As we look at the device we are sensible to a singular incongruity between the subject and the droll, Punch-like figures, which make up the border. The sentiment, too, is as incongruous, that “Pride is a woman’s vice and argues hardness of look and of feeling such as there is in stone.”
Making a slight change in the motto, Whitney (p. 13) writes. Superbiæ vltio,—“Vengeance upon pride,”—
“Of Niobe, behoulde the ruthefull plighte,
Bicause shee did dispise the powers deuine:
Her children all, weare slaine within her sighte,
And, while her selfe with tricklinge teares did pine,
Shee was transform’de, into a marble stone,
Which, yet with teares, dothe seeme to waile, and mone.
This tragedie, thoughe Poëtts first did frame,
Yet maie it bee, to euerie one applide: