Chapter VI: Section II: Emblem Works and Editions Down to the End of the Fifteenth Century

LEAVING for the most part out of view the discussions which have taken place as to the exact time and the veritable originators of the arts of printing by fixed or moveable types, and of the embellishing of books by engravings on blocks of wood or plates of copper, we are yet—for the full development of the condition and extent of the Emblem Literature in the age of Shakespeare—required to notice the growth of that species of ornamental device in books which depends upon Emblems for its force and meaning. We say advisedly “ornamental device in books,” for infinite almost are the applications of Symbol and Emblem to Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, as is testified by the Remains of Antiquity in all parts of the world, by the Pagan tombs and Christian catacombs of ancient Rome, by nearly every temple and church and stately building in the empires of the earth, and especially in those wonderful creations of human skill in which form and colour bring forth to sight nearly every thought and fancy of our souls.

Long before either block-printing or type-printing was practised, it is well known how extensively the limner’s art was employed “to illuminate,” as it is called, the Manuscripts that were to be found in the rich abbeys or convents, and in the mansions of the great and noble. For instance, the devices in the _Dance of Macaber_, undoubtedly an Emblem Manuscript of the fourteenth century, were of painter’s workmanship, and afterwards employed by the wood-engravers to embellish type-printed volumes of a devotional character. To this Brunet, in his _Manuel du Libraire_, vol. v. c. 1557–1560, bears witness, when speaking of the printer Philip Pigouchet, and of the bookseller Simon Vostre, who “furent les premiers à Paris qui surent allier avec succès la gravure à la typographie;” and adds in a note, “La plus ancienne édition de la Danse macabre que citent les bibliographes est celle de Paris, 1484; mais, plus d’un siècle avant cette date, des miniaturistes français avaient déjà figuré, sur les marges de plusieurs Heures manuscrites, des Danses de morts, représentées et disposées à peu près comme elles l’ont été depuis dans les livres de Simon Vostre; c’est ce que nous avons pu remarquer dans un magnifique manuscrit de la seconde moitié du quatorzième siècle, enrichi de nombreuses et admirables miniatures qui, après avoir été conservé en Angleterre dans le cabinet du docteur Mead, à qui le roi Louis XV. en avait fait présent, est venu prendre place parmi les curiosités de premier ordre réunies dans celui de M. Ambr. Firmin Didot.”

_From Brunet, v. 1559._

A strictly emblematical work in English is the following, “from a finely written and illuminated parchment roll, in perfect preservation, about two yards and three quarters in length,” “~The Five Wounds of Christ~.” “~By William Billyng~;” “Manchester: Printed by R. and W. Dean, 4to, 1814.” The date is fixed by the editor, William Bateman, “between the years 1400 and 1430;” and the poem contains about 120 lines, with six illuminated devices. We give here, on page 40, in outline, the DEVICE of “_The Heart of Jesus the Well of everlasting Lyfe_.”

There follows, as to each of the Emblems, a Prayer, or Invocation; the Device in question has these lines,—

~“Hayle welle and cõdyte of eu̾lastyng lyffe
Thorow launced so ferre w^tyn my lordes syde
The flodys owt traylyng most aromatys
Hayle prious ♥ wounded so large and wyde
Hayle trusty treuloue our joy to provide
Hayle porte of glorie w^t paynes alle embrued
On alle I sprynglyde lyke purpul dew enhuede.”~

An Astronomical Manuscript in the Chetham Library, Manchester, the eclipses in which are calculated from A.D. 1330 to A.D. 1462, contains emblematical devices for the months of the year, and the signs of the zodiac; these are painted medallions at the beginning of each month; and to each of the months is attached a metrical line explanatory of the device.

~Januarius.~ Ouer yis feer I warme myn handes.
~Februarius.~ Wyth yis spade I delve my londes.
~Martius.~ Here knitte I my vynes in springe.
~Aprilis.~ So merie I here yese foules singe.
~Mayus.~ I am as Joly as brid on bouz.
~Junius.~ Here wede I my corn, clene I houz.
~Julius.~ Wyth yis sythe my medis I mowe.
~Augustus.~ Here repe I my corn so lowe.
~September.~ Wyth ys flayll I yresche my bred.
~October.~ Here sowe I my Whete so reed.
~November.~ Wyth ys knyf I steke my swyn.
~December.~ Welcome cristemasse Wyth ale and Wyn.

This manuscript contains, as J. O. Halliwell says of it, “an astrological volvelle—an instrument mentioned by Chaucer: it is the only specimen, I believe, now remaining in which the steel stylus or index has been preserved in its original state.”

