Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers
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Title: Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers
Author: Henry Green
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
SHAKESPEARE
AND
THE EMBLEM WRITERS.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
LANGTON.SC.MANCR
PORTRAITS FROM ORIGINAL PLATES,—_Bocchius by Bonasone_, A.D. 1555;
_the others by Theodore de Bry_, A.D. 1597.
]
SHAKESPEARE
AND
THE EMBLEM WRITERS
AN EXPOSITION OF THEIR
SIMILARITIES OF THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION.
PRECEDED BY A VIEW OF EMBLEM-LITERATURE DOWN TO A.D. 1616.
BY HENRY GREEN, M.A.
~With numerous Illustrative Devices from the Original Authors.~
[Illustration:
Portrait of Shakespeare.
From the Oil Painting in the possession of Dr. Clay, of Manchester.
]
LONDON: TRÜBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1870.
[_Right of Translation reserved._]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE
FEW only are the remarks absolutely needed by way of introduction to a
work which within itself sufficiently explains and carries out a new
method of illustration for the dramas of Shakespeare. As author, I
commenced this volume because of various observations which, while
reading several of the early Emblem writers, I had made on similarities
of thought and expression between themselves and the great Poet; and I
had sketched the whole outline, and had nearly filled it in, without
knowing that the path pursued by me had in any instance been trodden by
other amateurs and critics. From the writings of the profoundly learned
Francis Douce, whose name ought never to be uttered without deep respect
for his rare scholarship and generous regard to its interests, I first
became aware that Shakespeare’s direct quotation of Emblem mottoes, and
direct description of Emblem devices, had in some degree been already
pointed out to the attention of the literary public.
And right glad am I to observe that I have had precursors in my labours,
and companions in my researches; and that, in addition to Francis Douce,
writers of such repute as Langlois of Rouen, Charles Knight, Noel
Humphreys, and Dr. Alfred Woltmann, of Berlin, have, each by an example
or two, shown how, with admirable skill and yet with evident
appropriation, our great Dramatist has interwoven among his own the
materials which he had gathered from Emblem writers as their source.
To myself the fact is an assurance that neither from aiming at
singularity of conjecture, nor from pretending to a more penetrating
insight into Shakespeare’s methods of composition, have I put before the
world the following pages for judgment. Those pages are the results of
genuine study,—a study I could not have so well pursued had not
liberal-minded friends freely entrusted to my use the book-treasures
which countervailed my own deficiencies. The results arrived at, though
imperfect, are also, I believe, grounded on real similitudes between
Shakespeare and his predecessors and contemporaries; and those
similitudes, parallelisms, or adaptations of thought, by whichever name
distinguished, often arose from the actual impression made on his mind
and memory by the Emblematists whose works he had seen, read, and used.
As a suitable Frontispiece the portraits are presented of five
celebrated authors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: one a
German—Sebastian Brandt; three Italian—Andrew Alciat, Paolo Giovio, and
Achilles Bocchius; and one from Hungary—John Sambucus. They were all men
of learning and renown, whom kings and emperors honoured, and whom the
foremost of their age admired. The central portrait, that of Bocchius of
Bologna, is from the famous artist Giulio Bonasone, and the original
engraving was retouched by Augustino Caracci. The other portraits have
been reduced from the “ICONES,” or _Figures of Fifty Illustrious Men_,
which Theodore de Bry executed and published during Shakespeare’s prime,
in 1597. In their own day they were regarded as correct delineations and
likenesses, and are said to be authentic copies.
The vignette of Shakespeare on the title-page is now engraved for the
first time. The original is an oil-painting, a head of the life size,
and possessing considerable animation and evidences of power. It is the
property of Charles Clay, Esq., M.D., Manchester. Without vouching for
its authenticity, we are justified in saying, when it is compared with
some other portraits, that it offers equal, if not superior, claims to
genuineness. To discuss the question does not belong to these pages, but
simply and cordially to acknowledge the courtesy with which the
oil-painting was offered for use and allowed to be copied, and to say
that our woodcut is an accurate and well-executed representation of the
original picture.
Of the ornamental capitals at the head of the chapters, and of the
little embellishments at their end, it may be remarked that, with
scarcely an exception, there are none later than our Poet’s day, and but
few that do not belong to Emblem books: they are forty-eight in number.
The illustrative woodcuts and photolith plates, of which there are one
hundred and fifty-three of the former and nineteen of the latter,
partake of the variety, and, it may be said, apologetically, of the
defects of the works from which they have been taken. However fanciful
in themselves, they are realities,—true exponents of the Emblem art of
their day; so that, within the compass of our volume, containing above
two hundred examples of emblematic devices and designs, is exhibited a
very full representation of the various styles of the original works,
and which, in the absence of the works themselves, may serve to show
their chief characteristics. The Photoliths, I may add, have been
executed by Mr. A. Brothers, of Manchester.
Doubtless both the woodcuts and the plates are very unequal in their
execution; but to have aimed at a uniformity even of high excellence
would have been to sacrifice truth to mere embellishment. It should be
borne in mind what one of our objects has been,—namely, to place before
the reader examples of the Emblem devices themselves, very nearly as
they existed in their own day, and not to attempt the ideal perfection
to which modern art rightly aspires.
The Edition of Shakespeare from which the extracts are taken is the very
excellent one, in nine volumes, issued from Cambridge, 1863–1866. Its
numbering of the lines for purposes of reference is most valuable.
Our work offers information, and consequently advantage, to three
classes of the literary public:—
1st. To the Book Agent and Book Antiquarian, so far as relates to books
of Emblems previous to the early part of the seventeenth century, A. D.
1616. In a collected and methodical form, aided not a little by the
General Index, the first chapters and sections of our volume supply
information that is widely scattered, and not to be obtained without
considerable trouble and search. The authors, titles, and dates of the
_chief_ editions of Emblem books within the period treated of, are
clearly though briefly given, arranged according to the languages in
which the books were printed, and accompanied where requisite by notices
and remarks. There is not to be found, I believe, in any other work so
much information about the early Emblem books, gathered together in so
compendious and orderly a manner.
2nd. To the Students and Scholars of Shakespeare,—a widely-extended and
ever-increasing community. Another aspect of the Master’s reading and
attainments is opened to them; and into the yet unquarried illustrations
of which his marvellous writings are susceptible, another adit is
driven. We may have followed him through Histories and Legends, through
the Epic and the Ballad, through Popular Tales and Philosophic
Treatises,—from the forest glade to the halls and gardens of
palaces,—across the wild moor where the weird sisters muttered and
prophesied, and to that moon-lighted bank where the sweet Jessica was
sitting in all maiden loveliness;—but if only for variety’s sake it may
interest us, even if it does not impart pleasure, to mark how much his
mind was in accord with the once popular Emblem literature, which now
perchance awakens scarcely a thought or a regret, though great scholars
and men of genius devoted themselves to it; and how from that
literature, imbued with its spirit and heightening its power, even
he—the self-reliant one—borrowed help and imagery, and made his own
creations more his own than otherwise they would have been.
And 3rd. To the great Brotherhood of nations among the Teutonic race, to
whom Shakespeare is known as a chieftain among the Lares,—the heroes and
guardians of their households. In him they recognise an impersonation of
high poetic Art, and they desire to see unrolled from the treasures of
the past whatever course his genius pursued to elevate and refine its
powers;—persuaded that out of the elevation and refinement ever is
springing something of his own inspiration to improve and ennoble
mankind.
A word or two may be allowed respecting the translations into English
which are offered of the Emblem writers’ verses occurring in the
quotations. An accurate rendering of the original was desirable; and,
therefore, in many instances, rhymes and strictly measured lines have
been abjured, and cadence trusted rather than metre; the defect of the
plan, perhaps, is that cadence varies with the peculiar pitch and
intonation of each person’s voice. Nevertheless, among rhymes the
_Oarsman’s Cry_ (p. 61) might find a place on Cam, or Isis, and the
_Wolf and the Ass_ (p. 54) be entitled to abide in a book of fables.
In behalf of quotations from the original, it is to be urged that, to
defamiliarise the minds of the public, so much as is now the custom,
from the sight of other languages than their own, is injurious to the
maintenance of scholarship; and were it not so, the works quoted from
are many of them not in general use, and some are of highest rarity;—it
is, therefore, only simple justice to the reader to place before him the
original on the very page he is reading.
The value of the work will doubtless be increased by the Appendices and
the very full Index which have been added. These will enable such as are
inclined more thoroughly to compare together the different parts of the
work, and better to judge of it, and to pursue its subjects elsewhere.
My offering I hang up where many brighter garlands have been placed,—and
where, as generations pass away, many more will be brought; it is at his
shrine whose genius consecrated the English tongue to some of the
highest purposes of which speech is capable. For Humanity itself he
rendered his Service of Song a guidance to that which is noble as well
as beautiful,—a sympathy with our nature as well as a truth for our
souls. God’s benison rest upon his memory!
[Illustration]
~Knutsford~,
_August 10, 1869._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE.
FRONTISPIECE ii
TITLE-PAGE iii
PREFACE vii
CONTENTS xiii
CHAPTER I.
EMBLEMS AND THEIR VARIETIES, WITH SOME EARLY EXAMPLES 1–29
CHAPTER II.
SKETCH OF EMBLEM BOOK LITERATURE PREVIOUS TO A.D. 1616 30–104
Sect. 1. General Extent of the Emblem Literature 30–37
to which Shakespeare might have had
Access
” 2. Emblem Works and Editions down to the end 38–59
of the Fifteenth Century
” 3. Other Emblem Works and Editions previous 60–83
to A.D. 1564
_i.e._ 1. Before Alciat’s first Emblem 60–68
Work, A.D. 1522
2. Down to Holbein, La Perriere, 69–75
and Corrozet, A.D. 1543
3. Down to Shakespeare’s birth, 75–83
A.D. 1564
Sect. 4. Emblem Works and Editions from A.D. 1564 84–104
to 1616
_i.e._ 1. Before Shakespeare had entered 84–92
fully on his Work, A.D. 1590
2. Until he had ended the 92–104
_Twelfth Night_ in 1615
CHAPTER III.
SHAKESPEARE’S ATTAINMENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES WITH 105–118
RESPECT TO THE FINE ARTS
CHAPTER IV.
THE KNOWLEDGE OF EMBLEM BOOKS IN BRITAIN, AND GENERAL 119–155
INDICATIONS THAT SHAKESPEARE WAS ACQUAINTED WITH THEM
CHAPTER V.
SIX DIRECT REFERENCES IN THE _PERICLES_ TO BOOKS OF 156–186
EMBLEMS, SOME OF THEIR DEVICES DESCRIBED, AND OF
THEIR MOTTOES QUOTED
CHAPTER VI.
CLASSIFICATION OF THE CORRESPONDENCIES AND PARALLELISMS 187–462
OF SHAKESPEARE WITH EMBLEM WRITERS
Sect. 1. Historical Emblems 188–211
” 2. Heraldic Emblems 212–240
” 3. Emblems for Mythological Characters 241–301
” 4. Emblems Illustrative of Fables 302–317
” 5. Emblems in connection with Proverbs 318–345
” 6. Emblems from Facts in Nature, and from 346–376
the Properties of Animals
” 7. Emblems for Poetic Ideas 377–410
” 8. Moral and Æsthetic Emblems 411–462
CHAPTER VII.
MISCELLANEOUS EMBLEMS, RECAPITULATION, AND CONCLUSION 463–496
APPENDICES.
I.
COINCIDENCES BETWEEN SHAKESPEARE AND WHITNEY 497–514
II.
SUBJECTS, MOTTOES, AND SOURCES OF THE EMBLEM IMPRESE 515–530
III.
REFERENCES TO PASSAGES FROM SHAKESPEARE, AND TO THE 531–542
CORRESPONDING DEVICES OF THE EMBLEMS TREATED OF
GENERAL INDEX 543–571
PHOTO-LITH PLATES.
PLATE. SUBJECT. SOURCE. PAGE.
I. Dedication Plate Alciat’s _Emb._ Ed. 1661 1
I_a_. Tableau of Human De Hooghe, 1670 13
Life,—Cebes, B.C. 330.
I_b_. Tableau of Human Old Print 68
Life,—Cebes, B.C. 330.
II. Christ’s Adoption of the Otho Vænius, _Divini 32
Human Soul Amoris Emb_. 1615
III. Creation Symeoni’s _Ovid_, Ed. 35
1559, p. 13
IV. Title-page,—_Speculum A MS. of the 1st Edition, 44
Humanæ Salvationis._ 1440
V. Leaf 31,—_Speculum Humana A MS. of the 1st Edition, 44
Salvationis._ 1440
VI. A page from the _Biblia Noel Humphreys, p. 40, Pl. 46
Pauperum_. 2
VII. _Historia S. Joan. per Tracing from the 49
Figuras_,—Corser Block-book
Collection.
VIII. _Historia S. Joan. per Tracing from the 49
Figuras_,—Corser Block-book
Collection.
IX. Title-page of Seb. Locher’s _Stultifera 57
Brandt’s _Fool-freighted Navis_, Ed. 1497
Ship_
X. Title-page of Van der _Adams Appel_, Ed. 1642 132
Veen’s _Emblems_.
XI. Fall of Satan Boissard’s _Theat. Vit. 133
Hum._ 1596 Ed.
XII. Occasion seized David’s _Occasio arr._ &c. 265
Ed. 1605
XIII. The Zodiac Brucioli, _Della Sphera_, 353
Ed. 1543
XIV. Life as a Theatre Boissard’s _Theat. Vit. 405
Hum._ Ed. 1596.
XV. Seven Ages of Life,—an _Archæologia_, vol. xxxv. 407
early Block-Print, 1853, p. 167.
British Museum.
XVI. Providence making Rich and Coornhert, Ed. 1585 489
making Poor.
XVII. Time flying Otho Vænius, _Emblemata_, 491
Ed. 1612.
[Illustration:
_Hesius_, 1636.
_Stans uno capit omnia puncto._
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: In Remembrance of Joseph Brooks Yates]
In Remembrance
OF
JOSEPH BROOKS YATES
ESQUIRE,
OF WEST DINGLE,
LIVERPOOL,
WHOSE RARE AND EXTENSIVE
COLLECTION OF
BOOKS OF EMBLEMS
FIRST ENABLED THE
AUTHOR
TO STUDY THEIR LITERATURE,
THESE
_Shakespeare-Illustrations_
ARE GRATEFULLY
DEDICATED.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SHAKESPEARE
AND THE
EMBLEM-WRITERS OF HIS AGE.
CHAPTER I.
_EMBLEMS, AND THEIR VARIETIES, WITH SOME EARLY EXAMPLES._
WHAT Emblems are, in the general acceptation of the word in modern
times, is well set forth in Cotgrave’s _Dictionary_, Art. EMBLEMA, where
he defines an emblem to be, “a picture and short posie, expressing some
particular conceit;” and very pithily by Francis Quarles, when he
says,—“an Emblem is but a silent Parable.” Though less terse and clear
than either of these, we may also take Bacon’s description, in his
_Advancement of Learning_, bk. v. chap. 5;—“_Embleme_ deduceth
conceptions intellectuall to images sensible, and that which is sensible
more forcibly strikes the memory, and is more easily imprinted than that
which is intellectual.”
By many writers of Emblem books, perhaps by the majority in their
practice if not in their theories, there is very little difference of
meaning observed between Symbols and Emblems. We find, however, in other
Authors a more exact usage of the word Symbol. The Greek poet Pindar[1]
speaks of “a trustworthy symbol, or sign, concerning a future action,”
or from which the future can be conjectured; Iago, recounting the power
of Desdemona over Othello, act ii. scene 3, l. 326, declares it were
easy
“for her
To win the Moor, were’t to renounce his baptism,
All seals and symbols of redeemed sin;”
and Cudworth, in his _True Intellectual System of the Universe_, ed.
1678, p. 388, after giving Aristotle’s assertion “_that Numbers were the
Causes of the Essence of other things_,” adds, “though we are not
ignorant, how the Pythagoreans made also the Numbers within the Decad,
to be Symbols of things.”
Claude Marginality, or Minōs, the famous commentator on the Emblems of
Andreas Alciatus, in his Tract, _Concerning Symbols, Coats of Arms, and
Emblems_,—eds. 1581, or 1608, or 1614,—maintains there is a clear
distinction between emblems and symbols, which, as he affirms, “many
persons rashly and ignorantly confound together.”[2] “We confess,” he
adds, “that the force of the Emblem depends upon the Symbol: but they
differ, I say, as Man and Animal; for people who have any judgment at
all know, that here of a certainty the latter is taken more generally,
the former more specially.” Mignault’s meaning may be carried out by
saying, that all men are animals,—but all animals are not men; so all
emblems are symbols, tokens, or signs, but all symbols are not
emblems;—the two possess affinity but not identity,—they have no
absolute convertibility of the one for the other.
[Illustration: _Symeoni, 1559._]
An example of Emblem and Symbol united occurs in Symeoni’s Dedication[3]
“To Madame Diana of Poitiers, Dutchess of Valentinois;” for Emblem,
there are “picture and short posie” expressing the particular conceit,
“Quodcunque petit, consequitur,”—_She attains whatever she seeks_; and
for Symbols, or signs, the sun, the temple, the dogs, the arrow, and the
stag; and for exposition, the stanza;
“_Sante le Muse son, santa è Diana,
Caste son quelle, et casta è questa anchora.
Dalle Muse il Sol mai non s’ allontana,
Et d’ Apollo Diana vnica è suora.
Nelle Muse è d’ Amore ogni arte vana,
Et de i lacci d’ Amor Diana è fuora.
Chi fia Diana quel dunque che dica,
Che voi non siete delle Muse amica?_”
Thus metrically rendered,
“Holy the Muses are, holy is Diana,
Chaste are they, and chaste also is she.
From the Muses the Sun indeed moves not afar,
And alone of Apollo Diana is sister.
Against the Muses Love’s every art is vain,
And free is Diana from all snares of Love.
Who then is the Diana that says,
That you are not a friend of the Muses?”
The word emblem, ἐμβλημα, is one that has strayed very widely from its
first meaning, and yet by a sort of natural process, as the apple grows
out of the crab, its signification now is akin to what it was in distant
ages. It then denoted the thing, whether implement or ornament, placed
in, or thrown on, and so joined to, some other thing. Thus a word of
cognate origin, _Epiblēs_, in the _Iliad_, bk. xxiv. l. 453,[4] denoted
the bolt of fir that held fast the door;—it was something put against
the door,—the peg or bar that kept it from opening. So in the _Odyssey_,
bk. ii. l. 37,[5] the sceptre, the emblem of command, was the baton
which the herald Peisēnor _placed in_ the hand of the son of Ulysses;
and again in the _Iliad_, bk. xiii. l. 319, 20,[6] the flaming torch was
the implement which the son of Kronos might _throw on_ the swift ships.
Of the changes through which a word may pass, “the word Emblem presents
one of the most remarkable instances.” They cannot be better given than
in the “_Sketch of that branch of Literature called_ BOOKS OF EMBLEMS,”
read in 1848 before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool,
by the late Joseph Brooks Yates, Esq. He says of the word EMBLEM, pp. 8,
9,—“its present signification, ‘Type or allusive representation,’ is of
comparatively modern use, while its original meaning is become obsolete.
Among the Greeks an Emblem (εμβλημα), derived from ενβαλλειν, meant
something thrown in or inserted after the fashion of what we now call
Marquetry and Mosaic work, or in the form of a detached ornament to be
affixed to a pillar, a tablet, or a vase, and put off or on, as there
might be occasion. Pliny, in his _Natural History_,” bk. xxxiii. c. 12,
“mentions an artist called Pytheus, who executed works of this last
description in silver, one of which, intended to be attached to a jar
(in phialæ emblemate), represented Ulysses and Diomed carrying off the
Palladium.[7] It weighed two ounces, and sold for 10,000 sesterces =
80_l_. 14_s_. 7_d_. of our money. According to one ancient manuscript of
Pliny, it sold for double that amount. Marcus Curtius leaping into the
gulph forms the subject of a beautiful silver Emblem, in the possession
of the writer.[8] When the arts of Greece were transplanted into Italy
and Sicily, the word _Emblema_ became naturalised in the Latin tongue,
though not without some resistance on the part of the reigning prince
Tiberius. That emperor is reported by Suetonius,” _Tiber. Cæsar Vita_,
c. 71, “to have found fault with the introduction of the word into a
Decree of the Senate, as being of foreign growth. Cicero, however, had
used it in his orations against Verres, where he accuses that rapacious
governor (amongst other crimes) of having compelled the people of
Haluntium to bring to him their vases, from which he carefully
abstracted the valuable Emblems and inserted them upon his own golden
vessels. Quintilian,” lib. 2, cap. 4, “soon after this period, in
enumerating the arts of oratory used by the pleaders of his day,
describes some of them as in the habit of preparing and committing to
memory certain highly finished clauses, to be inserted (as occasion
might arise) _like Emblems_ in the body of their orations.”[9]
“Such was the meaning of the term in the classical ages of Greece and
Rome; nor was its signification altered until some time after the
revival of literature in the fifteenth century.”
Our own Geoffrey Whitney, deriving, as he does the other parts of his
_Choice of Emblemes_ from the writers on the subject that preceded him,
gives very exactly the same explanation as Mr. Yates. In his address “To
the Reader” (p. 2) he says;—“It resteth now to shewe breeflie what this
worde Embleme signifieth, and whereof it commeth, which thoughe it be
borrowed of others, & not proper in the Englishe tonge, yet that which
it signifieth: Is, and hathe bin alwaies in vse amongst vs, which worde
being in Greek ἐμβάλλεσθαι, vel ἐπεμβλῆσθαι is as muche to saye in
Englishe as _To set in, or to put in_: properlie ment by suche figures,
or workes; as are wroughte in plate, or in stones in the pauementes, or
on the waules, or suche like, for the adorning of the place: hauinge
some wittie deuise expressed with cunning woorkemanship, somethinge
obscure to be perceiued at the first, whereby, when with further
consideration it is vnderstood, it maie the greater delighte the
behoulder. And althoughe the worde dothe comprehende manie thinges, and
diuers matters maie be therein contained; yet all Emblemes for the most
parte, maie be reduced into these three kindes, which is _Historicall_,
_Naturall_, & _Morall_. _Historicall_, as representing the actes of some
noble persons, being matter of historie. _Naturall_, as in expressing
the natures of creatures, for example, the loue of the yonge Storkes, to
the oulde, or of suche like. _Morall_, pertaining to vertue and
instruction of life, which is the chiefe of the three, and the other two
maye bee in some sorte drawen into this head. For, all doe tende vnto
discipline, and morall preceptes of liuing. I mighte write more at large
hereof, and of the difference of _Emblema_, _Symbolum_, _& Ænigma_,
hauinge all (as it weare) some affinitie one with the other. But bicause
my meaning is to write as briefely as I maie, for the auoiding of
tediousnes, I referre them that would further inquire therof, to _And.
