and Mightie Henrie, Eldest Sonne of our Soveraigne Lord the King." Singular it is, that except the MS. which belonged to the late Joseph B. Yates, of Liverpool, there is not known to exist any translation into English of the once famous Emblems of Alciatus. That MS. (see Transact. Liverpool L. and P. Society, Nov. 5, 1849) "appears to be of the time of James the First." The Devices are drawn and coloured, and have considerable resemblance to those in Rapheleng's edition of Alciatus, 1608. As a specimen we add the translation of Emblem XXXIII. p. 39, "Signa fortium." "O Saturn's birde! what cause doth thee incyte So doth Aristom, Lords, in strength and witt. How pleasant to feel that this Sketch of Emblem-books and their authors, previous to and during the times of Shakespeare, has been brought to an end. "Vina coronant," fill a bumper, "let the sparkling glass go round." The difficulty really has been to compress. The materials collected were most abundant. From curiously or artistically arranged title pages,-from various dedications, from devices admirably designed or of wondrous oddity, and from the countless collateral subjects among which the Emblem writers and their commentators disported themselves, the temptations were so rich to wander off here and there, that it was necessary continually to remember that it was a veritable sketch I was engaged on and not a universal history. I lashed myself therefore to the mast and sailed through a whole sea of syrens, deaf, though they charmed ever so sweetly to make me sing with them of emperors and kings, of popes and cardinals, of the learned and the gay, who appeared to believe that everyone's literary salvation depended on the contrivance of a device and the interpretation of an emblem. Had I known where to refer my readers for a general view of my subject, either brief or prolix, I should have spared myself the labour of compiling one. The results are, that, previous to the year 1616, the Emblem Literature of Europe could claim for its own at least 200 authors, not including translators, and that above - 770 editions of original texts and of versions had issued from the press. If Shakespeare knew nothing of so wide-spread a literature it is very wonderful; and more wondrous far, if knowing, he did not inweave some of the threads into the very texture of his thoughts. In this Sketch of Emblem writers, it will be perceived, though their names are seldom heard of except among the antiquaries of letters, that, as a class, they were men of deep erudition, of considerable natural power, and of large attainments. To the literature of their age they were as much ornaments as to the literature of our modern times are the works, illustrated or otherwise, with which our hours of leisure are wont to be both amused and instructed. No one who is ignorant of them can possess a full idea of the intellectual treasures of the more cultivated nations of Europe about the period of which the works of Alciatus and of Giovio are the types. We may be learned in its controversies, well read in its ecclesiastical and political history, intimate even with the characters and pursuits of its great statesmen and sovereigns, and strong as well as enlightened in our admiration of its Since the above was written I have good reasons for concluding that the fact is very much understated. I am now employed, as time allows, in forming an Index to my various notes and references to Emblem writers and their works: the Index so far made comprises the letters A, B, C, D (very prolific letters indeed), and they present 330 writers and translators, and above 900 editions. painters, statuaries, poets, and other artistic celebrities, but we are not baptized into its perfect spirit unless we know what entertainment and refreshing there were for men's minds when serious studies were intermitted and the weighty cares and business of life for a while laid aside. Take up these Emblem writers as great statesmen and victorious commanders did; read them as did the recluse in his study and the man of the world at his recreation; search into them as some did for good morals suitable to the guidance of their lives, and as others did for snatches of wit and learning fitted to call forth their merriment; and see, amid divers conceits and many quaintnesses, and not a few inanities and vanities, how richly the fancy was indulged, and how freely the play of genius was allowed; and then will you be better prepared to estimate the whole literature of the nations of that busy, stirring time, when authorities were questioned that had reigned unchallenged for centuries, and men's minds were awakened to all the advantages of learning, and their tastes formed for admiring the continually varying charms of the poet's song and the artist's skill. True; those strange turns of thought, those playings upon mere words, those fanciful dreamings, those huntings up and down of some unfortunate idea through all possible and impossible doublings and windings, are not approved either by a purer taste, or by a better-trained judgment. We have outgrown the customs of those logo-maniacs, or word-worshippers, whom old Ralph Cudworth, in his True Intellectual System of the Universe, p. 67, seems to have had in view, when he affirms, "that they could not make a Rational Discourse of anything, though never so small, but they must stuff it with their Quiddities, Entities, Essences, Hæcceities, and the like." But at the revival of literature, when the ancient learning was devoured without being digested, and the modern investiga tions were not always controlled by sound discretion,-when the child was as a giant, and the giant disported himself in fantastic gambols, we must not wonder that compositions, both prose and poetic, were perpetrated which receive unhesitatingly from the higher criticism the sentence of condemnation. But in condemning let not the folly be committed of despising and undervaluing. We may devotedly love our more advanced civilization, our finer sensibilities, and our juster estimate of what true taste for the beautiful demands, and yet we may accord to our leaders and fathers in learning and refinement the no unworthy commendation, that, with their means and in their day, they gave a mighty onward movement to those literary pursuits and pleasures in which the powers of the fancy heighten the glow of our joy, and the resources of accurate knowledge bestow an abiding worth upon our intellectual labours. CHAPTER III. SHAKESPEARE'S ATTAINMENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES WITH RESPECT TO THE FINE ARTS. MONG some warm admirers of Shakespeare it has not been unusual to depreciate his learning for the purpose of exalting his genius. It is thought that intuition and inborn power of mind accomplished for him what others, less favoured by the inspiration of the all directing Wisdom, could scarcely effect by their utmost and life-patient labours. The worlds of nature and of art were spread before him, and out of the materials, with perfect ease, he fashioned new creations, calling into existence forms of beauty and grace, and investing them at will with the rare attributes of poetic fancy. On the very surface, however, of Shakespeare's writings, in the subjects of his dramas and in the structure of their respective plots, though we may not find a perfectly accurate scholarship, we have ample evidence that the choicest literature of his native land, and, through translations at least, the ample stores of Greece and of Italy were open to his mind. Whether his scenes be the plains of Troy, the river of Egypt, the walls of Athens, or the capitol of Rome, his learning is amply sufficient for the occasion; and though the critic may detect incongruities and P |