. 57.
Rollenhagen, _Les emblemes_, 1611, p. 95;
_Nucleus Emblematum_, 1613, p. 97.
Ruscelli, _Discorso_, 1556, p. 77;
_Imprese illustri_, 1566, p. 78.
Rüxner, _Turnier-buch_, 1530, p. 68.

=2.= _Rabie succensa_, 356;
_Remember still thy ende_, 320;
_Renovata juventus_, 369;
_Res humanæ in summo declinant_, 435;
_Respice et prospice_, 139;
_Rompe ch’ il percote_, 125;
_Rore madet vellus_, _Permansit arida tellus_, 47;
_Rota vite que septima notatur_, 407.

=3.= Rapin, _History of England_, 1724, p. 122.
_Real museo Borbonico_, 1824, p. 19.
Reusner, quoted:—
Circe, 251;
Hares and dead lion, 306;
Man a god to man, 283;
Orpheus and harp, 272;
Pegasus, 143;
Pelican and young, 394;
Phœnix, 385;
Prometheus, 268;
Serpent and countryman, 197;
Sirens, 252;
Swan, 215, 216;
Unicorn, 371.
Roscoe, _Leo X._, 303.

=4.= Recapitulation and conclusions, 492–495.
References and coincidences not purely accidental, 494.
References to passages from Shakespeare, in the order of the plays and
poems, and to the corresponding devices and subjects of the Emblems,
_Appendix_ iii., 531–542.
Rhetoric, chambers of, their pursuits and amusements, 81, 82;
Extent and nature, 82.
Rich and poor, Plate XVI., 489.
Rock in waves, Drummond, 125, _note_.
Romano, Julio, works known to Shakespeare, 110;
Where there are now works of his, 110, 111.
Romano, Capitano Girolamo Mattei, 233.
Rose and thorn, Whitney, Perriere, 333;
Vænius, 333;
Shakespeare, 334.
Rubens, desciple of Vænius, 96.
Rudolph II, 85, 89, 96.
Ruins and writings, Whitney and Costalius, 444;
Shakespeare, 444, 445;
Boissard, 449.

=S.=

S, _O. L._, Giovio’s _Sent. Imp._ 3, Lyons, 1562, pp. 156, 515;
_O. L._, Sambucus (Emb. 232), Antverp., 1564, p. 302.

=1.= Sadeler, _Symbola divina et humana_, 1600, 1601, p. 95;
_Theatrum morum_, 1608, pp. 95, 96, 97.
Sambigucius, _Interpretatio_, 1556, p. 77.
Sambucus, _Emblemata_, 1564, and _Emblêmes de Jehan Sambucus_, 1567, p.
85;
Notes by Don John of Austria, 1572, p. 86.
Sanctius, or Sanchez, on _Alciat_, 1573, pp. 71, 88.
Sassus, referred to by Menestrier, 79.
Sceve, _Delie_, 1544, p. 75.
Schopperus, Πανοπλία, 1568, and _De omnibus illiberalibus sive
mechanicis artibus_, 1574, p. 88.
Schrot, _Wappenbuch_, 1581, p. 90.
Scribonius, 1550. See _Graphæus_.
Sevus, referred to by Menestrier, 79.
_Shyp of fooles._ See _Watson_ and _Barclay_.
Sicile, _Le blason de toutes armes_, and _Le blason des couleurs_,
1495, p. 58.
_Simulachres & historiees faces de la mort_, 1538, p. 71;
_Fifteen_ editions, 72, 471.
Soto. See _De Soto_.
S. (P.), _Heroical devices_, 1591, pp. 75, 120.
Spanish Emblem-books, _passim_, and, 70, 90, 99.
_Speculum humanæ salvationis_, MS., printed about 1430 by Koster, 43;
Description of his edition, 43;
Many editions and kindred works before 1500, p. 43;
Plates IV. and V., 44.
_Spelen van sinne_, allegorical plays, 1539, p. 81.
_Stam und wapenbuch_, 1579, p. 31.
Stimmer, _Neue kunstliche figuren Biblischen_, 1576, p. 90.
Stockhamer, _commentariola_ to Alciat, 1556, p. 70.
_Stultifera navis_, previous to 1500, Locher, Riviere, Plate IX., 57;
Other versions, 57;
Badius, 61.
Symeoni, _Vita et Met. d’Ovid._, 1559, pp. 3, 35, 79;
_Devises ou emblemes heroiques et morales_, 1561, pp. 15, 16;
_Imprese_, 1574, p. 17;
_Imprese heroiche et morale_, 1562, p. 78;
_Sententiose imprese_, 1562, p. 78.