Alciatus_, _Guiliel. Perrerius_, _Achilles Bocchius_ & to diuers others
that haue written thereof, wel knowne to the learned. For I purpose at
this present, to write onelie of this worde Embleme: Bicause it chieflie
doth pertaine vnto the matter I haue in hande, whereof I hope this
muche, shall giue them some taste that weare ignoraunt of the same.”
Whitney’s namesake, to whom flattering friendship compared him, Geoffrey
Chaucer, gives us more than the touch of an Emblem, when he describes,
in the _Canterbury Tales_, l. 159–63, the dress of “a Nonne, a
Prioresse,”—
“Of smale corall aboute hire arm she bare
A pair of bedes, gauded all with grene;
And theron heng a broche of gold ful shene,
On whiche was first ywritten a crouned A,
And after, _Amor vincit omnia_.”[10]
So the “Cristofre,” which the Yeoman wore, l. 115,
“A Cristofre on his brest of silver shene,”
was doubtless a true Emblem, to be put on, and taken off, as occasion
served,—and was probably a cross with the image of Christ upon it: and
if pictured forth according to the description in _The Legend of Good
Women_, l. 1196–8, an emblematical device was exhibited, where
“With saddle redde, embrouded with delite
Of gold the barres, up enbossed high,
Sate Dido, all in gold and perrie wrigh.”
This form, the natural form of the Emblem, we may illustrate from a
Greek coin, figured in Eschenburg’s _Manual of Classical Literature_, by
Fisk, ed. 1844, pl. xl. p. 351.
The Flying Horse and other ornaments of this coin on the helmet of
Minerva are Emblems,—and so are the owl, the olive wreath, and the
amphora, or two-handled vase. Were these independent castings or
mouldings, to be put on or taken off, they would be veritable emblems in
the strict literal sense of the word.
[Illustration]
Spenser’s ideas of devices and ornaments correspond to this meaning.
Mercilla, the allegorical representation of the sovereign Elizabeth, is
described as
“that gratious Queene:
Who sate on high, that she might all men see
And might of all men royally be seene,
Upon a throne of gold full bright and sheene,
Adorned all with gemmes of endless price,
As either might for wealth have gotten beene,
Or could be fram’d by workman’s rare device
And all embost with lyons and with flour de lice.”
_Faerie Queene_, v. 9. 27.
In _Cymbeline_, Shakespeare represents Iachimo, act i. sc. 6, l. 188, 9,
describing “a present for the emperor;”
“Tis plate, of rare device; and jewels
Of rich and exquisite form; their values great.”
So Spenser, _Faerie Queene_, iv. 4. 15, sets forth, “a precious rebeke
in an arke of gold,” as
“A gorgeous Girdle, curiously embost
With pearle and precious stone, worth many a marke;
Yet did the workmanship farre passe the cost.”
In the literal use of the word emblem Shakespeare is very exact.
Parolles, _All’s Well_, act ii. sc. 1, l. 40, charges the young lords of
the French court, as
“Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin;” and adds, “Good sparks
and lustrous, a word, good metals: you shall find in the regiment of the
Spinii one Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on
his sinister cheek; it was this very sword entrenched it.”
The Coronation Scene in _Henry VIII_., act iv. sc. 1. l. 81–92,
describes the solemnities, when Anne Bullen, “the goodliest woman that
ever lay by man,
“with modest paces
Came to the altar; where she kneel’d, and saint-like
Cast her fair eyes to heaven, and pray’d devoutly:”
Each sacred rite is then observed towards her;—
“She had all the royal makings of a queen;
As holy oil, Edward Confessor’s crown,
The rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems
Lay’d nobly on her.”
And down to Milton’s time the original meaning of the word Emblem was
still retained, though widely departed from as used by some of the
Emblem writers. Thus he pictures the “blissful bower” of Eden, bk. iv.
l. 697–703, _Paradise Lost_,
“each beauteous flower,
Iris all hues, roses, and jessamin,
Rear’d high their flourish’d heads between, and wrought
Mosaic: underfoot the violet,
Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay
Broider’d the ground, more colour’d than with stone
Of costliest emblem.”
Thus, in their origin, Emblems were the figures or ornaments fashioned
by the tools of the artists, in metal or wood, independent of the vase,
or the column, or the furniture, they were intended to adorn; they might
be affixed or detached at the promptings of the owner’s fancy. Then they
were formed, as in mosaic, by placing side by side little blocks of
coloured stone, or tiles, or small sections of variegated wood. Raised
or carved figures, however produced, came next to be considered as
Emblems; and afterwards any kind of figured ornament, or device, whether
carved or engraved, or simply traced, on the walls and floors of houses
or on vessels of wood, clay, stone, or metal. These ornaments were
sometimes like the raised work on the Warwick and other vases, and
formed a _crust_ which made a part of the vessel which they embellished;
but at other times they were devices, drawings and carvings on a
_framework_ which might be detached from the cup or goblet on which the
owner had placed them, and be applied to other uses.[11]
We may here remark, since embossed ornaments and sculptured figures on
any plain surface are essentially Emblems, the sculptor, the engraver,
the statuary and the architect, indeed all workers in wood, metal, or
stone, who embellish with device or symbol the simplicity of nature’s
materials, are especially entitled to take rank in the fraternity of the
Emblematists. They and their patrons, the whole world of the civilized
and the intellectual, are not content with the beam out of the forest,
or with the marble from the quarry, or with even the gold from the mine.
In themselves cedar, marble and gold are only forms of brute and
unintelligent nature,—and therefore we impose upon them signs of
deep-seated thoughts of the heart and devices of wondrous meaning, and
out of the rocks call forth sermons, and lessons and parables, and
highly spiritual suggestions. On the very shrines of God we place our
images of corruptible things,—but then the soul that rightly reads the
images lifts them out of their corruptibility and makes them the
teachers of eternal truths.
The domains of the statuary and of the architect are however too vast to
be entered upon by us, except with a passing glance; they are like
Philosophy; it is all _Natural_,—and yet wisely men map it out into
kingdoms and divisions, and pursue each his selected work.
So we remember it is not the Universe of Emblematism we must attempt,
even though Shakespeare should lend us
“The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
_To_ glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown,”
should add the gift of “the poet’s pen,” so that we might
“Turn them to shapes, and give to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.”
_Midsummer Night’s Dream_, act v. sc. 1. l. 12–17.
Our business is only with that comparatively small section of the
Emblem-World, which, “like mummies in their cerements,” is wrapped up
within the covers of the so called Emblem-books. Whether, when they are
unrolled, they are worth the search and the labour, some may doubt;—but
perchance a scarabæus, or an emerald, with an ancient harp upon it, may
reward our patience.
By a very easy and natural step, figures and ornaments of many kinds,
when placed on smooth surfaces, were named emblems; and as these figures
and ornaments were very often symbolical, _i. e._, signs, or tokens of a
thought, a sentiment, a saying, or an event, the term emblem was applied
to any painting, drawing, or print that was representative of an action,
of a quality of the mind, or of any peculiarity or attribute of
character.[12] “Emblems in fact were, and are, a species of
hieroglyphics, in which the figures or pictures, besides denoting the
natural objects to which they bear resemblances, were employed to
express properties of the mind, virtues and abstract ideas, and all the
operations of the soul.”
~Tabula Cebetis philosophi so=~
cratici-cũ Iohãnis Aeſticãpiani Epiſtola.
[Illustration: _Fab. Cebetis, 1507._]
Plate 1^a
[Illustration: _Tableau of Human Life from Cebes B C 390_]
Thus, the _Tablet of Cebes_, a work by one of the disciples of Socrates,
about B.C. 390, is an explanation, in the form of a Dialogue, of a
picture, said to have been set up in the temple of Kronos at Athens or
at Thebes, and which was declared to be emblematical of Human Life.
One of the older Latin versions, printed in 1507, presents the foregoing
illustrative frontispiece.
As the book has come down to modern times it is, generally, what has
sometimes been named, _nudum Emblema_, a naked Emblem, because it has
neither device nor artistic drawing, but, like Shakespeare’s comparison
of all the world to a stage in which man plays many parts, the course of
Life, with its discipline, false hopes and false pleasures, is in the
Tablet so described,—in fact so delineated,[13] as to have enabled the
Dutch designer and engraver, Romyn de Hooghe, in 1670, to have pictured
“the whole story of Human Life as narrated to the Grecian sage.”
The Moral of the Allegory may not be set forth with entire clearness in
the picture, but it can be given in the words of one of the _Golden
Sentences_ of Democritus,—see Gale’s _Opus. Mythol._:—
“That human happiness does not result from bodily excellencies nor
from riches, but is founded on uprightness of mind and on righteousness
of conduct.”
Coins and medals furnish most valuable examples of emblematical figures;
indeed some of the Emblem writers, as Sambucus in 1564, were among the
earliest to publish impressions or engravings of ancient Roman money, on
which are frequently given very interesting representations of customs
and symbolical acts. On Grecian coins, which Priestley, in his _Lectures
on History_, vol. i. p. 126,—highly praises for “a design, an attitude,
a force, and a delicacy, in the expression even of the muscles and veins
of human figures,”—we find, to use heraldic language, that the owl is
the crest of Athens,—a wolf’s head, that of Argos,—and a tortoise the
badge of the Peloponnesus. The whole history of Louis XIV. and that of
his great adversary, William III., are represented in volumes containing
the medals that were struck to commemorate the leading events of their
reigns, and though outrageously untrue to nature and reality by the
adoption of Roman costumes and classic symbols, they serve as records of
remarkable occurrences.
Heraldry throughout employs the language of Emblems;—it is the
picture-history of families, of tribes and of nations, of princes and
emperors. Many a legend and many a strange fancy may be mixed up with it
and demand almost the credulity of simplest childhood in order to obtain
our credence; yet in the literature of Chivalry and Honours there are
enshrined abundant records of the glory that belonged to mighty names. I
recall now but one instance. In the fine folio lately emblazoned with
the well-known motto “GANG FORWARD,” “I AM READY,” what volumes, to
those who can interpret each mark and sign and tutored symbol, are
wrapped up in the _Examples of the ornamental Heraldry of the sixteenth
Century_: London, 1867, 1868.
The custom of taking a device or badge, if not a motto, is traced by
Paolo Giovio, in his _Dialogo dell’ Imprese militari et amorose_, ed.
1574, p. 9,[14] to the earliest times of history. He writes,
“To bear these emblems was an ancient usage.” GIO. “It is a point
not to be doubted, that the ancients used to bear crests and ornaments
on the helmets and on the shields: for we see this clearly in Virgil,
when he made the catalogue of the nations which came in favour of Turnus
against the Trojans, in the eighth book of the Æneid; Amphiaraus then
(as Pindar says) at the war of Thebes bore a dragon on his shield.
Similarly Statius writes of Capaneus and of Polinices, that the one bore
the Hydra, and the other the Sphynx,” &c.
But these were simple emblems, without motto inscribed. The same Paolo
Giovio, and other writers after him,[15] assign both “picture and short
posie,” to two of the early Emperors of Rome.
“Augustus, wishing to show how self-governed and moderate he was in
all his affairs, never rash and hasty to believe the first reports and
informations of his servants, caused to be struck, among several others,
on a gold medal of his own, a Butterfly and a Crab, signifying quickness
by the Butterfly, and by the Crab slowness, the two things which
constitute a temperament necessary for a Prince.”
The motto, as figured below,—“MAKE HASTE LEISURELY.”
AVGVSTE.
[Illustration: _Symeon, Dev. Her. 1561._]
The Device is thus applied in Whitney’s _Emblems_, p. 121, and dedicated
to two eminent judges of Elizabeth’s reign;
“This figure, lo, AVGVSTVS did deuise,
A mirror good, for Iudges iuste to see,
And alwayes fitte, to bee before their eies,
When sentence they, of life, and deathe decree:
Then muste they haste, but verie slowe awaie,
Like butterflie, whome creepinge crabbe dothe staie.”
“The Prince, or Iudge, maie not with lighte reporte,
In doubtfull thinges, giue iudgement touching life:
But trie, and learne the truthe in euerie sorte,
And mercie ioyne, with iustice bloodie knife:
This pleased well AVGVSTVS noble grace,
And Iudges all, within this tracke shoulde trace.”
[Illustration: _Symeoni._]
The other is the device which the Aldi, celebrated printers of Venice,
from A.D. 1490 to 1563, assumed, of the dolphin and anchor, but which
Titus, son of Vespasian, had long before adopted, with the motto
“PROPERA TARDE,”[16] _Hasten slowly_: “_facendo_,” says Symeoni, “_vna
figura moderata della velocità di questo, e della grauezza di quell’
altra, nel modo che noi veggiamo dinanzi à i libri d’ Aldo_.”
But the heraldry of mankind is a boundless theme, and we might by simple
beat of drum heraldic collect almost a countless host of crests, badges,
and quarterings truly emblematical, and adopted and intended to point
out peculiarities or remarkable events and fancies in the histories of
the coat-armour families of the world.
The emblematism of bodily sign or action constitutes the language of the
dumb. An amusing instance occurs in the Abbé Blanchet’s “APOLOGUES
ORIENTAUX,” in his description of “_The Silent Academy, or the
Emblems_:”—
“There was at Hamadan, a city of Persia, a celebrated academy, of
which the first statute was conceived in these terms; _The academicians
shall think much, write little, and speak the very least that is
possible._ It was named _the silent Academy_; and there was not in
Persia any truly learned man who had not the ambition of being admitted
to it. Dr. Zeb, an imaginary person, author of an excellent little work,
THE GAG, learned, in the retirement of the province where he was born,
there was one place vacant in the silent Academy. He sets out
immediately; he arrives at Hamadan, and presenting himself at the door
of the hall where the academicians are assembled, he prays the servant
to give this billet to the president: _Dr. Zeb asks humbly the vacant
place._ The servant immediately executed the commission, but the Doctor
and his billet arrived too late,—the place was already filled.
“The Academy was deeply grieved at this disappointment; it had admitted,
a little against its wish, a wit from the court, whose lively light
eloquence formed the admiration of all _ruelles_.[17] The Academy saw
itself reduced to refuse Doctor Zeb, the scourge of praters, with a head
so well formed and so well furnished! The president, charged to announce
to the Doctor the disagreeable news, could scarcely bring himself to it,
and knew not how to do it. After having thought a little, he filled a
large cup with water, but so well filled it, that one drop more would
have made the liquid overflow; then he made sign that the candidate
should be introduced. He appeared with that simple and modest air which
almost always announces true merit. The president arose and, without
offering a single word, showed, with an appearance of deep sorrow, the
emblematic cup, this cup so exactly filled. The Doctor understood that
there was no more room in the Academy; but without losing courage, he
thought how to make it understood that one supernumerary academician
would disarrange nothing. He sees at his feet a roseleaf, he picks it
up, he places it gently on the surface of the water, and did it so well
that not a single drop escaped.
“At this ingenious answer everybody clapped hands; the rules were
allowed to sleep for this day, and Doctor Zeb was received by
acclamation. The register of the Academy was immediately presented to
him, where the new members must inscribe themselves. He then inscribed
himself in it; and there remained for him no more than to pronounce,
according to custom, a phrase of thanks. But as a truly silent
academician, Doctor Zeb returned thanks without saying a word. He wrote
in the margin the number 100,—it was that of his new brethren; then, by
putting a 0 before the figures, 0100, he wrote below, _they are worth
neither less nor more_. The president answered the modest Doctor with as
much politeness as presence of mind. He placed the figure 1 before the
number 100, _i.e._ 1100; and he wrote, _they will be worth eleven times
more_.”
The varieties in the Emblems which exist might be pursued from “the
bird, the mouse, the frog, and the four arrows,” which, the Father of
history tells us,[18] the Scythians sent to Darius, the invader of their
country,—through all the ingenious devices by which the initiated in
secret societies, whether political, social, or religious, seek to guard
their mysteries from general knowledge and observation,—until we come to
the flower-language of the affections, and learn to read, as Hindoo and
Persian maidens can, the telegrams of buds and blossoms,[19] and to
interpret the flashing of colours, either simple or combined. We should
have to name the Picture writing of the Mexicans, and to declare what
meanings lie concealed in the signs and imagery which adorn tomb and
monument,—or peradventure to set forth the art by which, on so simple a
material as the bark of a birch-tree, some Indians, on their journey,
emblematized a troop with attendants that had lost their way. “In the
party there was a military officer, a person whom the Indians understood
to be an attorney, and a mineralogist; eight were armed: when they
halted they made three encampments.” With their knives the Indians
traced these particulars on the bark by means of certain signs, or,
rather, hieroglyphical marks;—“a man with a sword,” they fashioned “for
the officer; another with a book for the lawyer, and a third with a
hammer for the mineralogist; three ascending columns of smoke denoted
the three encampments, and eight muskets the number of armed men.” So,
without paper or print, a not unintelligible memorial was left of the
company that were travelling together.
And so we come to the very Early Examples—if not the earliest—of
Emblematical Representation, as exhibited in fictile remains, in the
workmanship of the silversmith, and of those by whom the various metals
and precious stones have been wrought and moulded; and especially in the
numerous specimens of the skill or of the fancy which the glyptic and
other artizans of ancient Egypt have left for modern times.
For the nature of Fictile ornamentation it were sufficient to refer to
the recently published _Life of Josiah Wedgwood_;[20] but in the
_antefixæ_, or terra cotta ornaments, derived from the old Etruscan
civilisation, we possess true and literal Emblems. As the name implies,
these ornaments “were _fixed before the buildings_,” often on the
friezes “which they adorned,” and were fastened to them by leaden nails.
For examples, easy of access, we refer to the sketches supplied by James
Yates, Esq., of Highgate; to the _Dictionary of Gk. and Rom.
Antiquities_, p. 51; and especially to that antefixa which represents
Minerva superintending the construction of the ship Argo. The man with
the hammer and chisel is Argus, who built the vessel under her
direction. The pilot Tiphys is assisted by her in attaching the sail to
the yard. The borders at the top and bottom are in the Greek style, and
are extremely elegant.”
And the pressing of clay into a matrix or mould, from which the form is
taken, appears to be of very ancient date. The book of Job xxxviii. 14,
alludes to the practice in the words, “it is turned as clay to the
seal.” Of similar or of higher antiquity is “the work of an engraver in
stone, _like_ the engravings of a signet,” Exodus xxviii. 11. And “the
breastplate of judgment, the Urim and the Thummim,” v. 30, worn “upon
Aaron’s heart,” was probably a similar emblematical ornament to that
which Diodorus Siculus, in his _History_, bk. i. chap. 75, tells us was
put on by the president of the Egyptian courts of justice: “He bore
about his neck a golden chain, at which hung an image, set about, or
composed of precious stones, which was called TRUTH.”[21]
Among instances of emblematical workmanship by the silversmith and his
confabricators of similar crafts, we may name that shield of Achilles
which Homer so graphically describes,[22] “solid and large,” “decorated
with numerous figures of most skilful art;”—or the shields of Hercules
and of Æneas, with which Hesiod, _Eoeæ_, iv. 141–317, and Virgil,
_Æneid_, viii. 615–73, might make us familiar. Or to come to modern
times,—to days our very own,—there is the still more precious, the
matchless shield by Vehm, whereon, in most expressive imagery, are
hammered out the discoveries of Newton, Milton’s noble epics, and
Shakespeare’s dramatic wonders. We may, too, in passing, allude to the
richly-embossed and ornamented cups for which our swift racers and
grey-hounds, and those “dogs of war,” our volunteers, contend; and the
almost imperial pieces of plate, such as the Cæsars never beheld, in
which genius and the highest art combine, by their “cunning work,” to
carve the deeds and enhance the renown of some of our great Indian
administrators and illustrious generals; these all, truly “choice
emblemes,” intimate the extent to which our subject might lead. But I
forbear to pursue it, though scarcely any path offers greater
temptations for wandering abroad amid the marvels of human skill, and
for considering reverently and gladly how men have been “filled with the
spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in
all manner of workmanship.” Exodus xxxi. 3.
Of glyptic art the most ancient, as well as the most ample, remains are
found in the temples and the other monuments of Egypt. Various modern
explorers and writers have given very elaborate accounts of those
remains, and still are carrying on their researches; but of old writers
only Clemens, of Alexandria, who flourished “towards the end of the
second century after Christ,” “has left us a full and correct account of
the principle of the Egyptian writing,”[23] and has declared what the
subjects were which were included in the word hieroglyphics;[24] and as
far as is known, no other early author, except Horapollo of the Nile,
has written expressly on the Hieroglyphics of Egypt, and declared that
his work—which was probably translated into Greek in the reign of the
emperor Zeno, or even later—was derived from Egyptian sources; indeed,
was a book in the language of Egypt.
Probably the best account we have of the author and of the translator,
is given by Alexander Turner Cory, in the Preface to his edition of
Horapollo. He says, pp. viii. and ix.,—
“At the beginning of the fifth century, Horapollo, a scribe of the
Egyptian race, and a native of Phœnebythis, attempted to collect and
perpetuate in the volume before us, the then remaining, but fast fading
knowledge of the symbols inscribed upon the monuments, which attested
the ancient grandeur of his country. This compilation was originally
made in the Egyptian language; but a translation of it into Greek by
Philip has alone come down to us, and in a condition very far from
satisfactory. From the internal evidence of the work, we should judge
Philip to have lived a century or two later than Horapollo; and at a
time when every remnant of actual knowledge of the subject must have
vanished.”
