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

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 particularconceit,” 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’sTheatrum 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,—printedat 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 aStam 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 2Christ’s adoption of the Human SoulOtho Vænius 1615

Plate 2

Christ’s adoption of the Human SoulOtho 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, thatwe should be called the sons of God.” And the simpleRefrainfollows,—

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

“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, orHundred-leaved Book of Foolsof 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 hundreddistinguishedcharacters, 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.”

“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.”

“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,—“Ideade vn Principe Politico-Christiano, representadaen 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 3Creation, Symeoni 1559

Plate 3

Creation, Symeoni 1559

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, ofHomer 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 theMetamorphosesof 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.”

“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 HeroicvmPrincipis omnium temporum PoëtarumHomeri,”—The Heroic Mirror of Homer, the Prince of the Poets of all times. The various arguments of the twenty-four books of theIliadhave 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 ofsurprise 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.

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 devicesin theDance 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 hisManuel 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 depuisdans 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 perfectpreservation, 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, theDeviceof “The Heart of Jesus the Well of everlasting Lyfe.”

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 lyffeThorow launced so ferre wtyn my lordes sydeThe flodys owt traylyng most aromatysHayle prious ♥ wounded so large and wydeHayle trusty treuloue our joy to provideHayle porte of glorie wtpaynes alle embruedOn alle I sprynglyde lyke purpul dew enhuede.”

“Hayle welle and cõdyte of eu̾lastyng lyffe

Thorow launced so ferre wtyn 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 wtpaynes alle embrued

On alle I sprynglyde lyke purpul dew enhuede.”

An Astronomical Manuscript in the Chetham Library, Manchester, the eclipses in which are calculated fromA.D.1330 toA.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.

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 theKalendrier des Bergers, which with theCompost 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. (SeeBiog. 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 formby 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;” “byH. 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 theSpeculum Humanæ Salvationis, executed previous to the printed edition attributed to Koster;” and pl. 10, “A page from theSpeculum Humanæ Salvationisattributed 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 theSpeculum 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 theSpeculum.” “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 theSpeculum 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 4Title Page from a M.S.:“Speculum Humanæ Salvationis”

Plate 4

Title Page from a M.S.:“Speculum Humanæ Salvationis”

Plate 5Leaf 31 from a M.S.“Speculum Humanæ Salvationis”

Plate 5

Leaf 31 from a M.S.“Speculum Humanæ Salvationis”

The illuminatedMissal,[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 eachminiature.” “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 yearA.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, containingtextandengravingsillustrative of scriptural subjects, is called theHistories 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 theBiblia Pauperumhas the date 1475, but that before that period editions had been printed atthe 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 theBiblia Pauperumwas 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 theseBiblia Pauperumcontain 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 6A Page from the“Biblia Pauperum”generally supposed one of the earliest Block Books

Plate 6

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 inthreedivisions, all in the Gothic decorative style, with separating archways between the subjects. In theupperdivision, 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. Themiddlecompartment 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. Inthe 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. Thelowercompartment, 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 vellusPermansit arida tellus;”[38]

“Vipera vim perdet,Sine vi pariente puella.”

“Vipera vim perdet,

Sine vi pariente puella.”

and

“Rore madet vellusPermansit arida tellus;”[38]

“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 hæcclausa 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 themiddlecompartment of this page from theBiblia 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 7S. John the Evangelist. 1st edition Block Book from the Corser Collection.

Plate 7

S. John the Evangelist. 1st edition Block Book from the Corser Collection.

Plate 8A Page of the Apocalypse from Block Book in the Corser Collection.

Plate 8

A Page of the Apocalypse from Block Book in the Corser Collection.

Passing by similar Block-books, asThe Book of Canticles, andThe 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 cockleshell 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, entitledHistoria 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 (PlateVII. and PlateVIII.) 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 thefigures 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 thanthreecopies of theHistory 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 theBiblia 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 isAfter 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.”

“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 friarof 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.”SeeBiographie Universelle, vol. v. pp. 97, 98: Paris, 1812; and vol. xxxiii. p. 584: Paris, 1823.

Of Æsop’sFablesin 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 whethernude, as other emblems have been named when unclothed in the ornaments of wood or copper engravings, oradornedwith richly embellished devices, they are, as Whitney would name them,naturallyemblematical. 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 fewoccasions 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.”

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