For whom ye desire perdition, to them brings the flame new birth.”
Whitney, borrowing his woodcut and motto from Plantin’s edition of “Les Devises Heroiqves,” 1562, to a very considerable degree makes the explanatory stanzas his own both in the conception and in the expression. The chief town near to his birth-place had on December 10, 1583, been almost totally destroyed by fire, but through the munificence of the Queen and many friends, by 1586, “the whole site and frame of the town, so suddenly ruined, was with great speed re-edified in that beautifull manner,” says the chronicler, “that now it is.” The Phœnix (p. 177) is standing in the midst of the flames, and with outspreading wings is prepared for another flight in renewed youth and vigour.
Vnica semper auis.
To my countrimen of the Namptwiche in Cheshire.
Whitney, 1586.
“The Phœnix rare, with fethers freshe of hewe,
Arabias righte, and sacred to the Sonne:
Whome, other birdes with wonder seeme to vewe,
Dothe liue vntill a thousande yeares bee ronne: