Thinke howe the beare doth forme her vgly whelpe.”
The cap with wings, and the rod of power with serpents entwined, are almost the only outward signs of which Shakespeare avails himself in his descriptions of Mercury, so that in this instance there is very little correspondence of idea or of expression between him and our Emblem authors. Nevertheless, we produce it for what it is worth.
In King John (act iv. sc. 2, l. 170, vol. iv. p. 67), the monarch urges Falconbridge’s brother Philip to inquire respecting the rumours that the French had landed,—
“Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.
O, let me have no subject enemies,
When adverse foreigners affright my towns
With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!
Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels
And fly like thought from them to me again.”
One of Shakespeare’s gems is the description which Sir Richard Vernon gives to Hotspur of the gallant appearance of “The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales” (1 Henry IV., act iv. sc. 1, l. 104, vol. iv. p. 318),—