“Clif. Ay, ay, so strives the woodcock with the gin.[[147]]
North. So doth the cony struggle in the net.”
York is taken prisoner, as he says (l. 63),—
“So triumph thieves upon their conquer’d booty;
So true men yield, with robbers so o’ermatch’d.”
The four or five notions or sayings here enunciated a designer or engraver could easily translate into as many Emblematical devices, and the mind which uses them, as naturally as if he had invented them, must surely have had some familiarity with the kind of writing of which proverbs are the main source and foundation.
In this connection we will quote the proverb which “Clifford of Cumberland” (2 Henry VI., act v. sc. 2, l. 28, vol. vi. p. 217) utters in French at the very moment of death, and which agrees very closely with similar sayings in Emblem-books by French authors,—Perriere and Corrozet,—and still more in suitableness to the occasion on which it was spoken, the end of life.
York and Clifford,—it is the elder of that name,—engage in mortal combat (l. 26),—
“Clif. My soul and body on the action both!
York. A dreadful lay! address thee instantly.”