Even if he had not been able to read the Emblem writers in their original languages, undoubtedly he would meet with their works in the society in which he moved and among the learned of his native land. As we have seen, he was in familiar friendship with the Earl of Essex. To that nobleman Willet, in 1598, had dedicated his Sacred Emblems. Of men of Devereux’s stamp, several had become acquainted with the Emblem Literature. To his rival, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, Whitney devoted the Choice of Emblemes, 1586; in 1580, Beza had honoured the young James of Scotland with the foremost place in his Portraits of Illustrious Men, to which a set of Emblems were appended; Sir Philip Sidney, during his journey on the continent, 1571–1575, became acquainted with the works of the Italian emblematist, Ruscelli; and as early as 1549, it was “to the very illustrious Prince James earl of Arran in Scotland,” that “Barptolemy Aneau” commended his French version of Alciat’s classic stanzas.
And were it not a fact, as we can show it to be, that Shakespeare quotes the very mottoes and describes the very drawings which the Emblem-books contain, we might, from his highly cultivated taste in other respects, not unreasonably conclude that he must both have known them and have used them. His information and exquisite judgment extended to works of highest art,—to sculpture, painting, and music, as well as to literature. There is, perhaps, no description of statuary extant so admirable for its truth and beauty as the lines quoted by Drake, p. 617, from the Winter’s Tale,[[66]] “where Paulina unveils to Leontes the supposed statue of Hermione.”
“Paulina.As she lived peerless,
So her dead likeness, I do well believe,
Excels whatever yet you look’d upon,
Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it
Lonely, apart. But here it is: prepare
To see the life as lively mock’d as ever
Still sleep mock’d death: behold, and say ’tis well.
[Paulina draws a curtain, and discovers Hermione