“In Troynovant a famous schoole was foundeBy famous Citizens; whilome the groundeOf noble Boone;”—
“In Troynovant a famous schoole was foundeBy famous Citizens; whilome the groundeOf noble Boone;”—
“In Troynovant a famous schoole was foundeBy famous Citizens; whilome the groundeOf noble Boone;”—
“In Troynovant a famous schoole was founde
By famous Citizens; whilome the grounde
Of noble Boone;”—
and
“To traine vp youth in tongues fewe might compareWith Mulcaster, whose fame shall never fade.”
“To traine vp youth in tongues fewe might compareWith Mulcaster, whose fame shall never fade.”
“To traine vp youth in tongues fewe might compareWith Mulcaster, whose fame shall never fade.”
“To traine vp youth in tongues fewe might compare
With Mulcaster, whose fame shall never fade.”
Now it was in 1561 Richard Mulcaster, of King’s College, Cambridge, and of Christchurch, Oxford, was appointed head master of Merchant-Taylor’s School in London, then just founded. (Warton, iii. 282.) Thus it is shown to be very probable thatCrosse his Covertmay take date not later thanA.D.1600. It may be added that at the end of the MS. the figure of Fortune, or Occasion, on a wheel, is almost a fac-simile from Whitney’s Device, p. 181, which was itself struck from the block (Emb. 121. p. 438) of Plantin’s edition of Alciatus,MDLXXXI. John Guillim’s work onHeraldrypassed through five editions previous to that of Capt. John Logan, in 1724; the original folio is one of the book-treasures at Keir. Henry Peacham,Mr. of Artes, as he terms himself, was a native of Leverton in Holland, in the county of Lincoln, and a student under “the right worshipfull Mr. D. Laifeild,” in Trinity College, Cambridge. He has dedicated his work “to the Right Highand Mightie Henrie, Eldest Sonne of our Soveraigne Lord the King.”
Singular it is, that except the MS. which belonged to the late Joseph B. Yates, of Liverpool, there is not known to exist any translation into English of the once famousEmblems of Alciatus. That MS. (seeTransact. Liverpool L. and P. Society, Nov. 5, 1849) “appears to be of the time of James the First.” The Devices are drawn and coloured, and have considerable resemblance to those in Rapheleng’s edition of Alciatus, 1608. As a specimen we add the translation of EmblemXXXIII.p. 39,“Signa fortium.”
“O Saturn’s birde! what cause doth thee incyteUpon Aristom’s tombe so highe to sitt?‘As I all other birds excell in mighte—So doth Aristom, Lords, in strength and witt.Let fearful Doves on cowards’ tombs take rest—We Eagles stoute to stoute men give a crest.’”
“O Saturn’s birde! what cause doth thee incyteUpon Aristom’s tombe so highe to sitt?‘As I all other birds excell in mighte—So doth Aristom, Lords, in strength and witt.Let fearful Doves on cowards’ tombs take rest—We Eagles stoute to stoute men give a crest.’”
“O Saturn’s birde! what cause doth thee incyteUpon Aristom’s tombe so highe to sitt?‘As I all other birds excell in mighte—So doth Aristom, Lords, in strength and witt.Let fearful Doves on cowards’ tombs take rest—We Eagles stoute to stoute men give a crest.’”
“O Saturn’s birde! what cause doth thee incyte
Upon Aristom’s tombe so highe to sitt?
‘As I all other birds excell in mighte—
So doth Aristom, Lords, in strength and witt.
Let fearful Doves on cowards’ tombs take rest—
We Eagles stoute to stoute men give a crest.’”
How pleasant to feel that this Sketch of Emblem-books and their authors, previous to and during the times of Shakespeare, has been brought to an end.“Vina coronant,”fill a bumper, “let the sparkling glass go round.”