Doubtless it is a copy of the _Kalendrier des Bergers_, which with the _Compost des Bergers_, has in various forms been circulated in France from the fourteenth century almost, if not quite, to the present day. An edition in 4to, of 144 pages, printed at Troyes, in 1705, bears the title, _Le Grand Calendrier et Compost des Bergers; composé par le Berger de la grand Montagne_.

Kindred works issued from the presses of Venice, of Nuremberg, and of Augsburg, between 1475 and 1478, in Latin, Italian, and German, and are ascribed to John Muller, more known under the name of Regiomontanus, a celebrated astronomer, born in 1436, at Koningshaven, in Franconia, and who died at Rome in 1476. One of these editions, in folio, was printed at Augsburg in 1476 by Erhard Ratdolt, being the first work he sent forth after his establishment in that city. (See _Biog. Univ._, vol. xxx. p. 381, and vol. xxxvii. p. 25.) But the most thoroughly emblematical work from Ratdolt’s press was an “~Astrolabium planũ in tabulis~,” “wrought out anew by John Angeli, master of liberal arts, MCCCCLXXXVIII.” There are 414 woodcuts, and all of them emblematical. The library at Keir contains a perfect copy, 4to, in most admirable condition. Brunet, i. c. 290, names a Venice edition in 1494, and refers to other astronomical works by the same author.

In its manuscript form, too, the celebrated “SPECULUM HUMANÆ SALVATIONIS,” _Mirror of Human Salvation_, exhibits throughout the emblem characteristics. Of this work, both as it exists in manuscript and in the earliest printed form by Koster of Haarlem, about 1430, specimens are given in “A History of the Art of Printing from its invention to its wide spread developement in the middle of the sixteenth century;” “by H. NOEL HUMPHREYS,” “with one hundred illustrations produced in Photo-lithography;” folio: Quaritch, London, 1867. Pl. 8 of Humphreys’ learned and magnificent volume exhibits “a page from a manuscript copy of the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_, executed previous to the printed edition attributed to Koster;” and pl. 10, “A page from the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_ attributed to Koster of Haarlem, in which the text is printed from moveable types.”

The inspection of these plates, and the assurance by Humphreys, p. 60, that “the illustrations, though inferior to Koster’s woodcuts, are of similar arrangement,” may satisfy us that the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_, and all its kindred works, in German, Dutch, and French, amounting to many editions previous to the year 1500,[35] are truly books that belong to the Emblem literature. Thus pl. 8, “though without the decorative Gothic framework which separates, and, at the same time, binds together the double illustrations of the xylographic artist,” exhibits to us the exact character of “the double pictures of the _Speculum_.” “These double pictures,” p. 60 of Humphreys, “illustrate first a passage in the New Testament, and secondly the corresponding subject of the Old, of which it is the antitype. In the present page we have Christ bearing His cross (Christus bajulat crucem) typified by Isaac carrying the wood for his own sacrifice (Isaac portat ligna sua).” “The engravings,” p. 58, “_i.e._, of Koster’s first great effort, occur at the top of each leaf, and the rest of the page is filled with two columns of text, which, in the supposed first edition, is composed of Latin verse

(or, rather, Latin prose with rhymed terminations to the lines, as the lines do not scan); and in later editions, in Dutch prose.” “This specimen,” pl. 8, p. 60, “will enable the student to understand precisely the kind of manuscript book which Koster reproduced in a cheaper form by xylography, to which he eventually allied the still more important invention of moveable types.”

From a very fine MS. copy of the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_, belonging to Mr. Henry Yates Thompson, our fac-simile Plates IV. and V., though on a smaller scale, present the Title and the first Pair of devices with their text. The work is in twenty-nine chapters, and to each there are four devices in four columns, with appropriate explanations in Latin verse, and at the foot of the columns are the references to the Old or the New Testament.

The manuscript entitled “~De Volueribus, sive de tribus Columbis~,”—_Concerning Birds, or the Three Doves_, in the library “du Grand Seminaire,” at Bruges, is also an emblem-book. It is excellently illuminated, and the workmanship is probably of the thirteenth century. (See the Whitney Reprint, p. xxxii.)

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_Plate 4_

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_Plate 5_

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The illuminated _Missal_,[36] executed in 1425 for John, Duke of Bedford and regent of France, according to the account published of it by Richard Gough, 4to, London, 1794, and by others, abounds in emblem devices. It contains “fifty-nine large miniatures, which nearly occupy the page, and above a thousand small ones in circles of about an inch and half diameter, displayed in brilliant borders of golden foliage, with variegated flowers, &c. At the bottom of every page are two lines in blue and gold letters, which explain the subject of each miniature.” “The Missal,” says Dibdin, “frequently displays the arms of these noble personages,” (John, Duke of Bedford, and of his wife Jane, daughter of the Duke of Burgundy,) “and also affords a pleasing testimony of the affectionate gallantry of the pair: the motto of the former being ‘A VOUS ENTIER;’ that of the latter, ‘J’EN SUIS CONTENTE.’” Among its ornaments are emblems or symbols of the twelve months, and a large variety of paintings derived from the Sacred Scriptures, many of which possess an emblematical meaning.

