Of rich and exquisite form; their values great.”
So Spenser, Faerie Queene, iv. 4. 15, sets forth, “a precious rebeke in an arke of gold,” as
“A gorgeous Girdle, curiously embost
With pearle and precious stone, worth many a marke;
Yet did the workmanship farre passe the cost.”
In the literal use of the word emblem Shakespeare is very exact. Parolles, All’s Well, act ii. sc. 1, l. 40, charges the young lords of the French court, as
“Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin;” and adds, “Good sparks and lustrous, a word, good metals: you shall find in the regiment of the Spinii one Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword entrenched it.”
The Coronation Scene in Henry VIII., act iv. sc. 1. l. 81–92, describes the solemnities, when Anne Bullen, “the goodliest woman that ever lay by man,
“with modest paces
Came to the altar; where she kneel’d, and saint-like