However this may be, it is certainly a book of Emblems, and just
previous to Shakespeare’s age, and during its continuance was regarded
as a high authority. Within that time there were at least five editions
of the work,—and it was certainly the mine in which the writers of
Emblem books generally sought for what were to them valuable
suggestions. The edition we have used is the small octavo of 1551,[25]
with many woodcuts, imaginative indeed, but designed in accordance with
the original text. J. Mercier, a distinguished scholar, who died in
1562, was the editor. In 1547 he was professor of Hebrew at the Royal
College of Paris, and in 1548 edited the quarto edition of Horapollo’s
_Hieroglyphics_.
[Illustration: _Horapollo, 1551._]
From the edition of 1551, p. 52, we take a very popular illustration; it
is the Phœnix, and may serve to show the nature of Horapollo’s work.
“How,” he asks, “do the Egyptians represent a soul passing a long time
here?” “They paint a bird—the Phœnix; for of all creatures in the world
this bird has by far the longest life.”
Again, bk. i. 37, or p. 53, “How do they denote the man who after long
absence will return to his friends from abroad?” By the Phœnix; “for
this bird, after five hundred years, when the death hour is about to
seize it, returns to Egypt, and in Egypt, paying the debt of nature, is
burned with great solemnity. And whatever sacred rites the Egyptians
observe towards their other sacred animals, these they observe towards
the Phœnix.”
And bk. ii. 57,—“The lasting restoration which shall take place after
long ages, when they wish to signify it, they paint the bird Phœnix. For
when it is born this bird obtains the restoration of its properties. And
its birth is in this manner: the Phœnix being about to die, dashes
itself upon the ground, and receiving a wound, ichor flows from it, and
through the opening another Phœnix is born. And when its wings are
fledged, this other sets out with its father to the city of the Sun in
Egypt, and on arriving there, at the rising of the Sun, the parent dies;
and after the death of the father, the young one sets out again for its
own country. And the dead Phœnix do the priests of Egypt bury.”
But the drawings, which in the old editions of Horapollo were
fancy-made, have, through the researches of a succession of Egyptian
antiquaries, assumed reality, and may be appealed to for proof that
Horapollo described the very things which he had seen, though
occasionally he, or his translator Philip, attributes to them an
imaginative or highly mythical meaning. The results of those researches
we witness in the editions of Horapollo, first by the celebrated Dr.
Conrad Leemans, of Leyden, in 1835,[26] and second, by Alexander Turner
Cory, Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1840;[27] both of which
editions, by their illustrative plates, taken from correct drawings of
the originals, present Horapollo with an accuracy that could not have
been approached in the sixteenth century. We have indeed of that age the
great work of Pierius Valerian (ed. folio, Bâle, 1556, leaves 449), the
_Hieroglyphica_, dedicated to Cosmo de’ Medici, with almost innumerable
emblems, in fifty-eight books, and with about 365 devices. But it cannot
be regarded as an exposition of the Egyptian art, and labours under the
same defect as the early editions of Horapollo,—the illustrations are
not taken from existing monuments.
An example or two from Leemans and Cory will supply sufficient
information to enable the reader to understand something of the nature
of Horapollo’s work, and of the actual Hieroglyphics from which that
work has in great part been verified.
[Illustration: _Leemans’ Horapollo, 1835._]
The following is the 31st figure in the plates which Leemans gives; it
is the pictorial representation to explain “What the Egyptians mean when
they engrave or paint a star.”[28] “Would they signify the God who sets
in order the world, or destiny, or the number five, they paint a star;
God, indeed, because the providence of God, to which the motion of the
stars and of all the world is subject, determines the victory; for it
seems to them that, apart from God, nothing whatever could endure; and
destiny _they signify_, since this also is regulated by stellar
management,—and the number five, because out of the multitude which is
in heaven, five only, by motion originating from themselves, make
perfect the management of the world.”
[Illustration]
Of the three figures which are delineated above, the one to the left
hand symbolizes God, that in the middle destiny, and the third, the
number 5, from five rays being used to indicate a star.
The same subjects are thus represented in Cory’s Horapollo.
[Illustration: _Cory’s Horapollo, 1840._]
Cory’s Horapollo, bk. i. c. 8, p. 15, also illustrates the question,
“How do they indicate the soul?” by the accompanying symbols; of which
I. represents the mummy and the departing soul, II. the hawk found
sitting on the mummy, and III. the external mummy case. The answer to
the question is:—
“Moreover, the HAWK is put for the soul, from the signification of
its name; for among the Egyptians the hawk is called BAIETH: and this
name in decomposition signifies soul and heart; for the word BAI is the
soul, and ETH the heart: and the heart according to the Egyptians is the
shrine of the soul; so that in its composition the name signifies ‘soul
enshrined in heart.’ Whence also the hawk, from its correspondence with
the soul, never drinks water, but blood, by which, also, the soul is
sustained.”
And in a similar way many of the sacred engravings or drawings are
interpreted. A serpent with its tail covered by the rest of its body,
“depicts Eternity;”[29] “to denote an _only begotten_, or _generation_,
or a _father_, or the _world_, or a _man_, they delineate a
SCARABÆUS;”[30] a LION symbolises _intrepidity_,—its FOREPARTS,
_strength_, and its HEAD, _watchfulness_;[31] the STORK denotes _filial
affection_, the CRANE on the watch, a man on guard against his enemies,
and the FEATHER of an Ostrich, _impartial justice_,—for, adds the
author, “this animal, beyond other animals, has the wing feathers equal
on every side.”[32]
Christian Art, like the Religious Art of the world in general,—from the
_thou_ and _thee_ of simplest Quakerism, outward and audible sounds of
an inward and silent spirit, up to the profoundest mystic ritualism of
the Buddhist,—Christian Art abounds in Emblems; gems and colours,
genuflexions and other bodily postures supply them; they are gathered
from the mineral, animal, and vegetable kingdoms, and besides are
enriched from the whole domain of imaginary devices and creatures. Does
the emerald flash in its mild lustre?—it is of “victory and hope, of
immortality, of faith, and of reciprocal love,” that it gives forth
light. Is blue, the colour of heaven, worn in some religious
ceremony?—it betokens “piety, sincerity, godliness, contemplation,
expectation, love of heavenly things.” Do Christian men bare the head in
worship?—it is out of reverence for the living God, whose earthly
temples they have entered. The badge of St. John the Baptist, is a lamb
on a book,—that of St. John the Evangelist is a cup of gold with a
serpent issuing from it. The Pomegranate, “showing its fulness of seed
and now bursting,” typifies the hope of immortality;—and a Fleur-de-lys,
or the Rose of Sharon, embroidered or painted on a robe,—it marks the
Blessed Virgin. With more intricate symbolism the Greek Church
represents the Saviour’s name =ΙHϹΟΥϹ ΧΡΙϹΤΟϹ=.—IesuS CHristuS.
The first finger of the hand extended is for I, the second bent for =C=
or s, the thumb crossed upon the third finger for =Χ= or Ch, and the
fourth finger curved for =Ϲ= or s. Thus are given the initial and final
letters of that Holy Name, the Saviour, the Christ.[33]
Of early Emblems examples enough have now been given to indicate their
nature. Whether in closing this part of the subject we should name a
work of more ancient date even than the Greek version of Horapollo would
admit of doubt, were it not that every work partakes of an emblematical
character, when the descriptions given or the instances taken pertain,
as
Whitney says, “to vertue and instruction of life,” or “doe tende vnto
discipline, and morall preceptes of living.”
Under this rule we hesitate not to admit into the wide category of
Emblem writers, EPIPHANIUS, who was chosen bishop of Constantia in
Cyprus, A.D. 367, and who died in 402. His _Physiologist_, published
with his sermon on the Feast of Palms, is, like many writings of the
Fathers, remarkable for highly allegorical interpretations. An edition,
by Ponce de Leon, a Spaniard of Seville, was printed at Rome in 1587,
and repeated at Antwerp[34] in 1588. It relates to the real and
imaginary qualities of animals, and to certain precepts and doctrines of
which those qualities are supposed to be symbolical. As an example we
give here an extract from chapter XXV. p. 106, “_Concerning the Stork._”
[Illustration: _Epiphanius, 1588._]
The Stork is described as a bird of extreme purity; and as nourishing,
with wonderful affection, father and mother in their old age. The
“interpretation” or application of the fact is;—“So also it behoves us
to observe these two divine commands, that is to turn aside from evil
and to do good, as the kingly prophet wrote; and likewise in the
decalogue the Lord commands, thus saying;—Honour thy father and thy
mother.”
In a similar way the properties and habits of various animals,—of the
lion, the elephant, the stag, the eagle, the pelican, the partridge, the
peacock, &c., are adduced to enforce or symbolize virtues of the heart
and life, and to set forth the doctrines of the writer’s creed.
To illustrate the Emblem side of Christian Art a great variety of
information exists in _Sketches of the History of Christian Art_, by
Lord Lindsay (3 vols. 8vo: Murray, London, 1847); and Northcote and
Brownlow’s _Roma Sotterranea_, compiled from De Rossi (8vo: Longmans,
London, 1869) promises to supply many a symbol and type of a remote age
fully to set forth the same subject.
[Illustration: _Giovio, 1556._]
-----
Footnote 1:
See the _Olympica_, 12. 10: “σύμβολον πιστὸν ἀμφὶ πράξιος ἐσομένης.”
Also Æschylus, _Agamemnon_, 8: “καὶ νῦν φυλάΣΣΑ λαμπ/δος τὸ σύμβολον.”
Footnote 2:
_Syntagma De Symbolis_, &c., per Clavdivm Minoëm, Lvgdvni, M.DC.XIII.
p. 13: “Plerique sunt non satis acuti, qui Emblema cum Symbolo, cum
Ænigmate, cum Sententia, cum Adagio, temerè & imperitè confundunt.
Fatemur Emblematis quidem vim in symbolo sitam esse: sed differunt,
inquam, vt Homo & Animal: alterum enim hîc maximè generaliùs accipi,
specialiùs verò alterum norũt omnes qui aliquid indicii habeant.”
Footnote 3:
“LA VITA ET METAMORFOSEO:” “A Lione, per Giouanni di Tornes,” 8vo,
1559, pp. 2, 3.
Footnote 4:
... “θύρην δ’ ἔχε μοῦνος ἐπιβλὴς
Εἰλάτινος.”
Footnote 5:
... “σκῆπτρον δέ οἱ ἔμβαλε χερὶ
Κήρυξ Πεισήνωρ.”
Footnote 6:
... “Νῆας ἐνιπρῆσαι, ὅτε μὴ αὐτὸς γε Κρονίων
Ἐμβάλοι αἰθόμενον δαλὸν νήεσσι θοῇσιν.”
Footnote 7:
Philemon Holland names the work of art, “A broad goblet or standing
piece,”—_“with a device appendant to it,_ for to be set on and taken
off with a vice.”
Footnote 8:
Now the property of his grandson, Mr. Henry Yates Thompson, of
Thingwall, near Liverpool.
Footnote 9:
“Quidam . . . . scriptos eos (scilicet locos) memoriæque
diligentissime mandatos, inpromptu habuerent, ut quoties esset
occasio, extemporales eorum dictiones, his, velut Emblematibus
exornarentur.”—_Quint. Lib. 2, cap. 4._
Footnote 10:
So the note in illustration quotes from Gower, _Conf. Am_. f. 190,
“Upon _the gaudees_ all without
Was wryte of gold, _pur reposer_.”
Footnote 11:
See Smith’s _Dictionary of Gk. and Rom. Ant._, p. 377 _b_, article
EMBLEMA.
Footnote 12:
See the Author’s _Introductory Dissertation_, p. x, to the Fac-simile
Reprint of Whitney’s _Emblems_.
Footnote 13:
See Plate I., containing De Hooghe’s engraving, reproduced on a
smaller scale.
Footnote 14:
“_Il portar queste imprese fu costume antico_. GIO. _Non è punto da
dubitare, che gli antichi vsassero di portar Cimieri & ornamenti ne
gli elmetti e ne gli scudi: perche si vede chiaramẽte in Vergil, quãdo
fa il Catalago delli genti, che vẽnero in fauore di Turno contra i
Troiani, nell’ ottauo dell’ Eneida; Anfiarao ancora (come dice
Pindaro) alla guerra di Thebe porto vn dragone nello scudo. Statio
scriue similmente di Capaneo & di Polinice; che quelli portò l’ Hidra,
e queste la Sfinge,_” &c.
Footnote 15:
See Gabriel Symeon’s _Devises ov Emblemes Heroiqves et Morales_, ed. à
Lyon, 1561, pp. 218, 219, 220.
Footnote 16:
See Paolo Giovio’s _Dialogo_, p. 10, and Symeon’s _Devises Heroiques_,
p. 220. Also _Le Imprese del. S. Gab. Symeoni_, ed. in Lyone 1574;
from which, p. 175, the above device is figured.
Footnote 17:
_i.e._, the space left between one of the sides of a bed and the wall.
Employed figuratively, this word relates to a custom which has passed
away, when people betook themselves to the alcove or sleeping room of
their friends to enjoy the pleasure of conversation.
Footnote 18:
Herodotus, in the _Melpomene_, bk. iv. c. 131.
Footnote 19:
So in the autumn and winter which preceded Napoleon’s return from
Elba, the question was often asked in France by his adherents,—“Do you
like the violet?” and if the answer was,—“The violet will return in
the spring,” the answer became a sure revelation of attachment to the
Emperor’s cause. For full information on _Flower signs_ see Casimir
Magnat’s _Traité du Langage symbolique, emblématique et religieux des
Fleurs_. 8vo: A. Touzet, Paris, 1855. In illustration take the lines
from Dr. Donne, at one time secretary to the lord keeper Egerton:—
“I had not taught thee then the alphabet
Of flowers, how they devisefully being set
And bound up, might with speechless secresy
Deliver errands mutely and mutually.”—_Elegy_ 7.
Footnote 20:
See also “REAL MUSEO BORBONICO,” _Napoli Dalla Stamperia Reale_, 1824.
Vol. i. tavola viii. e ix. Avventura e Imprese di Ercoli. Vol. ii.
tav. xxviii. Dedalo e Icaro. Vol. iii. tav. xlvi. Vaso Italo-Greco
depinto. Vol. v. tav. li. Vaso Italo-Greco,—a very fine example of
emblem ornaments in the literal sense.
Footnote 21:
“Εφορει δ’ αυτος περι τον τραχηλον εκ χρυσης ἁλυσεως ηρτημενον ζωδιον
των πολυτελων λιθων, ὁ προσηγορευον ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑΝ.”
Footnote 22:
_Iliad_, xviii. 478, “Ποίει δὲ πρώτιστα σάκος μέγα τε στιβαρόντε,—”
” ” _ 482, “Ποίει δαίδαλα πολλὰ ἰδυίῃσι πραπίδεσσιν.”
Footnote 23:
See Kenrick’s _Ancient Egypt under the Pharaohs_, vol. i. p. 291.
Footnote 24:
See the _Stromata_ of Clemens, vi. 633,—where we learn that it was the
duty of the Hierogrammateis, or Sacred Scribe, to gain a knowledge of
“what are named Hieroglyphics, which relate to cosmography, geography,
the action of the sun and moon, to the five planets, to the topography
of Egypt, and to the neighbourhood of the Nile, to a record of the
attire of the priests and of the estates belonging to them, and to
other things serviceable to the priests.”
Footnote 25:
“ORI APOLLINIS NILIACI, De Sacris notis et sculpturis libri duo,” &c.
“Parisiis: apud Jacobum Keruer, via Jacobæa, sub duobus Gallis,
M.D.LI.” Also, _Martin’s_ “Orus Apollo de Ægypte de la sygnification
des notes hieroglyphiques des Ægyptiens: Paris, Keruer, sm. 8vo,
1543.”
Footnote 26:
_Horapollinis Niloi Hieroglyphica_, 8vo, pp. xxxvi. and 446:
“Amstelodami, apud J. Muller et Socios, MDCCCXXXV.”
Footnote 27:
_The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Nilous_, sm. 8vo, pp. xii. and 174:
“London, William Pickering, MDCCCXL.”
Footnote 28:
Horapollo’s _Hieroglyphica_, by Conrad Leemans, bk. i. c. 13, p.
20:—Τί ἀστέρα γράφοντες δηλοῦσι. Θεὸν δέ ἐγκόσμιον σημαίνοντες, ἢ
εἰμαρμένην, ἢ τὸν πέντε ἀριθμὸν, ἀστέρα ζωγραφοῦσι· θεὸν μὲν, ἐπειδὴ
πρόνοια θεοῦ τῆν νίκην προστάσσει, ᾗ τῶν ἀστέρων καὶ τοῦ παντὸς κόσμου
κίνησις ἐκτελεῖται· δοκεῖ γὰρ αὐτοῖς δίχα θεοῦ, μηδὲν ὃλως συνεστάναι·
ἑιμαρμένην δέ, ἐπεὶ καὶ αὔτη ἐξ ἀστρικῆς οἰκονομίας συνίσταται· τὸν δὲ
πέντε ἀριθμὸν, ἐπειδὴ πλήθους ὂντος ἐν οὐρανῷ, πέντε μόνοι ἐξ αὐτῶν
κινούμενοι, τὴν τοῦ κὸσμου οἰκονομίαν ἐκτελοῦσι.
Footnote 29:
Horapollo, bk. i. c. 1.
Footnote 30:
Bk. i. c. 10.
Footnote 31:
Bk. i. c. 17–19.
Footnote 32:
Bk. ii. c. 58, 94, 118.
Footnote 33:
For a further and very interesting account of the Emblems of Christian
Art, reference may be made to a work full of information,—too brief it
may be for all that is desirable,—but to be relied on for its
accuracy, and to be imitated for its candid and charitable
spirit:—_Sacred Archæology_, by Mackenzie E.C. Walcott, B.D., 8vo, pp.
640: London, Reeve & Co. 1868.
Footnote 34:
“Ex Officina Christophori Plantini, Architypographi Regij, 1588.”
-----
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II.
SKETCH OF EMBLEM-BOOK LITERATURE PREVIOUS
TO A.D. 1616.
SECTION I.
_EXTENT OF THE EMBLEM LITERATURE TO WHICH SHAKESPEARE MIGHT HAVE HAD ACCESS._
IN the use of the word Emblem there is seldom a strict adherence
observed to an exact definition,—so, when Emblem Literature is spoken
of, considerable latitude is taken and allowed as to the kind of works
which the terms shall embrace. In one sense every book which has a
picture set in it, or on it, is an emblem-book,—the diagrams in a
mathematical treatise or in an exposition of science, inasmuch as they
may be, and often are, detached from the text, are emblems; and when to
Tennyson’s exquisite poem of “ELAINE,” Gustave Doré conjoins those
wonderful drawings which are themselves poetic, he gives us a book of
emblems;—Tennyson is the one artist that out of the gold of his own soul
fashioned a vase incorruptible,—and Doré is that second artist who
placed about it ornaments of beauty, fashioned also out of the riches of
his mind.
Yet by universal consent, these and countless other works, scientific,
historical, poetic, and religious, which artistic skill has embellished,
are never regarded as emblematical in their character. The “picture and
short posie, expressing some particular conceit,” seem almost essential
for bringing any work within the province of the Emblem Literature;—but
the practical application of the test is conceived in a very liberal
spirit, so that while the small fish sail through, the shark and the
sea-dog rend the meshes to tatters.
A proverb or witty saying, as, in Don Sebastian Orozco’s “EMBLEMAS
MORALES” (Madrid 1610), “Divesqve miserqve,” _both rich and wretched_,
may be pictured by king Midas at the table where everything is turned to
gold, and may be set forth in an eight-lined stanza, to declare how the
master of millions was famishing though surrounded by abundance;—and
these things constitute the Emblem. Some scene from Bible History shall
be taken, as, in “~Les figures du vieil Testament, & du nouuel~”
(at Paris, about 1503), _Moses at the burning bush_; where are printed,
as if an Emblem text, the passage from Exodus iii. 2–4, and by its side
the portraits of David and Esaias; across the page is a triplet woodcut,
representing Moses at the bush, and Mary in the stable at Bethlehem with
Christ in the manger-cradle; various scrolls with sentences from the
Scriptures adorn the page:—such representations claim a place in the
Emblem Literature. Boissard’s _Theatrum Vitæ Humanæ_ (Metz, 1596) shall
mingle, in curious continuity, the Creation and Fall of Man, Ninus king
of the Assyrians, Pandora and Prometheus, the Gods of Egypt, the Death
of Seneca, Naboth and Jezabel, the Advent of Christ and the Last
Judgment;—yet they are all Emblems,—because each has a “picture and a
short posie” setting forth its “conceit.” To be sure there are some
pages of Latin prose serving to explain or confuse, as the case may be,
each particular imagination; but the text constitutes the emblem, and
however long and tedious the comment, it is from the text the
composition derives its name.
“~Stam und Wapenbuch hochs und niders Standts~,”—_A stem and
armorial Bearings-book of high and of low Station_,—printed at
Frankfort-on-Mayne, 1579, presents above 270 woodcuts of the badges,
shields and helmets, with appropriate symbols and rhymes, belonging as
well to the humblest who can claim to be “vom gutem Geschlecht,” _of
good race_, as to the Electoral Princes and to the Cæsarean Majesty of
the Holy Roman Empire. Most of the figures are illustrated by Latin and
German verses, and again “picture and short posie” vindicate the
title,—book of Emblems.
And of the same character is a most artistic work by Theodore de Bry,
lately added to the treasure-house at Keir; it is also a _Stam und
Wapenbuch_, issued at Frankfort in 1593, with ninety-four plates all
within most beautiful and elaborate borders. Its Latin title, _Emblema
Nobilitate et Vulgo scitu digna, &c._, declares that these Emblems are
“worthy to be known both by nobles and commons.”
