Corrozet’s “Hecatomgraphie,” Paris, 1540, is a description of a hundred figures and histories, and contains Apophthegms, Proverbs, Sentences, and Sayings, as well ancient as modern. Each page of the 100 emblems is surrounded by a beautiful border, the devices are neat woodcuts, having the same borders with La Perrière’s Theatre of good Contrivances. There is also to each a page of explanatory French verses.

It requires a stricter inquiry than I have yet been able to make in order to determine if Corrozet’s Blasons domestiques; Blason du Moys de May; and Tapisserie de l’Eglise chrestienne & catholique, bear a decided emblematical character; the titles have a taste of emblematism, but are by no means decisive of the fact.

III.—Maurice Sceve’s Delie, Object de plus haulte Vertu, Lyons, 1544, with woodcuts, and 458 ten-lined stanzas on love, is included in the Blandford Catalogue; and in the Keir Collection are both The very admirable, very magnificient and triumphant Entry of Prince Philip of Spain into Antwerp in 1549,[[55]] by Grapheus, alias Scribonius; edition 1550: and Gueroult’s Premier Livre des Emblemes; Lyons, 1550. The same year, 1550, at Augsburg, has marked against it “Geschlechtes Buch,”—Pedigree-book,—which recurs in 1580.

Claude Paradin, the canon of Beaujeu, a small town on the Ardiere, in the department of the Rhone, published the first edition of his simple but very interesting Devises heroiques, with 180 woodcuts, at Lyons in 1557. It was afterwards enlarged by gatherings from Gabriel Symeoni and other writers; but, either under its own name or that of Symbola heroica (edition 1567) was very popular, and before 1600 was printed at Lyons, Antwerp, Douay, and Leyden, not fewer than twelve times. The English translation, with which it is generally admitted that Shakespeare was acquainted, was printed in London, in 12mo, in 1591, and bears the title, The Heroicall Devises of M. Clavdivs Paradin, Canon of Beauieu, “Whereunto are added the Lord Gabriel Symeons and others. Translated out of Latin into English by P.S.”

To another Paradin are assigned Quadrins historiques de la Bible, published at Lyons by Jean de Tournes, 1555; and of which the same publisher issued Spanish, English, Italian, German, and Flemish versions.

The rich Emblem Collection at Keir furnishes the first edition of each of Doni’s three Emblem-works, in 4to, printed by Antonio Francesco Marcolini at Venice in 1552–53; they are: 1. “I Mondi,”—i.e., The Worlds, celestial, terrestrial, and infernal,—2 parts in 1, with woodcuts. 2. “I Marmi,”—The Marbles,—4 parts in 1, a collection of pleasant little tales and interesting notices, with woodcuts by the printer; who also, according to Bryan, was an engraver of “considerable merit.” 3. “La Moral Filosofia,”—Moral Philosophy drawn from the ancient Writers,—2 parts in 1, with woodcuts. In it are abundant extracts from the ancient fabulists, as Lokman and Bidpai, and a variety of little narrative tales and allegories.

Of an English translation, two editions appeared in London in 1570 and 1601, during Shakespeare’s lifetime; namely, “The Morall Philosophie of Doni, englished out of italien by sir Th. North,”[[56]] 4to, with engravings on wood.

Under the two titles of “Picta Poesis,” and “Limagination poetique,” Bartholomew Aneau, or Anulus, published his “exquisite little gem,” as Mr. Atkinson, a former owner of the copy which is now before me, describes the work. It appeared at Lyons in 1552, and contains 106 emblems, the stanzas to which, in the Latin edition, are occasionally in Greek, but in the French edition, “vers François des Latins et Grecz, par l’auteur mesme d’iceux.”

Achille Bocchi, a celebrated Italian scholar, the founder, in 1546, of the Academy of Bologna, Virgil Solis, of Nuremberg, an artist of considerable repute, Pierre Cousteau, or Costalius, of Lyons, and Paolo Giovio, an accomplished writer, Bishop of Nocera, give name to four of the Emblem-books which were issued in the year 1555. That of Bocchius is entitled “Symbolicarvm Qvaestionvm, libri qvinqve,” Bononiæ, 1555, 4to; and numbers up 146, or, more correctly, 150 emblems in 340 pages: the devices are the work of Giulio Bonasone, from copper-plates of great excellence. In 1556, Bononiæ Sambigucius put forth In Hermathenam Bocchiam Interpretatio, which is simply a comment on the 102nd emblem of Bocchius. Virgil Solis published in 4to, at Nuremberg, the same year, “Libellus Sartorum, seu Signorum publicorum,”—A little Book of Cobblers, or of public Signs. Cousteau’s “Pegma,”[[57]] which some say appeared first in 1552, is, as the name denotes, a Structure of emblems, ninety-five in number, with philosophical narratives,—each page being surrounded by a pretty border. And Giovio’s “Dialogo dell’ Imprese Militari et Amore,”—Dialogue of Emblems of War and of Love; or, as it is sometimes named, “Ragionamento, Discourse concerning the words and devices of arms and of love, which are commonly named Emblems,”—is probably the first regular treatise on the subject which had yet appeared, and which attained high popularity.

Its estimation in England is shown by the translation which was issued in London in 1585, entitled, “The Worthy tract of Paulus Iouius, contayning a Discourse of rare inuentions, both Militarie and Amorous, called Imprese. Whereunto is added a Preface contay-ning the Arte of composing them, with many other notable deuises. By Samuell Daniell late Student in Oxenforde.”