SHAKESPEARE AND THE EMBLEM-WRITERS OF HIS AGE. CHAPTER I. EMBLEMS, AND THEIR VARIETIES, WITH SOME EARLY EXAMPLES. HAT 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 B word Symbol. The Greek poet Pindar* 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, 1. 326, declares it were easy "for her To win the Moor, were't to renounce his baptism, 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 Mignault, 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." "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 See the Olympica, 12. 10 : “ σύμβολον πιστὸν ἀμφὶ πράξιος ἐσομένης.”. Also Æschylus, Agamemnon, 8: “ καὶ νῦν φυλάσσω λαμπάδος τὸ σύμβολον.” + 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 hic maximè generaliùs accipi, specialiùs verò alterum norât omnes qui aliquid indicii habeant." possess affinity but not identity,-they have no absolute convertibility of the one for the other. An example of Emblem and Symbol united occurs in Symeoni's Dedication * "To Madame Diana of Poitiers, Dutchess of Valentinois;' " "LA VITA ET METAMORFOSEO:" "A Lione, per Giouanni di Tornes," 8vo, 1559, pp. 2, 3. |