“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.
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: