And Ferdinand, in the Tempest, act i. sc. 2, l. 387, vol. i, p. 20, after listening to Ariel’s song, “Come unto these yellow sands,” thus testifies to its power:—
“Where should this music be? i’ th’ air, or th’ earth?
It sounds no more: and sure it waits upon
Some god o’ th’ island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father’s wreck,
This music crept by me upon the waters
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air: thence have I follow’d it,
Or it hath drawn me rather.”
Thus, from his sufficient command over the requisite languages, from his diligent reading in the literature of his country, translated as well as original, from his opportunities of frequent converse with the cultivated minds of his age, and still more from what we have shown him to have possessed,—accurate taste and both an intelligent and a warm appreciation of the principles and beauties of Imitative Art,—we conclude that Shakespeare found it a study congenial to his spirit and powers, to examine and apply, what was both popular and learned in its day,—the illustrations, by the graver’s art and the poet’s pen, of the proverbial wisdom which constitutes almost the essence of the Emblematical writers of the sixteenth century. To him, as to others, their works would be sources of interest and amusement; and even in hours of idleness many a sentiment would be gathered up to be afterwards almost unconsciously assimilated for the mind’s nurture and growth.