To show that the theory carried out in these pages is neither singular nor unsupported by high authorities, it should not be forgotten that the very celebrated critic, Francis Douce, in his Illustrations of Shakespeare (pp. 302, 392), maintains that Paradin was the source of the torch-emblem in the Pericles (act ii. sc. 2, l. 32): the “wreath of victory,” and “gold on the touchstone,” have also the same source. To Holbein’s Simulachres Noel Humphreys assigns the origin of the expression in Othello, “Put out the light—and then, put out the light;” and in the same work, Dr. Alfred Woltmann, in Holbein and his Times (vol. ii. p. 121), finds the origin of Death’s fool in Measure for Measure: and Shakespeare’s comparisons of “Death and Sleep” may be traced to Jean de Vauzelle, who wrote the Dissertations for Les Simulachres. Charles Knight, also, in his Pictorial Shakspere (vol. i. p. 154), to illustrate the lines in Hamlet (act iv. sc. 5, l. 142) respecting “the kind life-rendering pelican,” quotes Whitney’s stanza, and copies his woodcut, as stated ante, p. 396, note.
Though not a learned man, as Erasmus or Beza was, Shakespeare, as every page of his wonderful writings shows, must have been a reading man, and well acquainted with the current literature of his age and country. Whitney’s Emblemes were well known in 1612 to the author of “Minerva Britanna,” and boasted of in 1598 by Thomas Meres, in his Wit’s Commonwealth, as fit to be compared with any of the most eminent Latin writers of Emblems, and dedicated to many of the distinguished men of Elizabeth’s reign; and they could scarcely have been unknown to Shakespeare even had there been no similarities of thought and expression established between the two writers.
Nor after the testimonies which have been adduced, and comparing the picture-emblems submitted for consideration with the passages from Shakespeare which are their parallels, as far as words can be to drawings, are we required to treat it as nothing but a conjecture that Shakespeare, like others of his countrymen, possessed at least a general acquaintance with the popular Emblem-books of his own generation and of that which went before.
The study of the old Emblem-books certainly possesses little of the charm which the unsurpassed natural power of Shakespeare has infused into his dramas, and which time does not diminish; yet that study is no barren pursuit for such as will seek for “virtue’s fair form and graces excellent,” or who desire to note how the learning of the age disported itself at its hours of recreation, and how, with few exceptions, it held firm its allegiance to purity of thought, and reverenced the spirit of religion. Should there be any whom these pages incite to gain a fuller knowledge of the Emblem literature, I would say in the words of Arthur Bourchier, Whitney’s steady friend,—
“Goe forwarde then in happie time, and thou shalt surely finde,
With coste, and labour well set out, a banquet for thy minde,
A storehouse for thy wise conceiptes, a whetstone for thy witte:
Where, eache man maye with daintie choice his fancies finely fitte.”
So much for the early cultivators of Emblematical mottoes, devices, and poesies, and for him whom Hugh Holland, and Ben Jonson, and “The friendly Admirer of his Endowments,” salute as “The Famous Scenicke Poet,” “The Sweet Swan of Avon,” “The Starre of Poets,”—
“Soule of the Age!