And so when an Emperor is married, or the funeral rites of a Sovereign
Prince celebrated, or a new saint canonized, or perchance some proud
cardinal or noble to be glorified, whatever Art can accomplish by symbol
and song is devoted to the emblem-book pageantry,—and the graving tool
and the printing press accomplish as enduring and wide-spread a
splendour as even Titian’s Triumphs of Faith and Fame.
Devotion that seeks wisdom from the skies, and Satire that laughs at
follies upon the earth, both have claimed and used emblems as the
exponents of their aims and purposes.
_Plate 2_
[Illustration: _Christ’s adoption of the Human Soul @span 2: Otho Vænius
1615@_]
With what surpassing beauty and nobleness both of expression and of
sentiment does Otho Vænius in his “AMORIS DIVINI EMBLEMATA,” Antwerp,
1615, represent to the mind as well as to the eye the blessed Saviour’s
adoption of a human soul, and the effulgence of love with which it is
filled! (See Plate II.) They are indeed divine Images portrayed for us,
and the great word is added from the beloved disciple,—“Behold, what
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be
called the sons of God.” And the simple _Refrain_ follows,—
_“C’est par cet Amour que les hommes
Sont esleuez de ce bas lieu;
C’est par cet Amour que nous sommes
Enfans legitimes de Dieu:
Car l’Ame qui garde en la vie
De son Pere la volonté,
Doit au Pere ès cieux estre vnie
(Comme fille) en eternité.”_
And that clever imitation of the “~Stultifera Nauis~,” _the
Fool-freighted Ship_, of the fifteenth century, namely, the “CENTIFOLIUM
STULTORUM,” edition 1707, or _Hundred-leaved Book of Fools_ of the
eighteenth, proves how the Satirical may symbolize and fraternize with
the Emblematical. The title of the book alone is sufficient to show what
a vehicle for lashing men’s faults the device with its stanzas and
comment may be made; it is, “A hundred-leaved book of Fools, in Quarto;
or an hundred exquisite Fools newly warmed up, in Folio,—in an
Alapatrit-Pasty for the show-dish; with a hundred fine copper
engravings, for honest pleasure and useful pastime, intended as well for
frolicsome as for melancholy minds; enriched moreover with a delicate
sauce of many Natural Histories, gay Fables, short Discourses, and
edifying Moral Lessons.”
Among the one hundred _distinguished_ characters, we might select, were
it only in self-condemnation, the Glass and Porcelain dupe, the
Antiquity and Coin-hunting dupe, and especially the Book-collecting
dupe. These are among the best of the devices, and the stanzas, and the
expositions. Dupes of every kind, however, may find their reproof in the
six simple German lines,—p. 171,
~“Wer Narren offt viel predigen will,
Ben ihnen nicht wird schaffen viel:
Dann all’s was man am besten redt,
Der Narr zum ärgsten falsch versteht,
Ein Narr, ein Narr, bleibt ungelehrt,
Wann man ihn hundert Jahr schon lehrt.”~
meaning pretty nearly in our vernacular English,
“Whoso to fools will much and oft be preaching,
By them not much will make by all his teaching.
For though we of our very best be speaking,
Falsely the fool the very worst is seeking.
Therefore the fool, a fool untaught, remains,
Though five score years we give him all our pains.”
But Politics also have the bright, if not the dark, side of their nature
presented to the world in Emblems. Giulio Capaccio, Venetia, 1620,
derives “IL PRINCIPE,” _The Prince_, from the Emblems of Alciatus, “with
two hundred and more Political and Moral Admonitions,” “useful,” he
declares, “to every gentleman, by reason of its excellent knowledge of
the customs, economy, and government of States.” Jacobus à Bruck, of
Angermunt, in his “EMBLEMATA POLITICA,” A.D. 1618, briefly demonstrates
those things which concern government; but Don Diego Saavedra Faxardo,
who died in 1648, in a work of considerable repute,—“IDEA de vn Principe
Politico-Christiano, representada EN CIEN EMPRESAS,”—_Idea of a
Politic-Christian Prince, represented in one hundred Emblems_ (edition,
Valencia, 1655), so accompanies his Model Ruler from the cradle to
maturity as almost to make us think, that could we find the bee-bread on
which Kings should be nourished, it would be no more difficult a task
for a nation to fashion a perfect Emperor than it is for a hive to
educate their divine-right ruling Queen.
_Plate 3_
La Creatione & confuſuione
del Mondo, 1
[Illustration: _Creation, Symeoni 1559_]
Prima ch’ il gran futtor dell’ Vniuerſo
Con pietà gli poneſſe intorno mente,
Era cieco nel Mar l’ Aer ſommerſo,
Nel centro il Fuoco, e’l tutto era niente,
Ch’ ogni Elemento, di virtù diuerſo,
Non hauea luogo à lui conueniente:
Ma del verbo diuím l’amor profondo
D’ vn C A O S ordinò ſi bello il Mondo,
But, so great is the variety of subjects to which the illustrations from
Emblems are applied, that we shall content ourselves with mentioning one
more, taking out the arguments, as they are named, from celebrated
classic poets, and converting them into occasions for pictures and short
posies. Thus, like the dust of Alexander, the remains of the mighty
dead, of Homer and Virgil, of Ovid and Horace, have served the base uses
of Emblem-effervescence, and in nearly all the languages of Europe have
been forced to misrepresent the noble utterances of Greece and Rome.
Many of the pictures, however, are very beautiful, finely conceived, and
skilfully executed;—we blame not the artists, but the false taste which
must make little bits of verses where the originals existed as mighty
poems.
Generally it is considered that the Ovids of the fifteenth century were
without pictorial illustrations, and could not, therefore, be classed
among books of Emblems; but the Blandford Catalogue, p. 21, records an
edition, “Venetia, 1497,” “_cum figuris depictis_,”—with figures
portrayed. Without discussing the point, we will refer to an undoubted
emblematized edition of the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid, “Figurato &
abbreviato in forma d’Epigrammi da M. Gabriello Symeoni,”—_figured and
abbreviated in form of Epigrams by M. Gabriel Symeoni_. The volume is a
small 4to of 245 pages, of which 187 have each a title and device and
Italian stanza, the whole surrounded by a richly figured border. The
volume, dedicated to the celebrated “Diana di Poitiers, Dvchessa di
Valentinois,” was published “A Lione per Giouanni di Tornes nella via
Resina, 1559.” An Example, p. 13, (see Plate III.,) will show the
character of the work, of which another edition was issued in 1584. The
Italian stanzas are all of eight lines each, and the passages of the
original Latin on which they are founded are collected at the end of the
volume. Thus, for “La Creatione & confusione del Mondo,” the Latin lines
are,
“_Ante mare & terras & quod tegit omnia, cœlum.
. . . . . . . Nulli sua forma manebat.
Hanc Deus, & melior litem natura diremit._”
Of the devices several are very closely imitated in the woodcuts of
Reusner’s Emblems, published at Frankfort, in 1581. The engravings in
Symeoni’s Ovid are the work of Solomon Bernard, “the little Bernard,” a
celebrated artist born at Lyons in 1512; who also produced a set of
vignettes for a French translation of Virgil, _L’Eneide de Virgile,
Prince des Poetes latins_, printed at Lyons in 1560.
“QVINTI HORATII FLACCI EMBLEMATA,” as Otho Vænius names one of his
choicest works, first published in 1607, is a similar adaptation of a
classic author to the prevailing taste of the age for emblematical
representation. The volume is a very fine 4to of 214 pages, of which 103
are plates; and a corresponding 103 contain extracts from Horace and
other Latin authors, followed, in the edition of 1612, by stanzas in
Spanish, Italian, French and Flemish. An example of the execution of the
work will be found as a Photolith, Plate XVII., near the end of our
volume; it is the “VOLAT IRREVOCABILE TEMPUS,”—_Irrevocable time is
flying_,—so full of emblematical meaning.
From the office of the no less celebrated Crispin de Passe, at Utrecht,
in 1613, issued, in Latin and French verse, “SPECVLVM HEROICVM Principis
omnium temporum Poëtarum HOMERI,”—_The Heroic Mirror of Homer, the
Prince of the Poets of all times_. The various arguments of the
twenty-four books of the _Iliad_ have been taken and made the groundwork
of twenty-four Emblems, with their devices most admirably executed. The
Latin and French verses beneath each device unmistakeably impress a true
emblem-character on the work. The author, “le Sieur J. Hillaire,”
appends to the Emblems, pp. 69–75, “Epitaphs on the Heroes who perished
in the Trojan War,” and also “La course d’Vlisses, son tragitte retour,
& deffaicte des amans qui poursuivoient la chaste & vertueuse Penelope.”
What might not in this way be included within the wide-encompassing
grasp of the determined Emblematist it is almost impossible to say; and
therefore it ought to be no matter of surprise to find there is
practically a greater extent given to the Literature of Emblems than of
absolute right belongs to it. We shall not go much astray if we take
Custom for our guide, and keep to its decisions as recorded in the chief
catalogues of Emblem works.
[Illustration: _Horapollo, 1551._]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECTION II.
_EMBLEM WORKS AND EDITIONS DOWN TO THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY._
LEAVING for the most part out of view the discussions which have taken
place as to the exact time and the veritable originators of the arts of
printing by fixed or moveable types, and of the embellishing of books by
engravings on blocks of wood or plates of copper, we are yet—for the
full development of the condition and extent of the Emblem Literature in
the age of Shakespeare—required to notice the growth of that species of
ornamental device in books which depends upon Emblems for its force and
meaning. We say advisedly “ornamental device in books,” for infinite
almost are the applications of Symbol and Emblem to Architecture,
Sculpture, and Painting, as is testified by the Remains of Antiquity in
all parts of the world, by the Pagan tombs and Christian catacombs of
ancient Rome, by nearly every temple and church and stately building in
the empires of the earth, and especially in those wonderful creations of
human skill in which form and colour bring forth to sight nearly every
thought and fancy of our souls.
Long before either block-printing or type-printing was practised, it is
well known how extensively the limner’s art was employed “to
illuminate,” as it is called, the Manuscripts that were to be found in
the rich abbeys or convents, and in the mansions of the great and noble.
For instance, the devices in the _Dance of Macaber_, undoubtedly an
Emblem Manuscript of the fourteenth century, were of painter’s
workmanship, and afterwards employed by the wood-engravers to embellish
type-printed volumes of a devotional character. To this Brunet, in his
_Manuel du Libraire_, vol. v. c. 1557–1560, bears witness, when speaking
of the printer Philip Pigouchet, and of the bookseller Simon Vostre, who
“furent les premiers à Paris qui surent allier avec succès la gravure à
la typographie;” and adds in a note, “La plus ancienne édition de la
Danse macabre que citent les bibliographes est celle de Paris, 1484;
mais, plus d’un siècle avant cette date, des miniaturistes français
avaient déjà figuré, sur les marges de plusieurs Heures manuscrites, des
Danses de morts, représentées et disposées à peu près comme elles l’ont
été depuis dans les livres de Simon Vostre; c’est ce que nous avons pu
remarquer dans un magnifique manuscrit de la seconde moitié du
quatorzième siècle, enrichi de nombreuses et admirables miniatures qui,
après avoir été conservé en Angleterre dans le cabinet du docteur Mead,
à qui le roi Louis XV. en avait fait présent, est venu prendre place
parmi les curiosités de premier ordre réunies dans celui de M. Ambr.
Firmin Didot.”
_From Brunet, v. 1559._
A strictly emblematical work in English is the following, “from a finely
written and illuminated parchment roll, in perfect preservation, about
two yards and three quarters in length,” “~The Five Wounds of
Christ~.” “~By William Billyng~;” “Manchester: Printed by R.
and W. Dean, 4to, 1814.” The date is fixed by the editor, William
Bateman, “between the years 1400 and 1430;” and the poem contains about
120 lines, with six illuminated devices. We give here, on page 40, in
outline, the DEVICE of “_The Heart of Jesus the Well of everlasting
Lyfe_.”
[Illustration: _Five wounds of Christ, 1400–1430._]
There follows, as to each of the Emblems, a Prayer, or Invocation; the
Device in question has these lines,—
~“Hayle welle and cõdyte of eu̾lastyng lyffe
Thorow launced so ferre w^tyn my lordes syde
The flodys owt traylyng most aromatys
Hayle prious ♥ wounded so large and wyde
Hayle trusty treuloue our joy to provide
Hayle porte of glorie w^t paynes alle embrued
On alle I sprynglyde lyke purpul dew enhuede.”~
An Astronomical Manuscript in the Chetham Library, Manchester, the
eclipses in which are calculated from A.D. 1330 to A.D. 1462, contains
emblematical devices for the months of the year, and the signs of the
zodiac; these are painted medallions at the beginning of each month; and
to each of the months is attached a metrical line explanatory of the
device.
~Januarius.~ Ouer yis feer I warme myn handes.
~Februarius.~ Wyth yis spade I delve my londes.
~Martius.~ Here knitte I my vynes in springe.
~Aprilis.~ So merie I here yese foules singe.
~Mayus.~ I am as Joly as brid on bouz.
~Junius.~ Here wede I my corn, clene I houz.
~Julius.~ Wyth yis sythe my medis I mowe.
~Augustus.~ Here repe I my corn so lowe.
~September.~ Wyth ys flayll I yresche my bred.
~October.~ Here sowe I my Whete so reed.
~November.~ Wyth ys knyf I steke my swyn.
~December.~ Welcome cristemasse Wyth ale and Wyn.
This manuscript contains, as J. O. Halliwell says of it, “an
astrological volvelle—an instrument mentioned by Chaucer: it is the only
specimen, I believe, now remaining in which the steel stylus or index
has been preserved in its original state.”
Doubtless it is a copy of the _Kalendrier des Bergers_, which with the
_Compost des Bergers_, has in various forms been circulated in France
from the fourteenth century almost, if not quite, to the present day. An
edition in 4to, of 144 pages, printed at Troyes, in 1705, bears the
title, _Le Grand Calendrier et Compost des Bergers; composé par le
Berger de la grand Montagne_.
Kindred works issued from the presses of Venice, of Nuremberg, and of
Augsburg, between 1475 and 1478, in Latin, Italian, and German, and are
ascribed to John Muller, more known under the name of Regiomontanus, a
celebrated astronomer, born in 1436, at Koningshaven, in Franconia, and
who died at Rome in 1476. One of these editions, in folio, was printed
at Augsburg in 1476 by Erhard Ratdolt, being the first work he sent
forth after his establishment in that city. (See _Biog. Univ._, vol.
xxx. p. 381, and vol. xxxvii. p. 25.) But the most thoroughly
emblematical work from Ratdolt’s press was an “~Astrolabium planũ in
tabulis~,” “wrought out anew by John Angeli, master of liberal arts,
MCCCCLXXXVIII.” There are 414 woodcuts, and all of them emblematical.
The library at Keir contains a perfect copy, 4to, in most admirable
condition. Brunet, i. c. 290, names a Venice edition in 1494, and refers
to other astronomical works by the same author.
In its manuscript form, too, the celebrated “SPECULUM HUMANÆ
SALVATIONIS,” _Mirror of Human Salvation_, exhibits throughout the
emblem characteristics. Of this work, both as it exists in manuscript
and in the earliest printed form by Koster of Haarlem, about 1430,
specimens are given in “A History of the Art of Printing from its
invention to its wide spread developement in the middle of the sixteenth
century;” “by H. NOEL HUMPHREYS,” “with one hundred illustrations
produced in Photo-lithography;” folio: Quaritch, London, 1867. Pl. 8 of
Humphreys’ learned and magnificent volume exhibits “a page from a
manuscript copy of the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_, executed previous
to the printed edition attributed to Koster;” and pl. 10, “A page from
the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_ attributed to Koster of Haarlem, in
which the text is printed from moveable types.”
The inspection of these plates, and the assurance by Humphreys, p. 60,
that “the illustrations, though inferior to Koster’s woodcuts, are of
similar arrangement,” may satisfy us that the _Speculum Humanæ
Salvationis_, and all its kindred works, in German, Dutch, and French,
amounting to many editions previous to the year 1500,[35] are truly
books that belong to the Emblem literature. Thus pl. 8, “though without
the decorative Gothic framework which separates, and, at the same time,
binds together the double illustrations of the xylographic artist,”
exhibits to us the exact character of “the double pictures of the
_Speculum_.” “These double pictures,” p. 60 of Humphreys, “illustrate
first a passage in the New Testament, and secondly the corresponding
subject of the Old, of which it is the antitype. In the present page we
have Christ bearing His cross (Christus bajulat crucem) typified by
Isaac carrying the wood for his own sacrifice (Isaac portat ligna sua).”
“The engravings,” p. 58, “_i.e._, of Koster’s first great effort, occur
at the top of each leaf, and the rest of the page is filled with two
columns of text, which, in the supposed first edition, is composed of
Latin verse
(or, rather, Latin prose with rhymed terminations to the lines, as the
lines do not scan); and in later editions, in Dutch prose.” “This
specimen,” pl. 8, p. 60, “will enable the student to understand
precisely the kind of manuscript book which Koster reproduced in a
cheaper form by xylography, to which he eventually allied the still more
important invention of moveable types.”
From a very fine MS. copy of the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_,
belonging to Mr. Henry Yates Thompson, our fac-simile Plates IV. and V.,
though on a smaller scale, present the Title and the first Pair of
devices with their text. The work is in twenty-nine chapters, and to
each there are four devices in four columns, with appropriate
explanations in Latin verse, and at the foot of the columns are the
references to the Old or the New Testament.
The manuscript entitled “~De Volueribus, sive de tribus
Columbis~,”—_Concerning Birds, or the Three Doves_, in the library
“du Grand Seminaire,” at Bruges, is also an emblem-book. It is
excellently illuminated, and the workmanship is probably of the
thirteenth century. (See the Whitney Reprint, p. xxxii.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Plate 4_
[Illustration: _Title Page from a M.S.: “Speculum Humanæ Salvationis”_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Plate 5_
[Illustration: _Leaf 31 from a M.S. “Speculum Humanæ Salvationis”_]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The illuminated _Missal_,[36] executed in 1425 for John, Duke of Bedford
and regent of France, according to the account published of it by
Richard Gough, 4to, London, 1794, and by others, abounds in emblem
devices. It contains “fifty-nine large miniatures, which nearly occupy
the page, and above a thousand small ones in circles of about an inch
and half diameter, displayed in brilliant borders of golden foliage,
with variegated flowers, &c. At the bottom of every page are two lines
in blue and gold letters, which explain the subject of each miniature.”
“The Missal,” says Dibdin, “frequently displays the arms of these noble
personages,” (John, Duke of Bedford, and of his wife Jane, daughter of
the Duke of Burgundy,) “and also affords a pleasing testimony of the
affectionate gallantry of the pair: the motto of the former being ‘A
VOUS ENTIER;’ that of the latter, ‘J’EN SUIS CONTENTE.’” Among its
ornaments are emblems or symbols of the twelve months, and a large
variety of paintings derived from the Sacred Scriptures, many of which
possess an emblematical meaning.
Not aiming at any exhaustive method in the information we gather and
impart respecting Emblem works and editions previous to the year A.D.
1500, we pass by the very numerous other instances in support of our
theme which a search into manuscripts would supply. The
“Block-Books,”[37] which, in the main, are especially emblematical, we
next consider. We select two instances as representative of the whole
set;—namely, the “BIBLIA PAUPERUM,” _Bibles of the Poor_, and the “ARS
MEMORANDI,” _The Art of Remembering_.
In his “BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DECAMERON,” vol. i. p. 160, Dibdin tells us,
“The earliest printed book, containing _text_ and _engravings_
illustrative of scriptural subjects, is called the _Histories of Joseph,
Daniel, Judith, and Esther_. This was executed in the German language,
and was printed by Pfister at Bamberg in 1462. It is among the rarest of
typographical curiosities in existence.” Dibdin’s dictum is considerably
modified, if not set aside, by Noel Humphreys; who, though affirming, p.
41, that “a late German edition of the _Biblia Pauperum_ has the date
1475, but that before that period editions had been printed at the
regular press with moveable types, as, for instance, that of Pfister,
printed at Bamberg in 1462,”—yet had previously declared, p. 39, “many
suppose that Laurens Koster, of Haarlem, who afterwards invented
moveable types, was one of the earliest engravers of Block-books, and
that in fact the _Biblia Pauperum_ was actually his work.” “The period
of its execution may probably be estimated as lying between 1410 and
1420: probably earlier, but certainly not later.”
The earliest editions of these _Biblia Pauperum_ contain forty leaves,
the later editions fifty, printed only on one side. Opposite to p. 40,
Noel Humphreys gives, pl. 2, “A Page from the Biblia Pauperum generally
supposed to be one of the earliest block-books.”