The difficulty really has been to compress. The materials collected were most abundant. From curiously or artistically arranged title pages,—from various dedications,—from devices admirably designed or of wondrous oddity,—and from the countless collateral subjects among which the Emblem writers and their commentators disported themselves, the temptations were so rich to wander off here and there, that it was necessary continually to remember that it was a veritable sketch I was engaged on and not a universal history. I lashed myself therefore to the mast and sailed through a whole sea of syrens, deaf, though they charmed ever so sweetly to make me sing with them of emperors and kings, of popes and cardinals, of thelearned and the gay, who appeared to believe that everyone’s literary salvation depended on the contrivance of a device and the interpretation of an emblem.
Had I known where to refer my readers for a general view of my subject, either brief or prolix, I should have spared myself the labour of compiling one. The results are, that, previous to the year 1616, the Emblem Literature of Europe could claim for its own at least 200 authors, not including translators, and that above 770 editions of original texts and of versions had issued from the press.[63]
If Shakespeare knew nothing of so wide-spread a literature it is very wonderful; and more wondrous far, if knowing, he did not inweave some of the threads into the very texture of his thoughts.
In this Sketch of Emblem writers, it will be perceived, though their names are seldom heard of except among the antiquaries of letters, that, as a class, they were men of deep erudition, of considerable natural power, and of large attainments. To the literature of their age they were as much ornaments as to the literature of our modern times are the works, illustrated or otherwise, with which our hours of leisure are wont to be both amused and instructed. No one who is ignorant of them can possess a full idea of the intellectual treasures of the more cultivated nations of Europe about the period of which the works of Alciatus and of Giovio are the types. We may be learned in its controversies, well read in its ecclesiastical and political history, intimate even with the characters and pursuits of its great statesmen and sovereigns, and strong as well as enlightened in our admiration of itspainters, statuaries, poets, and other artistic celebrities, but we are not baptized into its perfect spirit unless we know what entertainment and refreshing there were for men’s minds when serious studies were intermitted and the weighty cares and business of life for a while laid aside.
Take up these Emblem writers as great statesmen and victorious commanders did; read them as did the recluse in his study and the man of the world at his recreation; search into them as some did for good morals suitable to the guidance of their lives, and as others did for snatches of wit and learning fitted to call forth their merriment; and see, amid divers conceits and many quaintnesses, and not a few inanities and vanities, how richly the fancy was indulged, and how freely the play of genius was allowed; and then will you be better prepared to estimate the whole literature of the nations of that busy, stirring time, when authorities were questioned that had reigned unchallenged for centuries, and men’s minds were awakened to all the advantages of learning, and their tastes formed for admiring the continually varying charms of the poet’s song and the artist’s skill.
True; those strange turns of thought, those playings upon mere words, those fanciful dreamings, those huntings up and down of some unfortunate idea through all possible and impossible doublings and windings, are not approved either by a purer taste, or by a better-trained judgment. We have outgrown the customs of those logo-maniacs, or word-worshippers, whom old Ralph Cudworth, in hisTrue Intellectual System of the Universe, p. 67, seems to have had in view, when he affirms, “that they could not make a Rational Discourse of anything, though never so small, but they must stuff it with their Quiddities, Entities, Essences, Hæcceities, and the like.”
But at the revival of literature, when the ancient learning was devoured without being digested, and the modern investigationswere not always controlled by sound discretion,—when the child was as a giant, and the giant disported himself in fantastic gambols,—we must not wonder that compositions, both prose and poetic, were perpetrated which receive unhesitatingly from the higher criticism the sentence of condemnation. But in condemning let not the folly be committed of despising and undervaluing. We may devotedly love our more advanced civilization, our finer sensibilities, and our juster estimate of what true taste for the beautiful demands, and yet we may accord to our leaders and fathers in learning and refinement the no unworthy commendation, that, with their means and in their day, they gave a mighty onward movement to those literary pursuits and pleasures in which the powers of the fancy heighten the glow of our joy, and the resources of accurate knowledge bestow an abiding worth upon our intellectual labours.
Sambucus, 1564.
Sambucus, 1564.
Sambucus, 1564.