=2.= _Sa virtu m’attire_, 123;
_Scelesti hominis imago & exitus_, 53;
_Scribit in marmore læsus_, 457, 458;
_Scripta manent_, 443;
_Servati gratia ciuis_, 224;
_Sibi canit et orbi_, 217;
_Sic majora cedunt_, 366;
_Sic spectanda fides_, 159, 175, 178;
_Si Deus nobiscum, quis contra nos?_, 342;
_Si fortuna me tormenta, il sperare me contenta_, 137, 138;
_Si fortune me tourmente, l’esperance me contente_, 138;
_Silentium_, 208;
_Sine justitia confusio_, 449, 450;
_Sola facta, solum Deum sequor_, 234;
_Sol animi virtus_, 161;
_Sola vivit in illo_, 126;
_Speravi et perii_, 130;
_Spes altera vitæ_, 1833, #184;
_Spes aulica_, 182;
_Spes certa_, 182;
_Spiritus durissima coquit_, 233;
_Stultitia sua seipsum saginari_, 310;
_Stultorum infinitus est_, 66;
_Superbia_, 292;
_Superbiæ vltio_, 293.

=3.= Sadeler, _Zodiacus christianus_, 1618, p. 353.
Sambucus, quoted:
—Actæon, 277;
Astronomer, 335;
Ban-dog, 482;
Child and motley fool, 484;
Elephant, 196;
Forehead, 129;
Hen eating her own eggs, 411;
Laurel, 422;
Mercury and lute, 256;
Pine-trees in a storm, 475;
Ship on the waves, 435;
Time flying, 466;
Timon, 427;
World, map of, 351.
Schiller, _Werke_, 199.
Schlegel, on _Pericles_, 157.
Shakespeare quoted, by way of allusion, or of reference to:
—Æsop’s _Fables_, 303;
Actæon, 276, 279;
Adam hiding, 416;
Adamant, 348;
Æneas and Anchises, 191;
Ape and miser’s gold, 488;
Apollo and the Christian muse, 379;
Argonauts and Jason, 230;
Arion, 283;
Astronomer and magnet, 356;
Atlas, 245;
Bacchus, 249;
Ban-dog, 484;
Bear and ragged staff, 237–240;
Bear and cub, 349, 350;
Bees, 361–365;
Bellerophon and chimæra, 300;
Brutus, 201–205;
Butterfly and candle, 153;
Cadmus, 245;
Cannon bursting, 345;
Casket scenes, 149–154, 186;
Cassius and Cæsar, 193;
Chaos, 451–453;
Child and motley fool, 485;
Chivalry, wreath of, 168;
Circe, 252;
Cliffords, 192;
Clip the anvil of my sword, 327;
Commonwealth of Bees, 362–365;
Conscience, power of, 421;
Coriolanus, 201;
and his civic crowns, 226;
Coronation scene, 9;
Countryman and serpent, 197;
Cupid blinded, 331;
Cupid in mid-air, 404;
Daphne, 297;
Death, 469;
Dog baying the moon, 269;
Dogs not praised, 145, 483;
D. O. M., 464, 465;
Drake’s ship, 415;
Drinking bout of Antony and his friends, 246;
Drops pierce the stone, 324;
Dust, to write in, 461;
Eagle renewing its youth, 369;
Elizabeth, queen, 404;
Elm and vine, 309;
Emblem defined, 9;
Emblems without device, 149–151;
End crowns all, 320, 323;
Engineer hoist, 345;
Envy, 433;
Estridge, 371;
Eternity, 491, 492;
Falconry, 367, 368;
Fame armed with a pen, 445, 446;
Fin couronne les œuvres, 320–323;
Fortune, 262;
Fox and grapes, 311;
Frosty Caucasus, 346;
Gem in a ring, 419;
Golden, 400, 404;
Gold on the touchstone, 175, 180;
Golden Fleece, 227;
Good out of evil, 447;
Greatest out of least, 337–339;
Hands of Providence, 489, 490;
Happe some goulden honie bringes, 365;
Hares and dead lion, 304;
Hen eating her own eggs, 412;
Heraldry, 222, 223;
Homo homini lupus, 280, 283;
Homo homini Deus, 283, 284;
Hydra, 375;
Icarus, 291;
Inverted torch, 170;