_Plate 6_
[Illustration: _A Page from the “Biblia Pauperum” generally supposed one
of the earliest Block Books_]
Availing ourselves of the Author’s remarks, p. 40, we yet prefer, on
account of some inaccuracies in his decyphering the Latin contractions,
giving our own description of this plate. The page is in _three_
divisions, all in the Gothic decorative style, with separating archways
between the subjects. In the _upper_ division, in the centre, are
seated, each in his niche, “Isaya” and “Dauid.” (See Plate VI.) In the
upper corners, on the right hand of the first, and on the left hand of
the second, are Latin inscriptions,—the former relating to Eve’s seed
bruising the serpent’s head, Genesis iii. c., and the latter to Gideon’s
fleece saturated with dew, Judges vi. c. The _middle_ compartment is a
triptych, consisting of Eve’s Temptation, the Annunciation by the Angel
to the Blessed Virgin; and Gideon in his armour, on his knees, with his
shield on the ground, watching the fleece. Over Eve’s Temptation there
is a scroll issuing from Isaiah’s niche, and having this inscription:
~“Ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium,”~—_Behold a virgin shall
conceive and bear a son_, Is. vii. 14; Eve stands near the tree of life,
emblematized by God the Father among the branches,—and erect before her
is the serpent, almost on the tip of its tail, with its body slightly
curved. In the Annunciation appears a ray of light breathed upon the
Virgin from God the Father seated in the clouds, and in the ray are the
dove, the emblem of the Holy Spirit, descending, and an infant Christ
bearing his cross; the Angel stands before Mary addressing to her the
salutation, “~Ave gratiâ plena, dominus tecum~,”—_Hail full of
grace, the Lord is with thee_, Luke i. 28; and Mary, seated with a book
on her knees, and her hands devoutly crossed on her breast, replies,
“~Ecce, ancilla domini, fiat mihi~,”—Behold, _the handmaid of the
Lord, be it unto me_, Luke i. 38. Of Gideon and the fleece little needs
be said, except that over him from the niche of David issues a scroll
with the words “~Descendet dominus sicut pluvia in vellus~,” in
the Latin Vulgate, Ps. lxxi. 6, _i.e. The Lord shall descend as rain
upon the fleece_; but in the English version, Ps. lxxii. 6, _He shall
come down like rain upon the mown grass_. The Angel also addressing
Gideon bears a scroll, not quite legible, but evidently meaning,
“~Dominus tecum virorum fortissime~,” Judges vi. 12,—English
version, _The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour_. The _lower_
compartment, like the upper, has in the centre two arched niches, which
contain, the one Ezekiel, the other Jeremiah; beneath Eve’s temptation
and Gideon’s omen are the alliterative and rhyming couplets
~“Vipera vim perdet,
Sine vi pariente puella.”~
and
~“Rore madet vellus
Permansit arida tellus;”~[38]
and beneath the Annunciation, “~Virgo salutatur, Innupta manens
gravidatur~.”
From Ezekiel’s niche issues the scroll, Ez. xliv. 2, “~Porta hæc
clausa erit, et non aperietur;~” and from Jeremiah’s, xxxi. 22,
“~Creavit dominus novum super terram, femina circumdabit virum.~”
It requires no argument to prove the emblematical nature of the _middle_
compartment of this page from the _Biblia Pauperum;_ and the texts on
scrolls are but the accessories to the devices, and serve only the more
clearly to mark this Block-book as an Emblem-book.
_Plate 7_
[Illustration: _S. John the Evangelist. 1st edition Block Book from the
Corser Collection._]
_Plate 8_
[Illustration: _A Page of the Apocalypse from Block Book in the Corser
Collection._]
Passing by similar Block-books, as _The Book of Canticles_, and _The
Apocalypse of St. John_, we will conclude the subject with a notice of
Humphreys’ pl. 5, following p. 42 of his text; it is “A Subject from the
Block-book entitled ‘Ars memorandi,’ executed probably at the beginning
of the fifteenth century.”
“The entire work,” we are informed, p. 42, “consists of the symbols of
the four evangelists, each occupying a page, and being most grotesquely
treated, the bull of St. Luke and the lion of St. Mark standing upright
on their hind legs. These symbols are surrounded with various objects,
calculated to recall the leading events in their respective Gospels.”
But the whole passage in explanation of the Plate is so much to our
purpose, that we ask pardon of the author for inserting it entire. He
says:—
“The page I have selected for reproduction is the fourth ‘image or
symbol’ of St. Matthew—the Angel. The objects grouped around are many of
them very curious, and, without the assistance of the accompanying
explanations, would certainly not serve to aid the memory of the modern
Biblical students. The symbolic Angel holds in the left hand objects
numbered 18, which by the explanation we learn to be the sun and moon,
accompanied by an unusual arrangement of stars and planets; intended to
recall the passage, ‘there were signs in the sun and moon’—_erant signa
in sole et luna_. I give the text of monkish explanation in MS. No. 19,
the clasped hands, represents marriage, in reference to the generations
of the Ancestors of Christ as enumerated by St. Matthew. No. 20, the
cockle shell and the bunch of grapes are emblems of travelling and
pilgrimage, and appear to represent the flight into Egypt; 21, the head
of an ass, is intended to recall the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem
riding on an ass; 22, a table, with bread-knife and drinking cup,
recalls the Last Supper (_Cæna magna_); and the accompanying symbol,
without a number, represents the census rendered to Cæsar.”[39]
With great kindness Mr. Corser, of Stand, offered me, in the spring of
1868, the use of a very choice Block-book, soon after sold for £415,
entitled _Historia S. Joan. Euangelist. per Figuras_, and which is, I
believe, the very copy from which Sotheby’s specimens of the work are
taken. Whether it be the “_editio princeps_,” as a former owner claimed
it to be, is doubted on merely conjectural grounds; but a most precious
copy it is, internally vindicating its claim to priority. The volume
measures 2.82 decimetres by 2.14; or 11 inches by 8.42. There are
forty-eight leaves, in perfect preservation, printed on one side. The
figures, all coloured, relate either to the traditions and legends of
the Evangelist, or to the visions of the Apocalypse, the former being
simply pictorial, the latter emblematical.
The two Plates uncoloured (Plate VII. and Plate VIII.) very clearly show
the difference between the mere drawing and the device. The pictures of
the Evangelist preaching, of Drusiana being baptized, and of the search
after John, have no meaning beyond the historical or legendary
event;—but the two wings of an eagle given to the woman, of the angel
flying with a book above the tree of life, of the dragon persecuting the
woman, and of the mother-church passing into the desert: these have a
meaning beyond that of the figures delineated;—they are emblematical of
hidden truths;—so are all the other plates of this Block-book which
represent the visions of the Apocalypse. The date is probably 1420 to
1425.
The Bodleian Library at Oxford is very rich in this particular
Block-book, possessing no fewer than _three_ copies of the _History of
S. John the Evangelist_. Among its treasures, however, is a MS. on the
same subject, worth them all by reason of its beauty and exquisite
finish, which the Block-books certainly do not claim. This MS., on fine
vellum and finely drawn and illuminated, is said to have been written in
the twelfth century, and to have belonged to Henry II.
But the printing with moveable types is firmly established, and
Emblem-books are among its earliest productions. At Bamberg, a city on
the Regnitz, near its influx into the Main, the first purely German book
was printed in 1461, by the same Pfister who published an edition of the
_Biblia Pauperum_, and who probably learned his art at Mayence with
Guttenberg himself. The work in question was a Collection of eighty-five
Fables in German, with 101 vignettes cut on wood, each accompanied by a
German text of rhyming verses. The first device, says Brunet, vol. i. p.
1096, represents three apes and a tree, and the verses begin with—
“Once on a time came an ape (_gerãt_) upright.”
The colophon, or subscription, at the end informs us,
“At Bamberg this little book ended is
After the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ,
When one counts a thousand four hundred year,
And to it, as truth, one and sixty more,
On the day of holy Valentine;
God shield us from the wrath divine. Amen.”
The fables were collected by Ulric Boner, a Dominican friar of Bonn, in
the thirteenth or at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Their
chief value is that they present the most precious remains of the
Minnesingers, or German Troubadours, and possess much grace, and “une
moralité piquante.” See _Biographie Universelle_, vol. v. pp. 97, 98:
Paris, 1812; and vol. xxxiii. p. 584: Paris, 1823.
Of Æsop’s _Fables_ in Greek, the Milan edition, about A.D. 1480, was the
earliest. There had been Latin versions, previously at Rome in 1473, at
Bologna and Antwerp in 1486, and elsewhere. The German translation
appeared in 1473, the Italian in 1479, the French and the English in
1484, and the Spanish in 1489. Besides these there were at least thirty
other editions previous to the year 1500.
It has been doubted if Fables should be classed among the Emblem
Literature,—but whether _nude_, as other emblems have been named when
unclothed in the ornaments of wood or copper engravings, or _adorned_
with richly embellished devices, they are, as Whitney would name them,
_naturally_ emblematical. Apart from whatever artistic skill can effect
for them, they have in themselves meanings to be evolved different from
those which the words convey. The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass are not
simply names for the veritable animals, but emblems of different
characters and qualities among the human race; they symbolize moral
sentiments and actions, and when we add the figures of the creatures,
though we may make pleasing and significant pictures, we do little for
the real development of the emblems.
Books of Fables, however, are so numerous that they and their editors
may be counted by hundreds; and as Dibdin intimates, the Bibliomaniac
who had gathered up all the editions of Æsop in nearly all the languages
of the civilized world, would have formed a very considerable library.
Only on a few occasions therefore shall we make mention of books of
Fables in our present inquiries.
We shall not however pass unnoticed, since it belongs especially to this
period, the “~Dyalogus Creaturarum~,” or, _Dialogues of the
Creatures_, a collection of Latin Fables, attributed in the fourteenth
century to Nicolas Pergaminus, first printed at Gouda in Holland by
Gerard Leeu in 1480, and at Stockholm by John Snell in 1483. (See
Brunet, vol. ii. p. 674.) A French version, by Colard Mansion, was
issued at Lyons in 1482, _Dialogue des Creatures moralizie_; and an
English version, about 1520, by J. Rastall, “Powly’s Churche,” London,
namely, “The Dialogue of Creatures moralyzed, of late translated out of
latyn in to our English tonge.”
[Illustration: _Dyalogus Creat., ed. 1480._]
There were various editions and modifications of the work,[40] but
perhaps the contrast between them cannot be better pointed out than by
selecting the Fable of the Wolf and the Ass from the Gouda edition of
1480, and also from the Antwerp edition of 1584. The original edition,
with the woodcut on the next page in mere outline, tells in simple Latin
prose how a wolf and an ass were sawing a log of wood together. From
good nature the ass worked up above, the wolf through maliciousness down
below, desiring to find an opportunity for devouring the ass; therefore
he complained that the ass was sending the sawdust into his eyes. The
ass replied, “It is not I who am doing this,—I only guide the saw. If
you wish to saw up above I am content,—I will work faithfully down
below.” And so they talked on, until the wolf threatening revenge drew
back, and the fissure in the beam being suddenly widened, the wedge fell
upon the wolf’s head, and the wolf himself was killed.
The Antwerp edition of 1584[41] changes the simple Latin prose into the
elegant Latin elegiacs of John Moerman, and the outline woodcuts of an
unknown artist into the copperplate engravings of Gerard de Jode, the
eldest of four generations of engravers. THE WOLF and THE ASS are made
to emblematize, “scelesti hominis imago et exitus,”—_the image and end
of a wicked man_. Moerman’s Latin may thus be rendered, from leaf 54,
ed. 1584:—
“The Wolf and careless Ass a treaty made,
Both studious with a saw a beam to rive;—
The ready Ass above directs the blade,
The Wolf doth down below deceit contrive.
He seeks for cause the wretched Ass to slay,
And cries,—‘With sawdust much thou troublest me,—
The trouble check, or with these teeth, I say,
My spoil to be devoured thou straight shalt be.’
To this the Ass,—‘Friend Wolf, be not annoyed;
Guileless the saw I guide with might and main.’
But soon the long-eared brute would be destroyed,
When falls the wedge;—ah! ’tis the Wolf is slain.”
[Illustration: _Apologi Creaturarum_, 1584.]
MORAL.
“Insonti qui insidias struit, ipse perit.”
“Who for the innocent spreads snares,
Himself shall perish unawares.”
“_The wicked man his nets doth spread
The innocent to take the while;
But who would harm his brother’s head
Doth perish from his selfish guile.
God will not deem him innocent,
Nor raise him to the stars above,
Who on unrighteous thoughts is bent,
Or neighbours serves with feigned love.
But after death to the fiery marsh
Of Phlegethon shall he be hurled,
Where Tartaræan Pluto harsh
With hated sceptres rules a world_.”
As in the Blandford Catalogue, it has been usual to count among
Emblem-books the “ECATONPHYLA,” printed at Venice in 1491. The French
translation of 1536 describes the title as, “signifiãt centiesme amour,
sciemment appropriees a la dame ayãt en elle autant damour que cent
aultres dames en pouroient comprendre,” _signifying a hundredth love,
knowingly appropriated to the lady having in her as much love as a
hundred other ladies could possibly comprehend_. (Brunet’s _Manuel_, i.
c. 131, 132.) The author of this work, of which there are several
editions, was the celebrated Italian architect, Leoni-Baptista Alberti,
born of a noble family of Florence in 1398, and living as some suppose
up to 1480. He was a universal scholar, a doctor of laws, a priest, a
painter, and a good mechanic.
We are inclined to ask whether _Gli Trionfi del Petrarcha_, printed at
Bologna in 1475,—especially, when as in the Venice editions of 1500 and
1523 they were adorned by the vignettes and wood engravings of Zoan
Andrea Veneziano,—whether these “Triumphs of Love, Chastity, and Death”
may not, from their highly allegorical character, be included among the
Emblem-books of this age?[42] The same question we might ask respecting
“~Das Heldenbuch~,”—_The Book of Heroes_,—printed at Augsburg, in
1477, by Gunther Zainer, who had first been a printer at Cracow about
1465; and also concerning the “~Libri Cronicarum cũ figuris et
imaginibus ab inicio mũdi~,” a large folio known as the _Chronicles
of Nuremberg_, which with its 2000 fine wood engravings, attributed to
Michael Wohlgemuth, was published in that city in 1493.[43]
The original “~Todtentanz~,” or _Dance of Death_, painted as a
memorial of the plague which raged during the Council of Bâle, held
between 1431 and 1446 (Bryan, p. 335), certainly was not the work of
either of the Holbeins. There are several representations of a
Death-dance in the fifteenth century, between 1485 and 1496 (Brunet, v.
873, 874); and there can be little doubt of their emblematical
character. The renowned _Dance of Death_ by Hans Holbein the younger we
will reserve for its proper place in the next section.
We must not however leave unmentioned _The Dance of Macaber_, especially
as it is presented to us in an English form by John Lydgate, a monk of
the Benedictine abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, who was born about 1375, and
attained his greatest eminence about 1430. His own power for supplying
the materials for an Emblem-device we observe in the lines on “_God’s
Providence_.”
“God hath a thousand handés to chastise;
A thousand dartés of punicion;
A thousand bowés made in divers wise;
A thousand arlblasts bent in his dongèon.”
For an account of Lydgate’s _Dance of Macaber_, and indeed for his
version in English, we should do well to consult the remarks by Francis
Douce, in Wenceslaus Hollar’s _Dance of Death_, published about the year
1790, and more particularly the remarks in Douce’s Dissertation, edition
1833.
_Plate 9_
~Stultifera Nauis.~
~Narragonice profectionis nunquam satis laudata Nauis: per Sebastianũ
Brant: vernaculo vulgarique sermone & rhythmo / pro cũctorum mortaliũ
fatuitatis semitas effugere cupiẽtiũ directione / speculo / cõmodoque &
salute: proque inertis ignaue̦que stultitie̦ perpetua infamia /
execratione / & confutatione / nuper fabricata: Atque iam pridem per
Iacobum Locher / cognomẽto Philomusum: Sue̦uũ: in latinũ traducta
eloquiũ: & per Sebastianũ Brant denuo seduloque reuisa / & noua quadã
exactaque emendatõe elimata: atque superadditis quibusdã nouis /
admirãdisque fatuorum generibus suppleta: fœlĩci exorditur
principio.~
_~.1497.
Nihil sine causa.
Io.de.Olpe.~_
[Illustration: _Title of Brandts Stultifera Navis edition, 1497._]
The earliest known edition of _La Danse Macabre_, originally composed in
German, is dated at Paris, 1484, but before the completion of the
century there were seven or eight other reprints, some with alterations
and others with additions. It was a most popular work, issued at least
eight or ten times during the sixteenth century, and still exciting
interest.[44] At p. 39 may be seen copies of some of the devices as used
by Verard.
The chief Emblem deviser and writer towards the end of the century was
Sebastian Brandt, born at Strasburg in 1458, and after a life of great
usefulness and honour dying at Bâle in 1520. The publication in German
Iambic verse of his “~Narren Schyff~,” Bâle, Nuremberg,
Rüttlingen, and Augsburg, A.D. 1494, forms quite an epoch in Emblem-book
literature. Previous to A.D. 1500, _Locher_, crowned poet laureate by
the Emperor Maximilian I., translated the German into Latin verse, with
the title “~Stultifera Nauis~” (see Plate IX.); _Riviere_ of
Poitiers, the Latin into French verse, “~La Nef des Folz du
Monde~;” and _Droyn_ of Amiens, into French prose, “~La grãt Nef
des Folz du Monde~.” Early in the next century, 1504, or even in
1500, there was a Flemish version; and in 1509 two English
versions,—_one_ translated out of French, “THE SHYPPE OF FOOLES,” by
Henry Watson, and printed by “Wynkyn de Worde, MCCCCCIX.” (see Dibdin’s
_Tour_, ii. p. 103); _the other_,—“STULTIFERA NAUIS,” or “~The Shyp
of Folys of the Worlde~;” “Inprentyd in the Cyte of London, by
Richard Pynson, M.D.IX.” (Dibdin’s _Typ. Ant._ ii. p. 431.) This latter
was “_translated out of Latin, French, and Duch into Englishe_, by
Alexander Barclay, _Priest_;” and reprinted in 1570, during
Shakespeare’s childhood by the “Printer to the Queenes Maiestie.” At the
same time, 1570, another work by Barclay was published, which, although
without devices, partakes of an allegorical or even of an emblematical
character; it is _The Mirrour of good Maners_; “conteining the foure
Cardinal Vertues.”
Dibdin, in his _Bibliographical Antiquarian_, iii. p. 101, mentions “a
pretty little volume—‘as fresh as a daisy,’ the _Hortulus Rosarum de
Valle Lachrymarum_, ‘A little Garden of Roses from the Valley of Tears’
(to which a Latin ode by S. Brandt is prefixed), printed by J. de Olpe
in 1499,”—but he gives no intimation of its character; conjecturing from
its title and from the woodcuts with which it is adorned, it will
probably on further inquiry be found to bear an emblematical meaning.
Dibdin also, in the same work, iii. p. 294, names “a German version of
the ‘HORTULUS ANIMÆ’ of S. Brant,” in manuscript; “undoubtedly,” he
says, “among the loveliest books in the Imperial Library.” The Latin
edition was printed at Strasburg in 1498, and is ornamented with figures
on wood; many of these are mere pictures, without any symbolical
meaning,—but it often is the case that the illuminated manuscripts,
especially if devotional, and the early printed books of every kind that
have pictorial illustrations in them, present various examples of
symbolical and emblematical devices.
The last works we shall name of the period antecedent to A.D. 1501, are
due to the industry and skill of John Sicile, herald at arms to Alphonso
King of Aragon, who died in 1458. Sicile, it seems, prepared two
manuscripts, _one_ the Blazonry of Arms,—the _other_, the Blazonry of
Colours. Of the former there was an edition printed at Paris in 1495,
_Le_ BLASON _de toutes Armes et Ecutz_, &c.—and of the latter at Lyons
early in the sixteenth century, _Le Blason des Couleurs en Armes,
Liurees et deuises_. Within an hundred years, ending with 1595, above
sixteen editions of the two works were issued.
Several other authors there are belonging to the period of which we
treat,—but enough have been named to show to what an extent Emblem
devices and Emblem-books had been adopted, and with what an impetus the
invention of moveable types and greater skill in engraving had acted to
multiply the departments of the Emblem Literature. It was an impetus
which gathered new strength in its course, and which, previous to
Shakespeare’s youth and maturity, had made an entrance into almost every
European nation. Already in 1500, from Sweden to Italy and from Poland
to Spain, the touch was felt which was to awaken nearly every city to
the west of Constantinople, to share in the supposed honours of adding
to the number of Emblem volumes.
[Illustration: _Picta Poesis, 1552._]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECTION III.
_OTHER EMBLEM WORKS AND EDITIONS BETWEEN A.D. 1500 AND 1564._
LABORIOUS in some degree is the enterprise which the title of this
Section will indicate before it shall be ended. Perchance we shall have
no myths to perplex us, but the demands of sober history are often more
inexorable than those flexible boundaries within which the imagination
may disport amid facts and fictions.
Better, as I trust, to set this period of _sixty-three_ years before the
mind, it may be well to take it in three divisions: 1st, the twenty-one
years before Alciatus appeared, to conquer for himself a kingdom, and to
reign king of Emblematists for about a century and a half; 2nd, the
twenty-one years from the appearance of the first edition of Alciat’s
_Emblems_ in 1522 at Milan, until Hans Holbein the younger had
introduced the _Images and Epigrams of Death_, and La Perriere and
Corrozet, the one his _Theatre of good Contrivances in one hundred
Emblems_, and the other his _Hecatomgraphie_, or descriptions of one
hundred figures; 3rd, the twenty-one years up to Shakespeare’s birth,
distinguished towards its close chiefly by the Italian writers on
_Imprese_, Paolo Giovio, Vincenzo Cartari, Girolamo Ruscelli, and
Gabriel Symeoni.
~Stulte̦ gustationis scapha.~
[Illustration: _Badius_, 1502.]
I.—_A Fool-freighted Ship_ was the title of almost the last book of the
fifteenth century,—by a similar title is the Emblem-book called which
was launched at the beginning of the sixteenth century; it is,
“~Jodoci Badii ascē~sii Stultifere̦ nauicule̦ seu scaphe̦
Fatuarum mulierum: circa sensus quinq̃ exteriores fraude
nauigantium,”—_The Fool-freighted little ships of Josse Badius
ascensius, or the skiffs of Silly women in delusion sailing about the
five outward senses_,—“printed by honest John Prusz, a citizen of
Strasburg, in the year of Salvation M.CCCCC.II.” There was an earlier
edition in 1500,—but almost exactly the same. From that before us we
give a specimen of the work, _The Skiff of Foolish Tasting_. A discourse
follows, with quotations from Aulus Gellius, Saint Jerome, Virgil,
Ezekiel, Epicurus, Seneca, Horace, and Juvenal; and the discourse is
crowned by twenty-four lines of Latin elegiacs, entitled “~Celeusma
Gustationis fatue̦~,”—_The Oarsman’s cry for silly Tasting_,—thus
exhorting—
“Slothful chieftains of the gullet!
Offspring of Sardanapálus!
