So great fear of my name ’mongst them was spread
That they supposed I could rend bars of steel
And spurn in pieces posts of adamant.”
The strong natural affection of the bear for its young obtained record nearly three thousand years ago (2 Samuel xvii. 8),—“mighty men, chafed in their minds” are spoken of “as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field.”[[153]] Emblems delineated by Boissard and engraved by Theodore De Bry in 1596, at Emb. 43 present the bear licking her whelp, in sign that the inborn force of nature is to be brought into form and comeliness by instruction and good learning. At a little later period, the “Tronvs Cvpidinis,” or “Emblemata Amatoria” (fol. 2), so beautifully adorned by Crispin de Passe, adopts the sentiment, Perpolit incultum paulatim tempus amorem,—that “by degrees time puts the finish, or perfectness to uncultivated love.” The device by which this is shown introduces a Cupid as well as the bear and her young one,—
De Passe, 1596.
and is accompanied by Latin and French stanzas,—
“Vrsa novum fertur lambendo fingere fœtum
Paulatim & formam, quæ decet, ore dare;
Sic dominam, vt valde sic cruda sit aspera Amator