Jackdaw in fine feathers, 313;
Janus, two-headed, 140;
Jupiter and Io, 246;
Jove laughs at lovers’ perjuries, 328;
King-fisher, 392;
Labour in vain, 331, 332;
Lamp burning, 456;
Laurel, 422–425;
Lottery, 209–211;
Love’s transforming power, 349;
Man with a fardel or burden, 481;
Man’s greatness, 284;
Map of the world, 351, 352;
Medeia, 192;
Mercury, 257, 258;
Michael, order of St., 227;
Milo, 297;
Narcissus, 296;
Niobe, 293, 294;
Oak and reed, 315, 316;
Occasion, or opportunity, 260, 264, 265;
Old Time, 473;
Orpheus, 273, 274;
Ostrich, 234, 371;
Pegasus, 299, 300;
Pelican, 394–397;
Pen, its eternal glory, 447;
_Pericles_,—the triumph scene, 158, 160–186;
Phaeton, 286, 287;
Phœnix, 236, 381–390;
Pine-trees, 477;
Poet’s badge, 218, 219;
Poet’s glory, 379, 380;
Porcupine, 232;
Powers granted for noble purposes, 412;
Progne, 194;
Prometheus bound, 268;
Romano, Julio, 110;
Ruins and writings, 443–445;
Rose and thorn, 333, 334;
Serpent in the breast, 198;
Seven ages of man, 407–410;
Shadows fled and pursued, 468;
Ship in storm and calm, 435–440;
Sirens, 254;
Skull, human, 337–339;
Snake in the grass, 341;
Snake on the finger, 343;
Stag wounded, 397–400;
Student entangled in love, 441;
Sun and wind, 160;
The setting sun, 323;
The swan, 219;
Sword on an anvil, 327;
Sword with a motto, 138;
Testing of gold, 175, 180, 181;
Theatre of life, 405, 406;
Things at our feet, 411, 412;
Thread of life, 454;
Time leading the seasons, 491;
Timon, 427–431;
Turkey and cock, 357, 358;
Unicorn, 371, 372;
Vine and olive, 249;
Whitney’s dedication lines, 464;
Wreath of chivalry, 168;
Wreaths, 222;
Wreath of oak, 225;
Wrongs on marble, 457–462;
Zodiac, signs of, 353.
Shakespeare, acquainted with languages, 106, 107, 168;
with the works of Julio Romano, 110;
and of Titian, 115;
with Emblems, 137, 158, 186.
—Attainments, 106–116;
sufficient for cultivating Emblem literature, 107, 108.
—Dramatic career, 1590–1615, pp. 91, 92;
An Emblem writer, 148, 154, 493;
Genius, 105;
Judgment in works of art,—sculpture, 109, 110;
ornament, 111;
painting, 112–115;
melody and song, 115, 116.
—Knowledge of ancient history and customs, 105, 106, 225, 226;
Marks of reading and thought, 242;
Tendency to depreciate his attainments, 105;
Use of term Symbol, 2;
Device, 8;
Emblem, 9.
_Shepheards calender_, Spenser, 134–137, 186.
Siegenbeek, _Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche letterkunde_, 82.
Smith, _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_, 10.
Sotheby, _Principia typographica_, 1858, pp. 48, 49.
Spenser, ideas of devices, 8;
Early sonnets, 88;
Visions, 134;
_Shepheards calender_, 134, 136, 185;
Ban-dogs, 481.
_Stamm Buch_, 1619, Adam hiding, 416.
Statius, badges, 47.
Suetonius, _Tiber. Cæsaris vita_, 5.
_Symbola divina et humana_, 1652, p. 176.
Symeoni, quoted:—Ape and miser’s gold, 486;
Butterfly and candle, 153;
Chaos, 448;
Creation and confusion, 35;
Diana, 3;
Dolphin and anchor, 16;
Forehead shows the man, 129;
Inverted torch, 171;
Phaeton, 284;
Serpent’s teeth, 245;
Wounded stag, 398;
Wrongs on marble, 457.
_Syntagma de symbolis_, 2.

