“Come l’oro nel foco.
Sû la pietra, e nel foco l’or si proua,
E nel bisogno, come l’or nel foco,
Si dee mostrar leale in ogni loco
l’Amante; e alhor si vee d’Amor la proua.”
The same metaphor of attesting characters, as gold is proved by the touchstone or by the furnace, is of frequent occurrence in Shakespeare’s undoubted plays; and sometimes the turn of the thought is so like Whitney’s as to give good warrant for the supposition, either of a common original, or that Shakespeare had read the Emblems of our Cheshire poet and made use of them.
King Richard III. says to Buckingham (act iv. sc. 2, l. 8, vol. v. p. 580),—
“O Buckingham, now do I play the touch,
To try if thou be current gold indeed.”
And in Timon of Athens (act iii. sc. 3, l. 1, vol. vii. p. 245), when Sempronius observes to a servant of Timon’s,—