Chapter XIX.
BACON AND EMBLEMATA.
In "Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers" the Rev. Henry Green endeavours to show the similarities of thought and expression between the great poet and the authors of Emblemata, but the line of enquiry which he there opened does not appear to have been followed by subsequent writers. To-day the Emblemata literature is a terra incognita except to a very few students, and yet it is full of interest, romance, and mystery. Emblem literature may be said to have had its origin with Andrea Alciat, the celebrated Italian jurisconsult, who was famous for his great knowledge and power of mind. In 1522 he published at Milan an "Emblematum Libellus," or Little Book of Emblems. Green says: "It established, if it did not introduce, a new style of emblem literature, the classical in the place of the simply grotesque and humorous, or of the heraldic and mythic." The first edition now known to exist was published at Augsburg in 1531, a small octavo containing eighty-eight pages with ninety-seven emblems, and as many woodcuts. It was from time to time augmented, and passed through many editions. For some years the Emblemata appears to have been produced chiefly by Italians, with a few Frenchmen. Until the last half of the sixteenth century the output of books of this character was not large. Thenceforth for the next hundred years the creation of emblems became a popular form of literary exercise. The Italians continued to be prolific, but Dutch, French, and German scholars were but little behind them. There were a few Englishmen and Spaniards who also practised the art.
In 1905 was published a book called "Letters from the Dead to the Dead," by Oliver Lector. In it attention is drawn to the remarkable features of some of the books on emblems printed during Bacon's life, and to the evidence that he was in some manner connected with the publication of many of these volumes. The author claims this to be especially the case with the "Emblemata Moralia et Bellica," 1615, of Jacob de Bruck, of Angermundt, and the "Emblemata Ethic Politica" of J. Bornitius.
The emblem pictures for the most part appear to be picture puzzles. In the "Critique upon the Mythology of the Ancients" Bacon says:—
"It may pass for a farther indication of a concealed and secret meaning, that some of these fables are so absurd and idle in their narration as to proclaim and shew an allegory afar off. A fable that carries probability with it may be supposed invented for pleasure, or in imitation of history; but, those that would never be conceived or related in this way, must surely have a different use."
If this line of reasoning be applied to the illustrations in the emblem books, it is clear that they conceal some hidden meaning, for they are apparently unintelligible, and the accompanying letterpress does not afford any illumination.
Jean Baudoin was the translator of Bacon's "Essaies" into the French language (1626). Baudoin published in 1638-9 "Recueil D'Emblèmes divers avec des Discours Moraux, Philos. et Polit." In the preface he says: "Le grand chancelier Bacon m'ayant fait naître l'envie de travailler à ces emblèmes ... m'en a fourni les principaux que j'ai tirés de l'explication ingénieuse qu'il a donnée de quelques fables et de ses autres ouvrages." Here is definite evidence of Bacon's association with a book of emblems.
The first volume of Emblemata in which traces of Bacon's hand are to be found is the 1577 edition of Alciat's "Emblems," published by the Plantin Press, with notes by Claude Mignault. It is in this edition, in Emblem No. 45, "In dies meliora," that for the first time the light A and the dark A is to be found. In previous editions this device is absent. For this volume a new design has been engraved in which it appears.