=4.= Saint Germain, fair at, imprese, 124, _note_.
Salamander, impresa of Francis I., 123, 125.
Satan, fall of, Boissard, 1596, Plate XI., 132, 133.
Satire in Emblems, 33.
Saviour’s adoption of a human soul, Vænius, Plate II., 32.
Savoy, duke of, his impresa, 124;
Madame Bona of, her device, 235.
Sepulchre and cross, Diana of Poitiers, 183.
Serpent and countryman, Freitag, Reusner, 197;
Serpent in the bosom, Shakespeare, 198.
Seven ages of man, Arundel MS., 406;
Hippocrates, Proclus, Antonio Federighi, Martin, Lady Calcott, 407;
Block-print described, Plate XV., 407, 408;
Shakespeare, 409, 410.
Shadow, fled and pursued, Whitney, 467;
Shakespeare, 468.
Shield untrustworthy. See _Brasidas_.
Shields of Achilles, Hercules, Æneas, &c., 20.
Ship, with mast overboard, Drummond, 124;
Ship on the sea, Drummond, 125;
Ship tossed by the waves, Sambucus, Whitney, 435;
Ship sailing forward, Whitney, Alciat, 436;
Boissard, 437;
Shakespeare, 438–440.
Sieve held by Cupid, 340. See _Cupid_.
Silent academy at Hamadan, 17.
Silversmiths, their craft and emblems, 20.
Similitudes and identities in literature, 302.
Sinon, 194–200;
Virgil, 194;
Whitney, 195, 196, 199;
Shakespeare, 200.
Sirens,—Alciat, 253;
Whitney, 254;
Shakespeare, 254.
Six direct references to Emblems in the _Pericles_ of Shakespeare,
156–186.
Skiff of foolish tasting, Badius, 1502, p. 61.
Skull, human, Aneau, Whitney, 337;
Shakespeare, 338, 339.
Snake in the grass, Paradin, Whitney, 340;
Shakespeare, 341.
Snake on the finger, Paradin, 342;
Whitney, Shakespeare, 343.
Soul, its hieroglyphic sign, 25, 26.
Spanish motto, 162, 164, 167.
_Speculum humanæ salvationis_, Plates IV. and V., 44.
Stag wounded, Giovio and Symeoni, 398;
Paradin, Camerarius, Virgil, Ovid, Vænius, 399;
Shakespeare, 399, 400.
Stage, the world a, 409. See _Seven ages_.
Star, its hieroglyphic meaning, 25.
Statuary and architecture excluded, 11.
Stirling-Maxwell, Bart., of Keir, De Bry’s _Stam und wapenbuch_, 1593,
p. 32;
ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΣ, by Costerius, 98. See also _Keir_.
Stork, emblem of filial piety, &c., 28;
Epiphanius and Alciat, 28.
Student in love, Alciat, Whitney, 441;
Shakespeare, 442.
Subjects of the Emblem _Imprese_, &c., 515–530.
Sun and moon, in dialogue, 52.
Sun of York, 223;
Sun in eclipse, 124;
Sun setting, Whitney, 323;
Sun, wind, and traveller, Corrozet, 165;
Freitag, Shakespeare, 166.
Swan singing at death, Æschylus, Horapollo, 213;
Virgil, Horace, 214;
Old age eloquent, Aneau, 215;
Pure truth, Reusner, 216;
Camerarius, 217;
Insignia of Poets, Alciat, Whitney, 218;
Shakespeare, 219, 220.
Sword with motto, 138.
Sword on anvil, Perriere, 326;
Whitney, 327;
Shakespeare, 325, 327.
Sword to weigh gold, Drummond, 124.
Symbol, more exact use, Pindar, Æschylus, Cudworth, Shakespeare, 2.
Symbols and Emblems, almost convertible terms, 1;
yet a difference, 2.
Symbolic properties of animals, 28.
Symbolical imagery, fine example of, 377.