In sweet sleep no longer lull it,—
Rouse ye, lest good cheer should fail us.
Gentle winds to pleasures calling
Waft to regions soft and slow;
On a thousand dishes falling,
How our palates burn and glow!
Suppers of Lucillus name not,
Ancient faith! nor plate of veal;
Ancient faith to luncheon came not
Crowned with flowers that age conceal.
Let none boast of pontiff’s dishes,—
Nor Mars’ priests their suppers spread;
Alban banquets bless our wishes,—
Cæsar’s garlands deck our head.
Now the dish of Æsop yielding,
Apicius all his luxuries pours;
And Ptolomies the sceptres wielding
Richest viands give in showers.”
And so on, until in the concluding stanza Badius declares—
“If great Jove himself invited
At our feasting takes his seat,
Jove would say, ‘I am delighted,
Not in heaven have I such meat.’
Therefore, stupids! what of summer
Enters now our pinnace gay,—
Onward in three hours ’twill bear us
Where kingdoms blessed bid us stay.”[45]
The same work was published in another form, “La nef des folles, selon
les cinq sens de nature, composé selon levangile de monseigneur saint
Mathieu, des cinq vierges qui ne prindrent point duylle avec eulx pour
mectre en leurs lampes:” Paris 4to, about 1501.
Of Badius himself, born in 1462 and dying in 1535, it is to be said that
he was a man of very considerable learning, professor of “belles
lettres” at Lyons from 1491 to 1511, when he was tempted to settle in
Paris. There he established the famous Ascensian Printing Press,—and
like Plantin of Antwerp, gave his three daughters in marriage to three
very celebrated printers: Michel Vascosan, Robert Etienne, and Jean de
Poigny. He was the author of several works besides those that have been
mentioned. (_Biog. Univ._ vol. iii. p. 201.)
Symphorien Champier, Doctor in Theology and Medicine, a native of Lyons,
who was physician to Anthony Duke of Lorraine when he accompanied Louis
XII. to the Italian war, graduated at Pavia in 1515, and, after laying
the foundations of the Lyons College of Physicians, and enjoying the
highest honours of his native city, died about 1540. (Aikin’s _Biog._
ii. 579.) His medical and other works are of little repute, but among
them are two or three which may be regarded as imitations of
Emblem-books. We will just name,—Balsat’s work with Champier’s
additions, _La Nef des Princes et des Batailles de Noblesse, &c._
(Lyons, 4to goth. with woodcuts, A.D. 1502.); also, _La Nef des Dames
vertueuses cōposee par Maistre Simphoriē Champier, &c._ (Lyons, 4to
goth. with woodcuts, A.D. 1503.)
“Bible figures,” too, again have a claim to notice. A very fine copy of
“~Les figures du vieil Testament, & du nouuel~,” which belonged
to the Rev. T. Corser, Rector of Stand, near Manchester, supplies the
opportunity of noticing that it is decidedly an Emblem work. It is a
folio, of 100 leaves, containing forty-one plates, of which one is
introductory, and forty are on Scriptural subjects, unarranged in order
either of time or place. The work was published in Paris in 1503 by
Anthoine Verard, and is certainly, as Brunet declares, ii. c. 1254, “une
imitation de l’ouvrage connu sous le nom de _Biblia Pauperum_.” There
are forty sets of figures in triptychs, the wood engravings being very
bold and good. Each is preceded or followed by a French stanza of eight
lines, declaring the subject; and has appended two or three pages of
Exposition, also in French. The Device pages, each in three
compartments, are in Latin, and may thus be described. At the top to the
left hand, a quotation from the Vulgate appropriate to the pictorial
representation beneath it; in the centre two niches, of which David
always occupies one, and some writer of the Old Testament the other, a
scroll issuing from each niche. The middle compartment is filled by a
triptych, the centre subject from the New Testament, the right and left
from the Old. At the bottom are Latin verses to the right and left, with
two niches in the centre occupied by biblical writers. The Latin verses
are rhyming couplets, as on fol. a. iiij, beneath Moses at the burning
bush, “~Lucet et ignescit, sed non rubus igne calescit~,”—_It
shines and flames, but the bush is not heated by the fire_. In triptych,
on p. i. _rev._ are, Enoch’s Translation, Christ’s Ascension, and the
Translation of Elijah.
The Aldine press at Venice, A.D. 1505, gave the world the first printed
edition of the “HIEROGLYPHICA” of Horapollo. It was in folio, having in
the same volume the Fables of Æsop, of Gabrias, &c. See Leemans’
_Horapollo_, pp. xxix-xxxv. A Latin version by Bernard Trebatius was
published at Augsburg in 1515, at Bale in 1518, and at Paris in 1521;
and another Latin version by Phil. Phasianinus, at Bologna in 1517.
Previous to Shakespeare’s birth there were translations into French in
1543, into Italian in 1548, and into German in 1554,—and down to 1616
sixteen other editions may readily be counted up.
John Haller, who had introduced printing into Cracow in 1500, published
in 1507 the first attempt to teach logic by means of a game of cards; it
was in Murner’s quarto entitled, “CHARTILUDIUM logice̦ seu Logica
poetica vel memorativa cum jocundo Pictasmatis Exercimento,”—_A
Card-game of Logic, or Logic poetical or memorial, with the pleasant
Exercise of pictured Representation_. It is a curious and ingenious
work, and reprints of it appeared at Strasburg in 1509 and 1518; at
Paris, by Balesdens, in 1629; and again in 1650, 4to, by Peter Guischet.
As an imitation of Brandt’s _Ship of Fools_, so far as it relates to the
follies and caprices of mankind, mention should also be made of Murner’s
“~Narren Beschwo^erung~,”—_Exorcism of Fools_,—Strasburg, 4to,
1512 and 1518; which certainly at Francfort, in 1620, gave origin to
Flitner’s “NEBVLO NEBVLONVM,”—or, _Rascal of Rascals_.
“~Speculū Paciētierum~ theologycis Consolationibus Fratris
Ioannis de Tambaco,”—_The Mirror of Patience with the theological
Consolations of Brother John Tambaco_,—Nuremberg, MCCCCCIX., 4to, is a
work of much curiousness. On the reverse of the title is an Emblematical
device of Job, Job’s wife, and the Devil, followed by exhortations to
patience; and on the reverse of the introduction to the second part,
also an Emblematical device,—the Queen of Consolation, with her four
maidens by her side, and two men kneeling before her. The chapters on
consolation are generally in the form of _sermonettes_, in which the
maidens, three or four, or even a dozen, expatiate on different subjects
proper for reproof, exhortation, and comfort. The devices in this volume
are understood to be from the pencil of Albert Durer.
This same year, 1509, witnessed two English translations, or
paraphrases, of Brandt’s “~Narren Schif~,”—the one _The Shyppe of
Fooles_, taken from the French by Henry Watson, and printed by De
Worde;—the other rendered out of Latin, German, and French, _The Ship of
Fooles_, by Alexander Barclay, and printed by Pinson. Of Watson little,
if anything, is known, but Barclay is regarded as one of the improvers
of the English tongue, and to him it is chiefly owing that a true
Emblem-book was made popular in England.
Of the “~Dyalogus Creaturarum~,” written in the fourteenth
century by Nicolas Pergaminus, and printed by Gerard Leeu, at Gouda, in
1480, an English version appeared about 1520,—“The dialogue of Creatures
moralyzed, of late translated out of Latyn in to our English tonge.”
The famous preacher and the founder of the first public school in
Strasburg was John Geyler, born in 1445. He was highly esteemed by the
Emperor Maximilian, and after a ministry of about thirty years, died
in 1510. Two Emblem-books were left by him, both published in 1511 by
James Other;—the one “~Navicula sive Speculũ Fatuorum~,”—_The
little Ship or Mirror of Fools_; the other, “~Navicula
Penitentie~,”—_The little Ship of Penitence_. To the first there
are 110 emblems and 112 devices, each having a discourse delivered on
one of the Sabbaths or festivals of the Catholic Church—the text
always being, _Stultorum infinitus est_,—“Infinite is the number of
fools.” The second, not strictly an Emblem-book, is devoted “to the
praise of God and the salvation of souls in Strasburg,” and consists
really of a series of sermons for Lent and other seasons of the year,
but all having the same text, _Ecce ascendimus Hierosolimam_,—“Behold
we go up to Jerusalem.” There were several reprints of both the works,
and two German translations; and the edition of 1520, folio, with wood
engravings, is remarkable for being the first book to which was
granted the “Imperial privilege.” It is said that the rhymes of
Brandt’s _Ship of Fools_ which Geyler had translated into Latin in
1498, not unfrequently served him for texts and quotations for his
sermons. Alas! we have no such lively preachers in these sleepy days
of perfect propriety of phrase and person. Our prophets, in putting
away “locusts and wild honey,” too often forget to cry, “Repent, for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Next, however, to the famous preacher, we name a notorious prophet, the
Abbot Joachim, who died between the years 1201 and 1202, but whose
works, if they really were his, did not appear in print, until the folio
edition was issued about 1475,—_Revelations concerning the State of the
chief Pontiffs_. An Italian version, “PROPHETIA dello Abbate Joachimo
circa li Pontefici & Re,” appeared in 1515; and another Latin edition,
with wood engravings, by Marc-Antoine Raimondi, in 1516.[46] Many tales
are related of the Abbot and of his followers; suffice it to say, that
they maintained the Gospel of Christ would be abolished A.D. 1260; and
thenceforward Joachim’s “true and everlasting Gospel” was to be
prevalent in the world.
According to the Blandford _Catalogue_, p. 6, we should here insert P.
Dupont’s _Satyriques Grotesques_ (Desseins Orig.), 8vo, Paris, 1513; but
it may be passed over with the simplest notice.
If we judge from the wonderfully beautiful copy on finest vellum in
the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow, the next Emblem-book surpasses all
others we have named; it is the “~Tewrdannckh~”—or,
_Dear-thought_,—usually attributed to Melchior Pfintzing, a German
poet, born at Nuremberg in 1481, and who at one time was secretary to
the Emperor Maximilian. The poem is allegorical and chivalric, and
adorned with 118 plates, some of which are considered the workmanship
of Albert Durer.[47]
The _Tewrdanck_ was intended to set forth the dangers and love
adventures of the emperor himself on occasion of his marriage to the
great heiress of that day, Mary of Burgundy. There are some who believe
that Maximilian was the author, or at least that he sketched out the
plan which Pfintzing executed. As, however, the espousals took place in
1479, before the poet was born, and Mary had early lost her life from a
fall,—the probability is that the emperor supplied some of the incidents
and suggestions, and that his secretary completed the work. The splendid
volume was dedicated to Charles V. in 1517, and published the same year,
a noble monument of typographic art.
Of a later work known under the name of “~Turnierbuch~,”—_The
Tournament-book_,—by George Rüxner, namely, _Beginning, Source, and
Progress of Tournaments in the German nation_ (Siemern, S. Rodler, 1530,
folio, pp. 402), Brunet informs us (_Manuel_, vol. iv. c. 1471), “There
are found for the most part in this edition printed at the castle of
Simmern” (about twenty-five miles south of Coblentz) “in 1530, the
characters already employed in the two editions of the _Tewrdannckh_ of
1517 and 1519; there may also be remarked numerous engravings on wood of
the same kind as those of the romance in verse we have just cited.” The
edition of 1532 “printed at the same castle,” is not in the same
characters as that of 1530.
CEBES, the Theban, the disciple of Socrates, though mentioned at pp. 12,
13, must again be introduced, for an edition of his little work in Latin
had appeared at Boulogne in 1497, and at Venice in 1500; also at
Francfort, “by the honest men Lamperter and Murrer,” in 1507, with the
letter of John Æsticampianus; the Greek was printed by Aldus in 1503,
and several other editions followed up to the end of the century;—indeed
there were translations into Arabic, French, Italian, German, and
English.[48]
_Plate 1^b_
[Illustration: _Tableau of Human Life from Cebes. B.C. 390._]
II.—ANDREW ALCIAT, the celebrated jurisconsult, remarkable, as some
testify, for serious defects, as for his surpassing knowledge and power
of mind, is characterized by Erasmus as “the orator best skilled in
law,” and “the lawyer most eloquent of speech;”—of his composition there
was published in 1522, at Milan, an _Emblematum Libellus_, or “Little
Book of Emblems.”[49] It established, if it did not introduce, a new
style for Emblem Literature, the classical in the place of the simply
grotesque and humorous, or of the heraldic and mythic. It is by no means
certain that the change should be named an unmixed gain. Stately and
artificial, the school of Alciat and his followers indicates at every
stanza its full acquaintance with mythologies Greek and Roman, but it is
deficient in the easy expression which distinguishes the poet of nature
above him whom learning chiefly guides: it seldom betrays either
enthusiasm of genius or depth of imaginative power.
Nevertheless the style chimed in with the taste of the age, and the
little book,—at least that edition of it which is the earliest we have
seen, Augsburg, A.D. 1531,[50] contained in eighty-eight pages, small
8vo, with ninety-seven Emblems and as many woodcuts,—won its way from
being a tiny volume of 11.5 square inches of letterpress on each of
eighty-eight pages, until with notes and comments it was comprised only
in a large 4to of 1004 pages with thirty-seven square inches of
letter-press on each page. Thus the little one that had in it only 1012
square inches of text and picture became a mountain, a monument in
Alciat’s honour, numbering up 37,128 square inches of text, picture, and
comment. The _little_ book of Augsburg, 1531, may be read and digested,
but only an immortal patience could labour through the entire of the
_great_ book of Padua, 1621. In that interval of ninety years, however,
edition after edition of the favourite emblematist appeared; with
translations into French 1536, into German 1542, into Spanish and
Italian in 1549, and, if we may credit Ames’ _Antiquities of Printing_,
Herbert’s edition, p. 1570, into English in 1551. The total number of
the editions during that period was certainly not less than 130, of
seventy of which a pretty close examination has been made by the writer
of this sketch. The list of editions, as far as completed, numbers up
about 150, and manifests a persistence in popularity that has seldom
been attained.
The earliest French translator was John Lefevre, an ecclesiastic, born
at Dijon in 1493,—_Les Emblemes de Maistre Andre Alciat_: Paris, 1536.
He was secretary to Cardinal Givry, whose protection he enjoyed, and
died in 1565. Bartholomew Aneau, himself an emblematist, was the next
translator into French, 1549; and a third, Claude Mignault, appeared in
1583. Wolfgang Hunger, a Bavarian, in 1542,[51] and Jeremiah Held of
Nördlingen, were the German translators; Bernardino Daza Pinciano, in
1549, _Los Emblemas de Alciato_, was the Spanish; and Giovanni Marquale,
in 1547, the Italian,—_Diverse Imprese_.
The notes and comments upon Alciat’s Emblems manifest great research and
very extensive learning. Sebastian Stockhamer supplied _commentariola_,
short comments, to the Lyons edition of 1556. Francis Sanctius, or
Sanchez, one of the restorers of literature in Spain, born in 1523, also
added _commentaria_ to the Lyons edition of 1573. Above all we must name
Claude Mignault, whose praise is that “to a varied learning he joined a
rare integrity.” He was born near Dijon about 1536, and died in 1606.
His comments in full appeared in Plantin’s[52] Antwerp edition, 8vo, of
1573, and may be appealed to in proof of much patient research and
extensive erudition. Lorenzo Pignoria, born at Padua in 1571, and
celebrated for his study of Egyptian antiquities, also compiled notes on
Alciat’s Emblems in MDCXIIX.[53] The results of the labours of the
three, Sanchez, Mignault, and Pignorius, were collected in the Padua
editions of 1621 and 1661. It is scarcely possible that so many editions
should have issued from the press, and so much learning have been
bestowed, without the knowledge of Alciat’s Emblems having penetrated
every nook and corner of the literary world.
With a glance only at the “PROGNOSTICATIO,” of Theophrastus Paracelsus,
the alchemist and enthusiast, written in 1536, and expressed in
thirty-two copperplates, we pass at once to the _Dance of Death_, by
Hans Holbein, which Bewick, 1789, and Douce, 1833, in London, and
Schlotthauer and Fortoul, 1832, in Munich and Paris, have made familiar
to English, German, and French readers. Of Holbein himself, it is
sufficient here to say that he was born at Bâle in 1495, and died in
London in 1543.
Mr. Corser’s copy of the first edition of the _Dance of Death_, and
which was the gift of Francis Douce, Esq., to Edward Vernon Utterson,
supplies the following title, “LES SIMULACHRES & HISTORIEES FACES DE LA
MORT, avtant elegammēt pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées: A
Lyon, soubz l’escu de Coloigne, M.D.XXXVIII.” The volume is a small
quarto of 104 pages, unnumbered, dedicated to Madame Johanna de
Touszele, the Reverend Abbess of the convent of Saint Peter at Lyons.
There are forty-one emblems, each headed by a text of scripture from the
Latin version; the devices follow, with a French stanza of four lines to
each; and there are sundry Dissertations by Jean de Vauzelles, an
eminent divine and scholar of the same city. But who can speak of the
beauty of the work? The designs by Holbein are many of them wonderfully
conceived,—the engravings by Hans Lützenberge, or Leutzelburger, as
admirably executed.[54]
Rapidly was the work transferred into Latin and Italian, and before the
end of the century at least fifteen editions had issued from the presses
of Lyons, Bâle, and Cologne.
Scarcely less celebrated are Holbein’s _Historical Figures of the Old
Testament_, which Sibald Beham’s had preceded in Francfort by only two
years. Beham’s whole series of Bible Figures are contained in 348
prints, and were published between 1536 and 1540. Dibdin’s _Decameron_,
vol. i. pp. 176, 177, will supply a full account of Holbein’s
“Historiarum Veteris Instrumenti icones ad vivum expressæ una cum brevi,
sed quoad fieri potuit, dilucida earundem expositione:” Lyons, small
4to, 1538. The edition of Frellonius, Lyons, 1547, is a very close
reprint of the second edition, and from this it appears that the work is
contained in fifty-two leaves, unnumbered, and that there are
ninety-four devices, which are admirable specimens of wood-engraving.
The first four are from the _Dance of Death_, but the others appropriate
to the subjects, each being accompanied by a French stanza of four
lines.
A Spanish translation was issued in 1543; and in 1549, at Lyons, an
English version, “The Images of the Old Testament, lately expressed, set
forthe in Ynglishe and Frenche, vuith a playn and brief exposition.” All
the editions of the century were about twelve.
Hans Brosamer, of Fulda, laboured in the same mine, and between
1551 and 1553, copying chiefly from Holbein and Albert Durer,
produced at Francfort his “~Biblische Historien kunstlich
fürgemalet~,”—_Bible Histories artistically pictured_ (3 vols.
in 1).
We will, though somewhat earlier than the exact date, continue the
subject of Bible-Figure Emblem-books by alluding to the _Quadrins
historiques de la Bible_,—“Historic Picture-frames of the Bible,”—for
the most part engraved by “Le Petit Bernard,” _alias_ Solomon Bernard,
who was born at Lyons in 1512. Of these works in French, English,
Spanish, Italian, Latin, Flemish, and German, there were twenty-two
editions printed between 1553 and 1583. Their general nature may be
known from the fact that to each Scripture subject there is a device, in
design and execution equally good, and that it is followed or
accompanied by a Latin, Italian, &c. stanza, as the case may be. In the
Italian version, Lyons, 1554, the Old Testament is illustrated by 222
engravings, and the New by ninety-five.
The first of the series appears to be _Quadrins historiques du Genèse_,
Lyons, 1553; followed in the same year by _Quadrins historiques de
l’Exode_. There is also of the same date (see Brunet, iv. c. 996), “The
true and lyuely historyke Pvrtreatures of the woll Bible (with the
arguments of eache figure, translated into english metre by Peter
Derendel): Lyons; by Jean of Tournes.”
To conclude, there were _Figures of the Bible_, illustrated by French
stanzas, and also by Italian and by German; published at Lyons and at
Venice between 1564 and 1582. (See Brunet’s _Manuel_, ii. c. 1255.) Also
Jost Amman, at Francfort, in 1564; and Virgil Solis, from 1560 to 1568,
contributed to German works of the same character.
Two names of note among emblematists crown the years 1539 and 1540, both
in Paris: they are William de la Perrière, and Giles Corrozet; of the
former we know little more than that he was a native of Toulouse, and
dedicated his chief work to “Margaret of France, Queen of Navarre, the
only sister of the very Christian King of France;” and of the latter,
that, born in Paris in 1510, and dying there in 1568, he was a
successful printer and bookseller, and distinguished (see Brunet’s
_Manuel_, ii. cc. 299–308) for a large number of works on History,
Antiquities, and kindred subjects.
La Perrière’s chief Emblem-work is _Le Theatre des bons Engins, auquel
sont contenus cent Emblemes_: Paris, 8vo, 1539. There are 110 leaves and
really 101 emblems, each device having a pretty border. His other
Emblem-works are—_The Hundred Thoughts of Love_, 1543, with woodcuts to
each page; _Thoughts on the Four Worlds_, “namely, the divine, the
angelic, the heavenly, and the sensible,” Lyons, 1552; and “LA
MOROSOPHIE,”—_The Wisdom of Folly_,—containing a hundred moral emblems,
illustrated by a hundred stanzas of four lines, both in Latin and in
French.
Corrozet’s “HECATOMGRAPHIE,” Paris, 1540, is a description of a hundred
figures and histories, and contains Apophthegms, Proverbs, Sentences,
and Sayings, as well ancient as modern. Each page of the 100 emblems is
surrounded by a beautiful border, the devices are neat woodcuts, having
the same borders with La Perrière’s _Theatre of good Contrivances_.
There is also to each a page of explanatory French verses.
It requires a stricter inquiry than I have yet been able to make in
order to determine if Corrozet’s _Blasons domestiques_; _Blason du Moys
de May_; and _Tapisserie de l’Eglise chrestienne & catholique_, bear a
decided emblematical character; the titles have a taste of emblematism,
but are by no means decisive of the fact.
