Firmis rebus, in aſperaq́ue vita.
In both instances there is exactly the same pictorial illustration, indeed the wood-block which was engraved for the Emblems of Sambucus, in 1564, with simply a change of border, did service for Whitney’s Emblems in 1586. The device contains Time, winged and flying and holding forward a scythe; a man and woman walking before him, the scythe being held over their heads threateningly,—the man as he advances turning half round and pointing to a treasure-box left behind. Sambucus thus moralizes,—
“What do we querulous always deem our want?
Why never to hunger sense of fulness grant?
Wealth flees us not,—but we accustomed are
By our own haste its benefits to mar.
Death takes us off before we reach the gain
Great as our wish; and vows to God we feign
For wealth which fleeing at the time we flee,
Even when wealth around we own to be.