=T.=

T, _O. L._, _Nef des Folz_. 7, Paris, 1499, p. xiii.

=1.= Taëgius, referred to by Menestrier, 79.
Tambaco, _Speculũ-paciẽtierum_, 1509, p. 65.
Tasso, Torq., _Discorsi del poeme_, 79, 92.
Tasso, Herc., referred to by Menestrier, 79.
Taurellius, _Emblema physico-ethica_, 1595, pp. 94, 96.
_Tewrdannckh_, in honour of Maximilian I., dedicated to Charles V.,
splendid volume, 67.
_Théatre des animaux_, 93. See _Desprez_.
_Todtentanz_, the original editions, 1485 to 1490, not by the Holbeins,
56.
Trebatius, Latin version of _Horapollo_, 1515, p. 64.
_Triumphwagen_, 67. See _Durer_.
Troiano, _Discorsi delli triomfi_, 1568, p. 86.
_Turnier-buch_, 68. See _Durer_.
_Typotius_, 1601–1603, p. 95. See _Sadeler_.

=2.= _’t Geld vermagalles_, 177;
_Temere ac pericvlose_, or _Temerité dangerevse_, 152;
_Tempus irrevocabile_, 36, 490;
_Tempus omnia terminat_, 323;
_Te stante virebo_, 124;
_Time terminates all_, 323;
_Trino non convenit orbis_, 124;
_True as needle to the pole_, 334;
_True as steel_, 337.

=3.= Tennyson, _Elaine_, 30.
Tibullus, on lovers’ vows, quoted, 328.
Timperley, _Dictionary of printers_, 1839, pp. 44, 56.
Titian, _Triumph of truth and fame_, 32;
his paintings, 111, 114.
Tod, remarks on Spenser, 137.

=4.= Tabley, Cheshire, ancient hall of the Leycesters, with emblem,
131.
Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, 207, 227.
Theatre, human life, Boissard, Plate XIV., 405;
Shakespeare, 406.
Theological conjecture, a curious, 383.
Thieves, so triumph, 319.
Things at our feet, Whitney, Sambucus, 411;
Types of powers to be used, Shakespeare, 412.
Thingwall, the emblem library there, 86.
Thompson, H. Yates, of Thingwall, 5, 44.
Thread of life, Horapollo, 454;
Shakespeare, 455.
Time flying, Sambucus, 466;
Whitney, 467;
Plutarch, 468;
Shakespeare, 468, 469;
Turning back, Shakespeare, 473.
Time leads the seasons, Vænius, Horace, Plate XVII., 491;
Shakespeare, 491.
_Timon of Athens_, Dr. Drake, 426;
North, Plutarch, Sambucus, 426, 427;
Shakespeare, 428, 429;
Epitaph, 430;
Mode of death, 431.
Titus, son of Vespasian, his emblem, 16.
Tongue with bat’s wings, Cullum and Paradin, 128.
Tree of life, 126. See _Arrow wreathed_.
Tree in a churchyard, Drummond, 124.
Triangle, sun and circle, Drummond, 124.
Triumph scene in the _Pericles_, 1589, pp. 160–186.
_Tronus Cupidinis_, De Passe, 348.
Trophy on a tree, Drummond, 124.
True as needle, Sambucus, 334;
Whitney, 335;
Shakespeare, 336;
lode stars, 336.
True as steel, 337.
True men so yield, 319.
Truth, an emblem so named, 20.
Turkeycock, Freitag, Camerarius, 357;
Shakespeare, 358.