III.—Maurice Sceve’s _Delie, Object de plus haulte Vertu_, Lyons, 1544,
with woodcuts, and 458 ten-lined stanzas on love, is included in the
Blandford _Catalogue_; and in the Keir Collection are both _The very
admirable, very magnificient and triumphant Entry of Prince Philip of
Spain into Antwerp in 1549_,[55] by Grapheus, _alias_ Scribonius;
edition 1550: and Gueroult’s _Premier Livre des Emblemes_; Lyons, 1550.
The same year, 1550, at Augsburg, has marked against it
“~Geschlechtes Buch~,”—_Pedigree-book_,—which recurs in 1580.
Claude Paradin, the canon of Beaujeu, a small town on the Ardiere, in
the department of the Rhone, published the first edition of his simple
but very interesting _Devises heroiques_, with 180 woodcuts, at Lyons in
1557. It was afterwards enlarged by gatherings from Gabriel Symeoni and
other writers; but, either under its own name or that of _Symbola
heroica_ (edition 1567) was very popular, and before 1600 was printed at
Lyons, Antwerp, Douay, and Leyden, not fewer than twelve times. The
English translation, with which it is generally admitted that
Shakespeare was acquainted, was printed in London, in 12mo, in 1591, and
bears the title, _The Heroicall Devises of M. Clavdivs Paradin, Canon of
Beauieu_, “Whereunto are added the Lord Gabriel Symeons and others.
Translated out of Latin into English by P.S.”
To another Paradin are assigned _Quadrins historiques de la Bible_,
published at Lyons by Jean de Tournes, 1555; and of which the same
publisher issued Spanish, English, Italian, German, and Flemish
versions.
The rich Emblem Collection at Keir furnishes the first edition of each
of Doni’s three Emblem-works, in 4to, printed by Antonio Francesco
Marcolini at Venice in 1552–53; they are: 1. “I MONDI,”—_i.e._, _The
Worlds, celestial, terrestrial, and infernal_,—2 parts in 1, with
woodcuts. 2. “I MARMI,”—_The Marbles_,—4 parts in 1, a collection of
pleasant little tales and interesting notices, with woodcuts by the
printer; who also, according to Bryan, was an engraver of “considerable
merit.” 3. “LA MORAL FILOSOFIA,”—_Moral Philosophy drawn from the
ancient Writers_,—2 parts in 1, with woodcuts. In it are abundant
extracts from the ancient fabulists, as Lokman and Bidpai, and a variety
of little narrative tales and allegories.
Of an English translation, two editions appeared in London in 1570 and
1601, during Shakespeare’s lifetime; namely, “~The Morall
Philosophie~ of Doni, englished out of italien by sir Th.
North,”[56] 4to, with engravings on wood.
Under the two titles of “PICTA POESIS,” and “LIMAGINATION POETIQUE,”
Bartholomew Aneau, or Anulus, published his “exquisite little gem,” as
Mr. Atkinson, a former owner of the copy which is now before me,
describes the work. It appeared at Lyons in 1552, and contains 106
emblems, the stanzas to which, in the Latin edition, are occasionally in
Greek, but in the French edition, “vers François des Latins et Grecz,
par l’auteur mesme d’iceux.”
Achille Bocchi, a celebrated Italian scholar, the founder, in 1546, of
the Academy of Bologna, Virgil Solis, of Nuremberg, an artist of
considerable repute, Pierre Cousteau, or Costalius, of Lyons, and Paolo
Giovio, an accomplished writer, Bishop of Nocera, give name to four of
the Emblem-books which were issued in the year 1555. That of Bocchius is
entitled “SYMBOLICARVM QVAESTIONVM, LIBRI QVINQVE,” Bononiæ, 1555, 4to;
and numbers up 146, or, more correctly, 150 emblems in 340 pages: the
devices are the work of Giulio Bonasone, from copper-plates of great
excellence. In 1556, _Bononiæ_ Sambigucius put forth _In Hermathenam
Bocchiam Interpretatio_, which is simply a comment on the 102nd emblem
of Bocchius. Virgil Solis published in 4to, at Nuremberg, the same year,
“LIBELLUS Sartorum, seu Signorum publicorum,”—_A little Book of
Cobblers, or of public Signs_. Cousteau’s “PEGMA,”[57] which some say
appeared first in 1552, is, as the name denotes, a _Structure_ of
emblems, ninety-five in number, with _philosophical narratives_,—each
page being surrounded by a pretty border. And Giovio’s “DIALOGO dell’
Imprese Militari et Amore,”—_Dialogue of Emblems of War and of Love_;
or, as it is sometimes named, “RAGIONAMENTO, _Discourse concerning the
words and devices of arms and of love, which are commonly named
Emblems_,”—is probably the first regular treatise on the subject which
had yet appeared, and which attained high popularity.
Its estimation in England is shown by the translation which was issued
in London in 1585, entitled, “THE Worthy tract of Paulus Iouius,
contayning a Discourse of rare inuentions, both Militarie and Amorous,
_called Imprese. Whereunto is added_ a Pre_face_ _contay_-ning the Arte
of composing them, with _many other notable deuises_. _By Samuell
Daniell late Student_ in Oxenforde.”
Intimately connected with Giovio’s little work, indeed often
constituting parts of the same volume, were Ruscelli’s “DISCORSO” on the
same subject, Venice, 1556; and Domenichi’s “RAGIONAMENTO,” also at
Venice, in 1556. From the testimony of Sir Egerton Brydges (_Res Lit._),
“Ruscelli was one of the first literati of his time, and was held in
esteem by princes and all ranks of people.”
Very frequently, too, in combination with Giovio’s Dialogue on Emblems,
are to be found Ruscelli’s “IMPRESE ILLVSTRI,” Venice, 1566; or
Symeoni’s “IMPRESE HEROICHE ET MORALI,” Lyons, 1559; and “SENTENTIOSE
IMPRESE,” Lyons, 1562.
Roville’s Lyons edition, of 1574, thus unites in one title-page Giovio,
Symeoni, and Domenichi, “DIALOGO DELLIMPRESE MILITARI ET AMOROSE, De
Monsignor Giouio Vescouo di Nocera _Et del S. Gabriel Symeoni
Fiorentino_, Con vn ragionamento di M. Lodouico Domenichi, nel medesimo
soggetto.”
Taking together all the editions in Italian, French, and Spanish, of
these four authors, single or combined, which I have had the opportunity
of examining, there are no less than _twenty-two_ between 1555 and 1585,
besides five or six other editions named by Brunet in his _Manuel du
Libraire_. Roville’s French edition, 4to, Lyons, 1561, is by Vasquin
Philieul, “Dialogve des Devises d’Armes et d’Amovrs dv S. Pavlo Iovio,
_Auec vn Discours de M. Loys Dominique_—et _les Deuises Heroiques et
Morales du Seigneur Gabriel Symeon_.”
At this epoch we enter upon ground which has been skilfully upturned and
cultivated by Claude Francis Menestrier, born at Lyons in 1631, and
“distinguished by his various works on heraldry, decorations, public
ceremonials, &c.” (Aikin’s _Gen. Biog._ vii. p. 41.) In his “PHILOSOPHIA
IMAGINUM,”—_Philosophy of Images_,—an octavo volume of 860 pages,
published at Amsterdam, 1695, he gives, in ninety-four pages, a
“JUDICIUM,” _i.e._, _a judgment respecting all authors who have written
on Symbolic Art_; and of those Authors whom we have named, or may be
about to name, within the Period to which our Sketch extends, he
mentions that he has examined the works of
A.D.
1555.[58] _Paulus Jovius_, p. 1.
1556. _Ludovicus Dominicus_, p. 3.
” _Hieronymus Ruscellius_, p. 4.
1561. _Alphonsus Ulloa_, ibid.
1562. _Scipio Amiratus_, p. 5.
1571. _Alexander Farra_, p. 6.
” _Bartholoæmus Taëgius_, p. 7.
1574. _Lucas Contile_, p. 9.
1577. _Johannes Andreas Palatius_, p. 10.
1578. _Scipio Bergalius_, p. 12.
1580. _Franciscus Caburaccius_, p. 12.
1588. _Abrahamus Fransius_, p. 15.
1591. _Julius Cæsar Capacius_, ibid.
” _D. Albertus Bernardetti_, p. 17.
1594. _Torquatus Tassus_, p. 14.
1600. _Jacobus Sassus_, p. 18.
1601. _Andreas Chioccus_, ibid.
1612. _Hercules Tassus_, p. 19.
” _P. Horatius Montalde_, p. 23.
” _Johannes Baptista Personé_, ib.
1620. _Franciscus d’Amboise_, ibid.
It may also be gathered from the “JUDICIUM” that Menestrier had read
with care what had been written on Emblems by the following authors:—
A.D.
1551. _Gabriel Simeoni_, p. 63.
1557. _Claudius Paradinus_, p. 68.
1562. _Mauritius Sevus_, p. 55.
1565. _J. Baptista Pittonius_, p. 70.
1573. _Claudius Minos_, p. 54.
1588. _Bernardinus Percivalle_, p. 64.
” _Principius Fabricius_, p. 76.
1600. _Johannes Pinedi,_ p. 60.
1609. _Jacobus Le Vasseur_, p. 91.
1613. _J. Franciscus de Villava_, p. 55.
Excluding the editions before enumerated, the books of emblems which I
have noted from various sources as assigned to the authors in the above
lists from Menestrier, amount to from _twenty-five_ to _thirty_, with
the titles of which there is no occasion to trouble the reader.
Returning from this digression, Vincenzo Cartari should next be named in
order of time. At Venice, in 1556, appeared his “IMAGINI DEI _Dei degli
Antichi_,”—_Images of the Gods of the Ancients_,—4to, of above 500
pages. It contains an account of the Idols, Rites, Ceremonies, and other
things appertaining to the old Religions. It was a work often reprinted,
and in 1581 translated into French by Antoine du Verdier, the same who,
in 1585, gave in folio a Catalogue of all who have written or translated
into French up to that time.
A folio of 1100 pages, which within the period of our sketch
was reprinted four times, issued from Bâle in 1556; it is,
“HIEROGLYPHICA,”—_Hieroglyphics_, or, _Commentaries on the Sacred
Literature of the Egyptians_,—by John Pierius Valerian, a man of
letters, born in extreme poverty at Belluno in 1477, and untaught the
very elements of learning until he was fifteen. (Aikin’s _Gen. Biog._
ix. 537.) He died in 1558. As an exposition of the Egyptian
hieroglyphics, his very learned work is little esteemed; but it contains
emblems innumerable, comprised in fifty-eight books, each book dedicated
to a person of note, and treating one class of objects. The
devices—small woodcuts—amount to 365.
Etienne Jodelle, a poet, equally versatile whether in Latin or in
French, was skilled in the ancient languages, and acquainted with the
arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture, as well as dexterous in
the use of arms. He published, in 1558, a thin quarto “RECUEIL,” or
_Collection_ of the inscriptions, figures, devices, and masks ordained
in Paris at the Hôtel de Ville. The same year, and again in 1569 and
1573, appeared the large folio volume, in five parts, “AUSTRIACIS GENTIS
IMAGINES,”—_Portraits of the Austrian family_,—full lengths, engraved by
Gaspar ab Avibus, of Padua. At the foot of each portrait are a
four-lined stanza, a brief biographical notice, and some emblematical
figure. Of similar character, though much inferior as a work of art, is
Jean Nestor’s HISTOIRE _des Hommes illustres de la Maison de Medici_; a
quarto of about 240 leaves, printed at Paris in 1564. (See the Keir
_Catalogue_, p. 143.) It contains “twelve woodcuts of the emblems of the
different members of the House of Medici.”
Hoffer’s “ICONES CATECHESEOS,” or _Pictures of instruction_, and of
virtues and vices, illustrated by verses, and also by seventy-eight
figures or woodcuts, was printed at Wittenberg in 1560. The next year,
1561—if not in 1556 (see Brunet’s _Manuel_, vol. ii. cc. 930, 931)—John
Duvet, one of the earliest engravers on copper in France, at Lyons,
published in twenty-four plates, folio, his chief work, “LAPOCALYPSE
FIGUREE;” and in 1562, at Naples, the Historian of Florence, Scipione
Ammirato, gave to the world “IL ROTA OVERO DELL’ IMPRESE,” or, _Dialogue
of the Sig. Scipione Ammirato_, in which he discourses of many emblems
of divers excellent authors, and of some rules and admonitions
concerning this subject written to the Sig. Vincenzo Carrafa.
Were it less a subject of debate between Dutch and German critics as to
the exact character of the “SPELEN VAN SINNE,”[59] which were published
by the Chambers of Rhetoric at Ghent in 1539, and by those of Antwerp in
1561 and 1562 (see Brunet’s _Manuel_, vol. v. c. 484), we should claim
these works for our Emblem domain. But whether claimed or not, the
exhibitions and amusements of the Chambers of Rhetoric, especially at
their great gatherings in the chief cities of the Netherlands, were
often very lively representations by action and accessory devices of
dramatic thought and sentiment, from “King Herod and his Deeds,”
“enacted in the Cathedral of Utrecht in 1418,” to what Motley, in his
_Dutch Republic_, vol. i. p. 80, terms the “magnificent processions,
brilliant costumes, living pictures, charades, and other animated,
glittering groups,”—“trials of dramatic and poetic skill, all arranged
under the superintendence of the particular association which in the
preceding year had borne away the prize.”
“The Rhetorical Chambers existed in the most obscure villages” (Motley,
i. p. 79); and had regular constitutions, being presided over by
officers with high-sounding titles, as kings, princes, captains, and
archdeacons,—and each having “its peculiar title or blazon, as the Lily,
the Marigold, or the Violet, with an appropriate motto.” After 1493 they
were “incorporated under the general supervision of an upper or
mother-society of Rhetoric, consisting of fifteen members, and called by
the title of ‘Jesus with the balsam flower.’”
As I have been informed by Mr. Hessells, Siegenbeek, in his
_Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Letterkunde_, says,—“Besides the
ordinary meetings of the Chambers, certain poetical feasts were in vogue
among the Rhetor-gevers, whereby one or other subject, to be responded
to in burdens or short songs (_liedekens_), according to the contents of
the card, was announced, with the promise of prizes to those who would
best answer the proposed question. But the so-called _Entries_ deserve
for their magnificence, and the diversity of poetical productions which
they give rise to, especially our attention.
“It happened from time to time that one or other of the most important
Chambers sent a card in rhyme to the other Chambers of the same
province, whereby they were invited to be at a given time in the town
where the senders of the card were established, for the sake of the
celebration of a poetical feast. This card contained further everything
by which it was desired that the Chambers, which were to make their
appearance, should illustrate this feast, viz., the performance of an
allegorical play (_zinnespel_) in response to some given question;[60]
the preparation of _esbatementez_ (drawings), _facéties_ (jests),
prologues; the execution of splendid entries and processions; the
exhibitions of beautifully painted coats of arms, &c. These entries were
of two kinds, _landiuweelen_, and _haagspelen_>;—the _landjewels_ were
the most splendid, and were performed in towns; the _hedge-plays_
belonged properly to villages, though sometimes in towns these followed
the performance of a landjewel.” Originally, _landjewel_ meant a prize
of honour of the land; called also _landprys_ (land-prize).
Such were the periodic jubilees of a neighbouring people, their
“land-jewels,” as they were termed, when the birthtime of our greatest
English dramatist arrived. And as we mark the wide and increasing
streams of the Emblem Literature flowing over every European land, and
how the common tongue of Rome gave one language to all Christendom, can
we deem it probable that any man of genius, of discernment, and of only
the usual attainments of his compeers, would live by the side of these
streams and never dip his finger into the waters, nor wet even the soles
of his feet where the babbling emblems flowed?
Some there have been to maintain that Shakespeare had visited the
Netherlands, or even resided there; and it is consequently within the
limits of no unreasonable conjecture that he had seen the _landjewels_
distributed, and at the sight felt himself inspirited to win a nobler
fame.
[Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECTION IV.
_EMBLEM WORKS AND EDITIONS BETWEEN A.D. 1564 AND A.D. 1616._
IN the year at which this Section begins, Shakespeare was born, and for
a whole century the Emblem tide never ebbed. There was an uninterrupted
succession of new writers and of new editions. Many eminent names have
appeared in the past, and names as eminent will adorn the future.
The fifty years which remain to the period comprised within the limits
of this Sketch of Emblem Literature we divide into two portions of
twenty-five years each: 1st, up to 1590, when Shakespeare had fairly
entered on his dramatic career; and 2nd, from 1590 to 1615, when,
according to Steevens (edition 1785, vol. i. p. 354), his labours had
ended with _The Twelfth Night, or, What You Will_. As far as actual
correspondences between Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers demand, our
Sketch might finish with 1610, or even earlier: for some time will of
necessity intervene, after a work has been issued, before it will modify
the thoughts of others, or enter into the phrases which they employ.
However, there is nothing very incongruous in making this Sketch and the
last of Shakespeare’s dramas terminate with the same date.
I.—In 1564, at Rome, in 4to, the distinguished Latinist, Gabriel
Faerno’s Fables were first printed, 100 in number;—it was three years
after his death. The plates are from designs which Titian is said to
have drawn. Our English Whitney adopts several of Faerno’s Fables among
his Emblems, and on this authority we class them with books of Emblems.
From time to time, as late as to 1796, new editions and translations of
the Fables have been issued. A copy in the Free Library, Manchester,
“Romæ Vincentius Luchinus, 1565,” bears the title, _Fabvlae Centvm ex
antiqvis avctoribvs delectae, et a Gabriele Faerno, Cremonensi
carminibvs explicatae_.
Virgil Solis, a native of Nuremberg, where he was born in 1514, and
where he died in 1570; and Jost Amman, who was born at Zurich in 1539,
but passed his life at Nuremberg, and died there in 1591, were both
artists of high repute, and contributed to the illustration of
Emblem-works. The former, between 1560 and 1568, produced 125 _New
Figures for the New Testament_, and _An Artistic little Book of
Animals_; and the latter, from 1564 to 1586, contributed very largely to
books of _Biblical Figures_, of “Animals,” of “Genealogies,” of
“Heraldry,” and of the _Habits_ and _Costumes_ of All Ranks of the
_Clergy of the Roman Church_, and of _Women_ of every “Condition,
profession, _and age_,” throughout the nations of Europe.
From the press of Christopher Plantin, of Antwerp, there issued nearly
fifty editions of Emblem-books between 1564 and 1590. Of these, one of
the earliest was, “EMBLEMATA CVM ALIQVOT NVMMIS ANTIQVIS,”—_Emblems with
some ancient Coins_,—4to, 1564, by the Hungarian, John Sambucus, born at
Tornau in 1531. A French version, _Les Emblemes de Jehan Sambucus_,
issued from the same press in 1567. Among Emblematists, none bears a
fairer name as “physician, antiquary, and poet.” According to De Bry’s
_Icones_, pt. iii., ed. 1598, pp. 76–83, he obtained the patronage of
two emperors, Maximilian II. and Rudolph II., under whom he held the
offices of counsellor of state and historian of the empire. To him also
belonged the rare honour of having his work commented on by one of the
great heroes of Christendom, Don John of Austria, in 1572.
_Les Songes drolatiqves de Pantagrvel_, by Rabelais, appeared at Paris
in 1565, but its emblematical character has been doubted. Not so,
however, the ten editions of the “EMBLEMATA” of _Hadrian Junius_, a
celebrated Dutch physician, of which the first edition appeared in 1565,
and justly claims to be “the most elegant which the presses of Plantin
had produced at this period.”
We may now begin to chronicle a considerable number of works and
editions of Emblems by ITALIAN writers, which, to avoid prolixity and
yet to point out, we present in a tabulated form, giving only the
earliest editions:—
Pittoni’s _Imprese di diversi sm.fol. Venice 1566
principi, duchi, &c._ _k._[61]
Troiano’s _Discorsi delli triomfi, 4to Monica 1568
giostre, &c._ _k._
Rime _Rime de gli Academici 4to Brescia 1568
occvlti, &c._ _k._
Farra’s _Settenario dell’ humana ... ... 1571
riduttione_ _v._
Dolce’s _Le prime imprese del 4to Venice 1572
conte Orlando_ _v._
” _Dialogo_ 8vo Venice 1575
_k._
Contile’s _Ragionamento—sopra la Fol. Pavia 1574
proprieta delle Imprese, _k._
&c._
Fiorino’s _Opera nuova, &c._ 4to Lyons 1577
_k._
Palazza’s _I Discorsi—Imprese, &c._ 8vo Bologna 1577
_k._
Caburacci’s _Trattato,—dove si 4to Bologna 1580
dimostra il vero e novo _k._
modo di fare le
Imprese._
Guazzo’s _Dialoghi piacevoli_ 4to Venice 1585
_k._
Camilli’s _Imprese—co i discorsi, et 4to Venice 1586
con le figure_ _k._
Cimolotti’s _Il superbi_ 4to Pavia 1587
_k._
Fabrici’s _Delle allusioni, imprese 4to Roma 1588
& emblemi sopra la vita, _k._
&c., di Gregorio XIII._
Rinaldi’s _Il mostruosissimo_ 8vo Ferrara 1588
_k._
Porro’s _Il primo libro_ 4to Milano 1589
_k._
Pezzi’s _La Vigna del 4to Venetia 1589
Signore—Sacramenti, _t._
Paradiso, Limbo, &c._
Bargagli’s _Dell’ Imprese_ 4to Venetia 1589
_v._
So, briefly, in the order of time, may we name several of the French,
Latin, and German Emblem-writers of this period, together with the
Spanish and English:—
FRENCH.
