Not in heaven have I such meat.’
Therefore, stupids! what of summer
Enters now our pinnace gay,—
Onward in three hours ’twill bear us
Where kingdoms blessed bid us stay.”[[45]]
The same work was published in another form, “La nef des folles, selon les cinq sens de nature, composé selon levangile de monseigneur saint Mathieu, des cinq vierges qui ne prindrent point duylle avec eulx pour mectre en leurs lampes:” Paris 4to, about 1501.
Of Badius himself, born in 1462 and dying in 1535, it is to be said that he was a man of very considerable learning, professor of “belles lettres” at Lyons from 1491 to 1511, when he was tempted to settle in Paris. There he established the famous Ascensian Printing Press,—and like Plantin of Antwerp, gave his three daughters in marriage to three very celebrated printers: Michel Vascosan, Robert Etienne, and Jean de Poigny. He was the author of several works besides those that have been mentioned. (Biog. Univ. vol. iii. p. 201.)
Symphorien Champier, Doctor in Theology and Medicine, a native of Lyons, who was physician to Anthony Duke of Lorraine when he accompanied Louis XII. to the Italian war, graduated at Pavia in 1515, and, after laying the foundations of the Lyons College of Physicians, and enjoying the highest honours of his native city, died about 1540. (Aikin’s Biog. ii. 579.) His medical and other works are of little repute, but among them are two or three which may be regarded as imitations of Emblem-books. We will just name,—Balsat’s work with Champier’s additions, La Nef des Princes et des Batailles de Noblesse, &c. (Lyons, 4to goth. with woodcuts, A.D. 1502.); also, La Nef des Dames vertueuses cōposee par Maistre Simphoriē Champier, &c. (Lyons, 4to goth. with woodcuts, A.D. 1503.)
“Bible figures,” too, again have a claim to notice. A very fine copy of “Les figures du vieil Testament, & du nouuel,” which belonged to the Rev. T. Corser, Rector of Stand, near Manchester, supplies the opportunity of noticing that it is decidedly an Emblem work. It is a folio, of 100 leaves, containing forty-one plates, of which one is introductory, and forty are on Scriptural subjects, unarranged in order either of time or place. The work was published in Paris in 1503 by Anthoine Verard, and is certainly, as Brunet declares, ii. c. 1254, “une imitation de l’ouvrage connu sous le nom de Biblia Pauperum.” There are forty sets of figures in triptychs, the wood engravings being very bold and good. Each is preceded or followed by a French stanza of eight lines, declaring the subject; and has appended two or three pages of Exposition, also in French. The Device pages, each in three compartments, are in Latin, and may thus be described. At the top to the left hand, a quotation from the Vulgate appropriate to the pictorial representation beneath it; in the centre two niches, of which David always occupies one, and some writer of the Old Testament the other, a scroll issuing from each niche. The middle compartment is filled by a triptych, the centre subject from the New Testament, the right and left from the Old. At the bottom are Latin verses to the right and left, with two niches in the centre occupied by biblical writers. The Latin verses are rhyming couplets, as on fol. a. iiij, beneath Moses at the burning bush, “Lucet et ignescit, sed non rubus igne calescit,”—It shines and flames, but the bush is not heated by the fire. In triptych, on p. i. rev. are, Enoch’s Translation, Christ’s Ascension, and the Translation of Elijah.
The Aldine press at Venice, A.D. 1505, gave the world the first printed edition of the “Hieroglyphica” of Horapollo. It was in folio, having in the same volume the Fables of Æsop, of Gabrias, &c. See Leemans’ Horapollo, pp. xxix-xxxv. A Latin version by Bernard Trebatius was published at Augsburg in 1515, at Bale in 1518, and at Paris in 1521; and another Latin version by Phil. Phasianinus, at Bologna in 1517. Previous to Shakespeare’s birth there were translations into French in 1543, into Italian in 1548, and into German in 1554,—and down to 1616 sixteen other editions may readily be counted up.