=U.=

=1.= Ulloa, Alphonsus, 1561, Menestrier, 79.

=2.= _Unde_, 124, note;
_Undique_, 123;
_Unica semper avis_, 385;
_Unum quidem, sed leonem_, 124;
_Ut casus dederit_, 124;
_Ut parta labuntur_, 128;
_Utilia prudenti, imprudenti futilia_, 53.

=4=. Ulysses and Diomed as an emblem, 5.
Unicorn, 371;
Reusner, Brucioli, _Penny Cyclopædia_, and Camerarius, 372;
Shakespeare, 373.

=1.= Vænius, 93;
_Zinnebeelden_, 1603, p. 98;
_Q. Horatii Fl. Emblemata_, 1607 & 1612, pp. 36, 95;
_Amorum Emblemata_, Latin, English, and Italian, 1608, pp. 95, 99;
_Amorum Emblemata_, Spanish, 1608, pp. 99, 122;
_Amoris Divini Emblemata_, 1615, pp. 32, 99.
Valence, _Emblesmes—du Segnor Espagnol_, 1608, pp. 93, 94.
Valerian, 80. See _Pierius_.
Vander Noot’s _Theatre_, &c., 1568, pp. 87, 91.
Van Ghelen, Flem. trans. _Navis stultorum_, 1584, p. 90.
Van Vischer, _Sinnepoppen_ (Emblem play), 1614, p. 98.
Verdier, trans. into French, _Imagini_, &c., 1581, p. 87.
Villava, _Empresas Espirituales_, &c., 1613, p. 99.
Virgil Solis, 85;
_Libellus sartorum_, 1555, p. 77;
_Figures for the New Testament_, and _Artistic book of animals_,
between 1560 and 1568, p. 85.
_Volucribus, de, sive de tribus columbis_, MS., 13th century, 44.

=2.= _Vel post mortem formidolosi_, 205;
_Veritas armata_, 123;
_Veritas invicta_, 264;
_Via, veritas, vita_, 462;
_Victrix animi equitas_, 314;
_Victrix casta fides_, 371;
_Video et taceo_, 208;
_Vigilantia et custodia_, 210;
_Vina coronal_, 101;
_Vincit qui patitur_, 315;
_Violentior exit_, 154;
_Vipera vim perdet, sine vi pariente puella_, 47;
_Virgo salutatur, innupta manens gravidatur_, 47;
_Virtuti fortuna comes_, 211;
_Vine ut viuas_, 444;
_Volat irrevocabile tempus_, 36, 494;
_Voluptas ærumnosa_, 277;
_Vijt Adams appel Sproot, Ellende Zonde en Doodt_, 132.

=3.= Vænius, quoted, Butterfly and candle, 152;
Christian Love presenting the soul to Christ, Plate II., 32;
Conscience, 421;
Cupid felling a tree, 324;
Elm and vine, 308;
Fortune, 263;
Rose and thorn, 333;
Ship sailing, 437;
Time leading the seasons, Plate XVII., 490, 491;
Two Cupids at work, 179;
Venus dispensing Cupid from his oaths, 328;
Wounded stag, 399;
_Amorum Emblemata_, Latin, English, and Italian, 179, 437.
Van der Veen, _Adams appel_, 1642, Plate X., 132.
Van Hooghe, _Frontispiece of Cebes_, 1670, p. 13.
Virgil, _Æneid_, Bees, 359;
Circe, 251;
Crests, 14;
Shield of Æneas, 20;
Sinon, 194;
Stag wounded, 398;
Swan, 214;
_L’Eneide de Virgile_, Lyons, 1560, p. 36.