Grevin’s _Emblemes d’Adrian La 16mo Anvers 1568
Jeune_ _v._
Vander _Theatre ... les 8vo Londres 1568
Noot’s inconueniens et miseres _v._
qui suiuent les mondains
et vicieux, &c._
De _Emblêmes ou devises 4to Lyon 1571
Montenay’s chrestiennes_ _k._
Chartier’s _Les Blasons de vertu par 4to Aureliæ 1574
vertu_ _v._
Droyn’s[62] _La Grand nef des fols du fol. à Lyon 1579
monde_ _c._
Goulart’s _Les Vrais Pourtraits des 4to Genue 1581
Hommes illustres._ _k._
Verdier’s _Les images des anciens 4to Lyon 1581
dieux (par V. Cartari)._ _v._
Anjou _La joyeuse et magnif. fol. à Anvers 1582
entrée de Mons. _k._
Françoys, duc de
Brabant, Anjou, &c., en
ville d’Anvers._
L’Anglois _Discours des hierog. 4to Paris 1583
égyptiens, emblêmes, _k._
&c._
Messin _Emblêmes latins de J.J. 4to Metis 1588
Boissard, avec _c._
l’interpretation
françoise_.
Of these works, Vander Noot’s was translated into English, says Brunet,
(v. c. 1072,) by Henry Bynneman, 1569, and is remarkable for containing
(see _Ath. Cantab._ ii. p. 258) certain poems, termed sonnets, and
epigrams, which Spenser wrote before his sixteenth year. Mademoiselle
Georgette de Montenay was a French lady of noble birth, and dedicated
her 100 Emblems “to the very illustrious and virtuous Princesse, Madame
Jane D’Albret, Queen of Navarre.” Chartier, a painter and engraver,
flourished about 1574; L’Anglois is not mentioned in the _Hieroglyphics_
of Dr. Leemans, nor do I find any notice of Messin.
LATIN.
Schopperus Πανοπλία, _omnium 8vo Francof 1568
illiberalium _v._
mechanicarum, &c._
” _De omnibus illiberalibus 8vo Francof 1574
sive mechanicis _t._
artibus._
Arias _Humanæ salutis monumenta, 4to Antverpiæ 1572
Montanus &c._ _k._
Sanctius _Commentaria in A. Alciati 8vo Lugduni 1573
Emblemata._ _k._
Furmerus _De rerum usu et abusu_ 4to Antverpiæ 1575
_t._
Lonicer, Ph. _Insignia sacræ Cæsareæ, 4to Francof 1579
maj. &c._ _k._
Estienne, _Anthologia gnomica_ 8vo Francof 1579
Henri _k._
Freitag _Mythologia ethica_ 4to Antverpiæ 1579
_t._
Microcosm Μικροκοσμος, _parvus 4to ... 1579
mundus, &c._ _v._
ΜΙΚΡΟΚΟΣΜΟΣ _Parvus Mundus_ 4to Antverpiæ 1592
_k._
Beza _Icones—accedunt 4to Genevæ 1581
emblemata_ _c._
Hesius, G. _Emblemata sacra_ 4to Francof 1581
_v._
Reusner _Emblemata—partim ethica 4to Francof 1581
et physica, &c._ _k._
” _Aureolorum Emblem. liber 8vo Argentor 1591
singularis._ _t._
Lonicer, _Venatus et Aucupium 4to Francof 1582
J.A. Iconibus artif._ _c._
Moherman _Apologi Creaturarum_ 4to Antverpiæ 1584
_t._
Emblemata _Emblemata Evangelica ad fol. ... 1585
XII. signa, &c._ _k._
Bol. _Emblemata Evang. ad. XII. 4to Francof 1585
Signa cœlestia._ _v._
Hortinus _Icones operum, &c._ 4to Romæ 1585
_k._
Modius _Liber—ordinis 8vo Francof 1585
Ecclesiastici origo, _t._
&c._
” _Pandectæ triumphales, fol. Francof 1586
&c._ _k._
Fraunce _Insignium, Armorum, 4to Londini 1588
Emblematum, Hierogl., _t._
&c._
Zuingerus _Icones aliquot clarorum 8vo Basileæ 1589
Virorum, &c._ _t._
Cælius _Emblemata Sacra_ 8vo Romæ 1589
(S.S.) _v._
Hortinus _Emblemata Sacra_ 4to Trajecti 1589
_v._
Camerarius _Symbolorum et Emblematum, 4to Norimberg 1590
&c._ _k._
Arias Montanus, born in Estremadura in 1527, was one of the very eminent
scholars of Spain; Furmerus, a Frieslander, flourished during the latter
half of the sixteenth century, and his work was translated into Dutch by
Coörnhert in 1585; Henri Estienne, one of the celebrated printers of
that name, was born in Paris in 1528, and died at Lyons in 1598; a list
of his works, many of them of high scholarship, occupies eight pages in
Brunet’s _Manuel du Libraire_. The name of Beza is of similar
renown;—both Etienne and he had to seek safety from persecution; and
when Etienne’s effigy was being burnt, he pleasantly said “that he had
never felt so cold as on the day when he was burning.” Laurence
Haechtanus was the author of the _Parvus Mundus_, 1579, which Gerardt de
Jode _den liefhebbers der consten_, the lover of art, has so admirably
adorned. Nicolas Reusner was a man of extensive learning, to whom the
emperor Rudolph II. decreed the poetic crown. Francis Modius was a
Fleming, a learned jurisconsult and Latinist, who died at Aire in
Artois, in 1597, at the age of sixty-one; Theodore Zuinger was a
celebrated physician of Bâle; and Joachim Camerarius, born at Nuremberg
in 1534, also a celebrated physician, one of the first to form a
botanical garden, “attained high reputation in his profession, and was
consulted for princes and persons of rank throughout Germany.”
An edition of a work reputed to be emblematic belongs to this period—to
1587; it is the _Physiologist_, by S. Epiphanius, to whom allusion has
been made at p. 28.
GERMAN.
Stimmer _Neue Kunstliche Figuren 4to Besel 1576
Biblischen, &c._ _t._
Feyrabend _Stam und Wapenbuch_ 4to Franckfurt 1579
_k._
Schrot _Wappenbuch_ 8vo Munich 1581
_k._
Lonicer, J. _Stand und Orden der 4to Francfurt 1585
A. heiligen Römischen _v._
Catholischen Kirchen._
Clamorinus _Thurnier-buch_ 4to Dresden 1590
_k._
Tobias Stimmer was an artist, born at Schaffhausen in 1544, and in
conjunction with his younger brother, John Christopher Stimmer, executed
part of the woodcuts in the Bible of Basle, 1576 and 1586. The younger
brother also prepared the prints for a set of Emblems, _Icones Affabræ_,
published at Strasburg in 1591. Sigismund Feyrabend is a name of great
note as a designer, engraver on wood, and bookseller, at Francfort,
towards the end of the sixteenth century. Who Martin Schrot was, does
not appear from the _Biographie Universelle_; and Clamorinus may
probably be regarded as only the editor of a republication of Rüxner’s
_Book of Tournaments_ that was printed in 1530.
DUTCH OR FLEMISH.
Van Ghelen Flemish translation, ... Anvers 1584
_Navis stultorum._ _v._
Coörnhert _Recht Ghebruyck ende 4to Leyden 1585
Misbruyck van tydlycke _v._
Have._
SPANISH.
Manuel _El conde Lucanor_ 4to Sevilla 1575
(apologues & fables). _v._
Boria _Emprese Morales_ 4to Praga 1581
_k._
Guzman _Triumphas morales_ 8vo Medina 1587
(nueuamente corregidos). _t._
Horozco _Emblemas Morales_ 8vo Segovia 1589
_t._
Don Juan Manuel was a descendant of the famous Alphonso V. His work
consists of forty-nine little tales, with a moral in verse to each. It
is regarded, says the _Biog. Univ._ vol. xxvi. p. 541, “as the finest
monument of Spanish literature in the sixteenth century.” There are
earlier editions of Francisco de Guzman’s _Moral Triumphs_, as at
Antwerp in 1557, but the edition above named claims to be more perfect
than the others. Horozco y Covaruvias was a native of Toledo, and died
in 1608; one of his offices was that of Bishop of Girgenti in Sicily. In
1601 he translated his Emblems into Latin, and printed it under the
title of _Symbolæ Sacræ_.
ENGLISH.
Bynneman’s _Translation of Vander 8vo London 1569
Noot’s Theatre._ _v._
North _The Morall Philosophie of 4to London 1570
Doni_ _v._
Daniell _The worthy tract of 8vo London 1585
Paulus Jovius, &c._ _k._
Whitney _A Choice of Emblemes, 4to Leyden 1586
&c._ _k._
Henry Bynneman, whose name is placed before the version of Vander Noot’s
_Theatre_, is not known with any certainty to have been the translator.
He was a celebrated printer in London from about 1566 to 1583. Sir
Thomas North, to whose translation of Plutarch, Shakespeare was largely
indebted, was probably an ancestor of the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal
under Charles II. Samuel Daniell enjoyed considerable reputation as a
poet, and on Spenser’s death in 1598, was appointed poet-laureate to the
Queen. Of Whitney it is known that he was a scholar of Oxford and of
Cambridge, and that his name appears on the roll of the university of
Leyden. He was a native of Cheshire, and died there in 1601. It may be
added that an edition of Barclay’s _Ship of Fooles_ was in 1570
“Imprinted at London in Paules Churchyarde by John Cawood Printer to the
Queenes Maiestie.”
Thus, in the period between Shakespeare’s birth and his full entry on
his dramatic career, we have named above sixty persons, many of great
eminence, who amused their leisure, or indulged their taste, by
composing books of Emblems; had we named also the editions of the same
authors, within these twenty-five years, they would have amounted to
156, exclusive of many reprints from other authors who wrote Emblems
between A.D. 1500 and A.D. 1564.
II.—Shakespeare’s Dramatic Career comprises another period of
twenty-five years,—from 1590 to 1615. From the necessity of the case,
indeed, few, if any of the Emblem writers and compilers towards the end
of the time could be known to him, and any correspondence between them
in thoughts or expressions must have been purely accidental. For the
completion of our Sketch, however, we proceed to the end of the period
we had marked out. And to save space, and, we hope, to avoid
tediousness, we will continue the tabulated form adopted in the last
Section.
ITALIAN.
Bernardetti _Giornata prima dell’ ... ... about
Imprese_ 1592
_v._
Capaccio _Delle Imprese trattato, 4to Napoli 1594
in tre libri diviso._ _k._
Tasso _Discorsi del Poeme_ 4to Napoli 1594
_k._
Porri _Vaso di verita ... dell’ 4to Venetia 1597
antichristo_ _v._
Dalla Torre _Dialogo_ 4to Trivegi 1598
_k._
Caputi _La Pompa_ 4to Napoli 1599
_k._
Zoppio _La Montagna_ 4to Bologna 1600
_k._
Belloni _Discorso_ 4to Padova 1601
_k._
Chiocci _Delle imprese, e del vero ... ... 1601
modo di formarle._ _v._
Pittoni _Imprese di diversi fol. Venezia 1602
principi, &c._ _v._
(reprint).
Ripa _Iconologia, &c., 4to Roma 1603
Concetti, Emblemi, ed _k._
Imprese._
” ” ” ” 4to Siena 1613
_t._
Vænius _Amorum Emblemata_, in obl. Antverp 1608
Latin, English, and 4to _k.t._
Italian.
Glissenti _Discorsi morali ... 4to Venetia 1609
contra il dispiacer del _v._
morire, &c._
Giulio Cesare Capaccio, besides his Neapolitan History, and one or two
other works, is also the author of _Il Principe_, Venetia, 1620, a
treatise on the Emblems of Alciatus, with more than 200 political and
moral notices. Torquato Tasso is a name that needs no praise here. Of
Alessio Porri I have found no other mention; and I may say the same of
Gio. Dalla Torre, of Ottavio Caputi, and of Gio. Belloni. Melchior
Zoppio, born in 1544 at Bologna (_Biog. Univ._ vol. lii. p. 430), was
one of the founders of the Academia di Gelati, in his native town.
Battisti Pittoni was a painter and engraver, who flourished between 1561
and 1585. The extensive work of Cesare Ripa of Perugia, which has passed
through about twenty editions in Italian, Latin, Dutch, Spanish, German,
and English, is alphabetically arranged, and treats of nearly 800
different subjects, with about 200 devices. Otho van Veen, or Vænius,
belongs to Holland, not to Italy,—and his name appears here simply
because his _Emblems of Love_ were translated into Italian. Fabio
Glissenti in 1609 introduced into his work (Brunet, iii. c. 256, 7)
twenty-four of the plates out of the forty-one which adorned an Italian
edition of the _Images of Death_ in 1545.
FRENCH.
Desprez _Théatre des animaux ... 4to Paris 1595
actions de la vie _v._
humaine._
Boissart _Mascarades recueillies_, 4to ... 1597
Geyn (J. de) Opera. _v._
Emblesmes _Emblesmes sus les 12mo Mildelbourg 1605
Actions—du Segnor _k._
Espagnol._
Hymnes _Hymnes des vertus ... par 8vo Lyon 1605
belles et délicates _v._
figures._
Vænius _Amorum Emblemata_ 4to Antverpiæ 1608
(Latin,Italian, and _v._
French).
Vasseur _Les Devises des Empereurs 8vo Paris 1608
Romains, &c._ _t._
” _Les Devises des Rois de ... Paris 1609
France._ _v._
Valence _Emblesmes sur les 8vo ... 1608
Actions—du Segnor _k._
Espagnol._
Rollenhagen _Les Emblemes ... mis en 4to Coloniæ 1611
vers françois._ _v._
Dinet _Les cinq Livres des 4to Paris 1614
Hiéroglyphiques._ _v._
De Bry _Pourtraict de la 4to Francfort 1614
Cosmographie morale._ _v._
Robert Boissart, a French engraver (Bryan, p. 90) flourished about 1590,
and is said to have resided some time in England. Of Vænius, so well
known, there is no occasion to speak here. Jacques de Vasseur was
archdeacon of Noyon, celebrated as the birth-place of Calvin, and in
1608 also published another work in French verse, _Antithises, ov
Contrepointes du Ciel & de la Terre_. Desprez and Valence are unknown
save by their books of Emblems. Pierre Dinet is very briefly named in
_Biog. Univ._ vol. ii. p. 371; and Rollenhagen and De Bry will be
mentioned presently.
LATIN.
Callia _Emblemata sacra, e libris 32mo Heidelbergæ 1591
Mosis excerpta._ _k._
Borcht _P. Ovidii Nasonis obl. 16mo 1591
Metamorphoses._ Antverpiæ _t._
Stimmer _Icones Affabræ_ ... Strasburg 1591
_v._
Mercerius _Emblemata_ 4to Bourges 1592
_t._
De Bry _Emblemata nobilitate et obl. Francof 1592
vulgo scitu digna._ 4to _v._
” _Emblemata secularia_ 4to ” 1593
_v._
Freitag _Viridiarium Moralis Phil. 4to Coloniæ 1594
per fabulas, &c._ _k._
Taurellius _Emblema physico-ethica, 8vo Norimbergæ 1595
&c._ _k._
Boissard _Theatrum vitæ Humanæ_ 4to Metz 1596
_t._
Franceschino _Hori Apollinis selecta 16mo Romæ 1597
hieroglyphica._ _v._
Le Bey de _Emb. a J. Boissard 4to Francof 1596
Batilly. delineata, &c._ _t. k._
Altorfinæ _Emb. anniversaria 4to Norimbergæ 1597
Academiæ Altorfinæ._ _k.c.t._
David _Virtutis spectaculum_ 4to Francof 1597
_v._
” _Veridicus christianus_ 4to Antverpiæ 1601
_t. k._
David _Occasio arrepta, 4to Antverpiæ 1605
neglecta, &c._ _c. t._
” _Pancarpium Marianum_ 8vo ” 1607
_t._
” _Messis myrrhæ et 8vo ” 1607
aromatum, &c._ _v._
” _Paradisus sponsi et 8vo ” 1607
sponsæ, &c._ _k._
” _Dvodecim Specvla, &c._ 8vo ” 1610
_t. k._
Sadeler, Æg. _Symbola Divina et Humana fol. Prague 1600
Pontif. Imper., &c._ _k._
” _Symb. Div. et. Hum., fol. Francof 1601, 2,
&c.;Isagoge Jac. 3 _k._
Typotii._
Passæus _Metamorphoseωn obl.4to ... 1602
Ouidianarum typi, &c._ _t._
Epidigma _Emblematum Philomilæ 4to ... 1603
Thiloniæ Epidigma._ _v._
Vænius _Horatii Emblemata, 4to Antuerp 1607
imaginibus_ (ciii.) _in _k._
æs incisis._
” _Amorvm Emblemata, Figvris 4to Antuerpiæ 1608
æneis incisa._ _t. k._
” _Amoris Divini Emblemata_ 4to Antuerpiæ 1615
_t._
Pignorius _Vetustissimæ tabulæ æneæ 4to Venetia 1605
sacris Ægyptiorum _v._
simulacris cœlatæ
explicatio._
” _Characteres Ægyptii ... 4to Francofurti 1608
per Jo. Th. et Jo. Isr. _v._
de Bry._
Sadeler, Æg. _Theatrum morum. Artliche 4to Pragæ 1608
gespräch der Thier met
wahren Historien, &c._
Broecmer _Emblemata moralia et 4to Arnhemi 1609
œconomica._ _t._
Aleander _Explicatio antiquæ Fabulæ 4to Romæ 1611
marmoreæ Solis effigie, _k._
symbolisque exsculptæ,
&c._
Rollenhagen _Nvclevs Emblematum 4to Coloniæ 1611–13
selectissimorum._ _c. t._
” ” ” ” 4to Arnhemi 1615
_k._
Hillaire _Specvlvm 4to Traject. 1613
Heroicvm—Homeri—Iliados._ Bat. _c._
À Bruck _Emblemata moralia et 4to Argentinæ 1615
bellica_ _v._
Peter Vander Borcht, born at Brussels about A.D. 1540, engraved numerous
works, and among them 178 prints for this edition of Ovid. The Stimmers
have been mentioned before, p. 90. Jean Mercier, born at Uzès in
Languedoc, wrote the Latin version of the _Hieroglyphics_ of Horapollo,
Paris, 1548,—but probably it was his son Josias whose Emblems are
mentioned under the year 1592, and who dates them from Bruges. Theodore
De Bry, born at Liege in 1528 (Bryan, p. 119), carried on the business
of an engraver and bookseller in Francfort, where he died in 1598. He
was greatly assisted by his sons John Theodore and John Israel. _The
Procession of the Knights of the Garter in 1566_, and that at the
_Funeral of Sir Philip Sidney_, are his workmanship. Nicolas Taurellius
was a student, and afterwards professor of Physic and Medicine in the
University of Altorf in Franconia. An oration of his appears in the
_Emblemata Anniversaria_ of that institution. He was named “the German
Philosopher.” Denis le Bey de Batilly appears to have been royal
president of the Consistory of Metz. John David, born at Courtray in
Flanders, in 1546, entered the Society of the Jesuits, and was rector of
the colleges of Courtray, Brussels, and Ghent; he died in 1613. Ægidius
Sadeler, known as the Phœnix of engravers, was a native of Antwerp, born
in 1570, the nephew and disciple of the two eminent engravers John and
Raphael Sadeler. He enjoyed a pension from three successive emperors,
Rodolphus II., Matthias, and Ferdinand II. Of Crispin de Passe, born at
Utrecht about 1560, Bryan (p. 548) says, “He was a man of letters, and
not only industrious to perfect himself in his art, but fond of
promoting it.” His works were numerous, and have examples in the
Emblem-books of his day. Otho van Veen, of a distinguished family, was
born at Leyden in 1556. After a residence of seven years in Italy, he
established himself at Antwerp, and had the rare claim to celebrity that
Rubens became his disciple. In his Emblem-works the designs were by
himself, but the engravings by his brother Gilbert van Veen. (Bryan, p.
853, 4.) Lawrence Pignorius, born at Padua, 1571, and educated at the
Jesuits’ school and the university of that city, gained a high
reputation by several learned works, and especially by those on Egyptian
antiquities. He died of the plague in 1631. The work of Richard Lubbæus
Broecmer, is little more than a reprint of one by Bernard Furmer, in
1575, _On the Use and Abuse of Wealth_. Jerome Aleander, nephew of one
of Luther’s stoutest opponents, the Cardinal Aleander, was of
considerable literary reputation at Rome, being a member of the society
of Humourists, established in that city,—his death was in 1631.
According to Oetlinger’s brief notice, _Bibliog. Biograph. Univ._,
Gabriel Rollenhagen, of Magdeburg, was a German schoolmaster, born in
1542, and dying in 1609; his _Kernel of Emblems_ is well illustrated by
Crispin de Passe. The same “excellent engraver” adorned _The Mirror of
Heroes_, founded on Homer’s _Iliad_ by “le sieur de la Rivière, Isaac
Hillaire.” Both Latin and French verses are appended to the Emblems, and
at their end are curious “Epitaphs on the Heroes who fell in the Trojan
war,” too late, it is to be feared, to afford any gratification to their
immediate friends. To Jacobus à Bruck, surnamed of Angermunde, a town of
Brandenberg, there belongs another Emblem-book, _Emblemata Politica_,
Cologne, 1618. In it are briefly demonstrated the duties which belong to
princes; it is dedicated “to his most merciful Prince and Lord, the
Emperor Matthias I., ‘semper Augusto.’”
GERMAN.
De Bry _Emblemata 4to Francofurti 1596
Secvlaria—rhythmis _v._
Germanicis, &c._
” ” ” ” 4to Oppenhemii 1611
_t._
Boissard _Shawspiel Menschliches 4to Franckf. 1597
Lebens_ _v._
Sadeler _Theatrum morum. Artliche 4to Praga 1608
gespräch der Thier, &c._ _v._
DUTCH OR FLEMISH.
David _Christelücke_ 4to Antuerp 1603
_k._
Vænius _Zinnebeelden der 4to Amstel. 1603
Wereldtsche Liefde._ _v._
À Ganda _Spiegel van de obl. Amsterod. 1606
doorluchtige,&c., 4to _t._
Vrouwen._
” _Emblemata Amatoria Nova_ obl. Lugd. Bat. 1613
4to _k._
Moerman _De Cleyn Werelt ... 4to Amstelred. 1608
metover schoone _k._
Const-platen._
Ieucht _Den nieuwen Ieucht obl. ... 1610
spieghel ... C. de 4to _
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