Opening…

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!

~Knutsford~, August 10, 1869.

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CONTENTS xiii

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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SHAKESPEARE

AND THE

EMBLEM-WRITERS OF HIS AGE.

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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.

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.

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.

Plate 1^a

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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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.”

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Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

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

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

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.

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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.”

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.)

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Plate 4

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Plate 5

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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

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

Plate 8

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.”

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.”

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.~_

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.

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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.~

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

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.

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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.

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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~.

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.

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