=4.= Van Hooft, illustrious Dutch poet, 98.
Varieties of Emblems, 18;
great, 34.
Vases with emblems, Warwick, 10;
Italo-Græco, 19.
Venus dispensing Cupid from his oaths, 328.
Verard, 1503, publisher of _Les figures_, &c., 63.
Vine and olive, Whitney, Alciat, 249.
Vine watered with wine, Drummond, 124.
Volvelle, astrological, 42.
Vostre, Simon, of Paris, printer, 39.

=W.=

W, _O. L._, Symeoni’s _Vita d’ Ovidio_, Lyons, 1559, p. 1.

=1=. Watson, _Shyppe of Fooles_, 1509, pp. 57, 65, 119.
Whitney, _Choice of Emblemes_, 1586, pp. 91, 120.
Willet, _Sacrorum Emblematum Centuria_, 1598, pp. 99, 100, 119, 120.
Wohlgemuth, _Libri cronicarum_, 1493, p. 56.
Wyrley, _True use of armorie_, 1592, pp. 99, 100.

=2.= _Wat den mensch aldermeest tot’ conste verwect?_, 82;
_Where the end is good, all is good_, 437;
_With manie blowes the oke is ouerthrowen_, 324.

=3.= Walcott, _Sacred Archæology_, 1868, p. 27.
Waller, master-bee, 363.
_Wedgwood, Life of_, fictile ornament, 19.
Whitney, _Fac-simile Reprint_, 1866, p. 172;
Emblems quoted by Knight to illustrate _Hamlet_, 396.
Whitney, quoted:—Definition of Emblems, 6;
Actæon, 278;
Adam hiding, 416;
Æneas bearing Anchises, 191;
Ants and grasshopper, 148;
Ape and miser’s gold, 128, 487;
Arion and the dolphin, 281;
Astronomer and magnet, 335;
Bacchus, 248;
Ban-dog, 483;
Barrel with holes, 332;
Bear and ragged staff, 236;
Bees, 361, 364;
Brasidas, 195;
Brutus, 202;
Chaos, 450;
Child and motley fool, 484;
Circe, 251;
Cupid and death, 402;
Diligence and idleness, 146;
Dog baying the moon, 270;
D. O. M., 464;
Drake’s ship, 413;
Elephant, 196;
Elm and vine, 308;
Envy, 432;
Fame armed with a pen, 446;
Fardel on a swimmer, 480;
Fleece, golden, 229, 230;
Forehead, 129;
Fox and grapes, 311;
Gold on the touchstone, 178;
Hares and dead lion, 305;
Harpocrates, silence, 208;
Hen eating her own eggs, 412;
Hope and Nemesis, 182;
Icarus, 288;
Introductory lines, D. O. M., 464;
Inverted torch, 173;
Janus, 139, _note_;
Laurel, 423;
Lottery in London, 208;
Medeia, 190;
Mercury and lute, 256;
Mouse and oyster, 130;
Narcissus, 295;
Niobe, 293;
Oak and reed, 315;
Occasion, 260;
Orpheus, 272;
Ostrich stretching out its wings, 370;
Pelican, 395;
Phœnix, 387;
Pine-trees in a storm, 476;
Prometheus, 267;
Rose and thorn, 333;
Ruins and writings, 443;
Serpent in the bosom, 199;
Shadows, 468;
Ship tossed by the waves, 435;
Ship sailing forward, 436;
Sirens, 254;
Skull, 338;
Snake in the grass, 340;
Snake on the finger, 342;
Student entangled, 441;
Sun setting, 323;
Swan, of poets, 217;
Sword on an anvil, 327;
Time flying, 467;
Vine and olive, 249;
Wreaths on a spear, 222;
Wrongs on marble, 460.
Wrangham, _Plutarch_, 431.

