Of noble Boone;”—
and
“To traine vp youth in tongues fewe might compare
With Mulcaster, whose fame shall never fade.”
Now it was in 1561 Richard Mulcaster, of King’s College, Cambridge, and of Christchurch, Oxford, was appointed head master of Merchant-Taylor’s School in London, then just founded. (Warton, iii. 282.) Thus it is shown to be very probable that Crosse his Covert may take date not later than A.D. 1600. It may be added that at the end of the MS. the figure of Fortune, or Occasion, on a wheel, is almost a fac-simile from Whitney’s Device, p. 181, which was itself struck from the block (Emb. 121. p. 438) of Plantin’s edition of Alciatus, MDLXXXI. John Guillim’s work on Heraldry passed through five editions previous to that of Capt. John Logan, in 1724; the original folio is one of the book-treasures at Keir. Henry Peacham, Mr. of Artes, as he terms himself, was a native of Leverton in Holland, in the county of Lincoln, and a student under “the right worshipfull Mr. D. Laifeild,” in Trinity College, Cambridge. He has dedicated his work “to the Right High and Mightie Henrie, Eldest Sonne of our Soveraigne Lord the King.”
Singular it is, that except the MS. which belonged to the late Joseph B. Yates, of Liverpool, there is not known to exist any translation into English of the once famous Emblems of Alciatus. That MS. (see Transact. Liverpool L. and P. Society, Nov. 5, 1849) “appears to be of the time of James the First.” The Devices are drawn and coloured, and have considerable resemblance to those in Rapheleng’s edition of Alciatus, 1608. As a specimen we add the translation of Emblem XXXIII. p. 39, “Signa fortium.”
“O Saturn’s birde! what cause doth thee incyte
Upon Aristom’s tombe so highe to sitt?
‘As I all other birds excell in mighte—
So doth Aristom, Lords, in strength and witt.