=4.= Walker, Rev. T., 462.
Waves and siren, 125, _note_;
Waves with sun over them, 125.
Wheat among bones, Paradin, 183;
Camerarius, 184;
Boissard and Messin, 185.
Wheel rolling into the sea, 124.
Whitehall, collection of paintings there, founded by Henry VIII. and
Charles I., 111.
Who against us? Paradin and Whitney, 342;
Shakespeare, 343.
Wilbraham, Tho., Esq., the old English gentleman, 467.
William III., history of, in medals, 14.
Wings and feathers scattered, 124.
Wolf and ass, a fable, 52–54.
Woltmann, _Holbein and his time_, Death’s fool, 471;
Shakespeare’s mistakes as to costume, 106.
Woodcock, so strives the, with the gin, Shakespeare and Æsop, 319.
Words and forms of thought, some, the same in Whitney and Shakespeare,
463.
World, inhabited, three-cornered, earth the centre, Brucioli, 350;
Sambucus, 351;
No. America, 351, 352;
Shakespeare, 52;
Three-nooked world, 353.
World a stage, 133.
Wreath of chivalry, Paradin, 169;
Shakespeare, 168, 170.
Wreath of oak, Paradin, 224;
Shakespeare, 225, 226.
Wreaths of victory, Whitney, Camerarius, 222;
Shakespeare, 222, 223;
Paradin, 224.
Writings remain, Whitney, 443;
Boissard, 444;
Shakespeare, 444, 445.
Wrongs on marble, Symeoni, 457;
Paradin, 458;
Shakespeare, 459, 460;
Whitney, 460;
Origin of the sentiment, 460;
Sir T. More and Columbus, 461;
Nobler sentiments, 462.

Xenophon’s _Cyropædia_, king bee, 359.

=Y.=

Y, the letter, an emblem of life, 320.

Yates, Joseph B., _Alciat_, MS., 1610, p. 101;
_Sketch of Emblem-books_, 4, 5;
Silver emblem, 5;
Dedication Plate to, p. v.

=Z.=

Zainer, _Das helden buch_, 1477, p. 55.
Zeb, Dr., of the Silent Academy, 17.
_Zinne-beelden, oft Adams appel_, Plate X., 132.
Zisca, named by Alciat and Whitney, 206.
Zodiac, signs of, Sadeler, Brucioli, Plate XIII., 353;
Shakespeare, 353–355.
Zuingerus, _Icones_, 1589, p. 89.

COLOPHON.

_Ex literarum studiis immortalitatem acquiri._

[Illustration: _Alciat, ed. 1534, p. 45._]

BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s Note

The table at the end of this note summarizes any corrections to the text
that have been deemed to be printer’s errors. Proper names have been
mostly allowed to stand as well, given the vagaries of spelling and
translation in the originals, with the exception of Diane of
Poi[c]tiers, whose name is consistently spelled without the ‘c’, save in
the one instance noted.

The paragraph at the bottom of p. 19, beginning with ‘For the nature of
Fictile ornamentation...’ ends with a double quotation mark which is
unmatched. It is not clear where the quotation begins, since the passage
seems to be partly paraphrasing. The quotation has been allowed to
stand.

The spelling of the emblem-writer ‘Cœlius’ in the General Index
disagrees with that given in the table on p. 89 as ‘Cælius’.

The index entry for the Latin phrase _Malè parta, malè dilabuntur_
includes a reference to p. 502, where it is not mentioned. The emblem
associated with the phrase appears on p. 487. The incorrect page
reference was retained, but a link is provided to the correct location.

p. 5 n. 9 [“]Quidam ... Added.

p. 79 Bartholo[æm/mæ]us Taëgius Transposed.

p. 129 of his temper and inclination.[”] Added.

p. 174 PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE,” was first Added.
pu[b]lished

p. 183 n. 106 used by Diana of Poi[c]tiers Removed.

p. 257 [“]O thou great thunder-darter of Added.
Olympus

p. 271 Of an instrume[u/n]t Corrected.

p. 545 Brucioli’s _Trattato della sphera_, Corrected.
1543, Zodiac, Plate [XIV/XIII].,
353.

p. 562 Pignorius, _Vetustissimæ tabulæ_, Added.
1605[, 95];

p. 564 Rubens, d[e/i]sciple of Vænius Corrected.

p. 565 _Servati gratia [av/ciu]is_ Corrected.

p. 566 Dramatic c[e/a]reer, 1590–1615 Corrected.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers - an exposition of their similarities of throught and expression" ***

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