Not aiming at any exhaustive method in the information we gather and impart respecting Emblem works and editions previous to the year A.D. 1500, we pass by the very numerous other instances in support of our theme which a search into manuscripts would supply. The “Block-Books,”[37] which, in the main, are especially emblematical, we next consider. We select two instances as representative of the whole set;—namely, the “BIBLIA PAUPERUM,” _Bibles of the Poor_, and the “ARS MEMORANDI,” _The Art of Remembering_.

In his “BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DECAMERON,” vol. i. p. 160, Dibdin tells us, “The earliest printed book, containing _text_ and _engravings_ illustrative of scriptural subjects, is called the _Histories of Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther_. This was executed in the German language, and was printed by Pfister at Bamberg in 1462. It is among the rarest of typographical curiosities in existence.” Dibdin’s dictum is considerably modified, if not set aside, by Noel Humphreys; who, though affirming, p. 41, that “a late German edition of the _Biblia Pauperum_ has the date 1475, but that before that period editions had been printed at the regular press with moveable types, as, for instance, that of Pfister, printed at Bamberg in 1462,”—yet had previously declared, p. 39, “many suppose that Laurens Koster, of Haarlem, who afterwards invented moveable types, was one of the earliest engravers of Block-books, and that in fact the _Biblia Pauperum_ was actually his work.” “The period of its execution may probably be estimated as lying between 1410 and 1420: probably earlier, but certainly not later.”

The earliest editions of these _Biblia Pauperum_ contain forty leaves, the later editions fifty, printed only on one side. Opposite to p. 40, Noel Humphreys gives, pl. 2, “A Page from the Biblia Pauperum generally supposed to be one of the earliest block-books.”

_Plate 6_

Availing ourselves of the Author’s remarks, p. 40, we yet prefer, on account of some inaccuracies in his decyphering the Latin contractions, giving our own description of this plate. The page is in _three_ divisions, all in the Gothic decorative style, with separating archways between the subjects. In the _upper_ division, in the centre, are seated, each in his niche, “Isaya” and “Dauid.” (See Plate VI.) In the upper corners, on the right hand of the first, and on the left hand of the second, are Latin inscriptions,—the former relating to Eve’s seed bruising the serpent’s head, Genesis iii. c., and the latter to Gideon’s fleece saturated with dew, Judges vi. c. The _middle_ compartment is a triptych, consisting of Eve’s Temptation, the Annunciation by the Angel to the Blessed Virgin; and Gideon in his armour, on his knees, with his shield on the ground, watching the fleece. Over Eve’s Temptation there is a scroll issuing from Isaiah’s niche, and having this inscription: ~“Ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium,”~—_Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son_, Is. vii. 14; Eve stands near the tree of life, emblematized by God the Father among the branches,—and erect before her is the serpent, almost on the tip of its tail, with its body slightly curved. In the Annunciation appears a ray of light breathed upon the Virgin from God the Father seated in the clouds, and in the ray are the dove, the emblem of the Holy Spirit, descending, and an infant Christ bearing his cross; the Angel stands before Mary addressing to her the salutation, “~Ave gratiâ plena, dominus tecum~,”—_Hail full of grace, the Lord is with thee_, Luke i. 28; and Mary, seated with a book on her knees, and her hands devoutly crossed on her breast, replies, “~Ecce, ancilla domini, fiat mihi~,”—Behold, _the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me_, Luke i. 38. Of Gideon and the fleece little needs be said, except that over him from the niche of David issues a scroll with the words “~Descendet dominus sicut pluvia in vellus~,” in the Latin Vulgate, Ps. lxxi. 6, _i.e. The Lord shall descend as rain upon the fleece_; but in the English version, Ps. lxxii. 6, _He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass_. The Angel also addressing Gideon bears a scroll, not quite legible, but evidently meaning, “~Dominus tecum virorum fortissime~,” Judges vi. 12,—English version, _The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour_. The _lower_ compartment, like the upper, has in the centre two arched niches, which contain, the one Ezekiel, the other Jeremiah; beneath Eve’s temptation and Gideon’s omen are the alliterative and rhyming couplets

~“Vipera vim perdet,
Sine vi pariente puella.”~

and

~“Rore madet vellus
Permansit arida tellus;”~[38]

and beneath the Annunciation, “~Virgo salutatur, Innupta manens gravidatur~.”

From Ezekiel’s niche issues the scroll, Ez. xliv. 2, “~Porta hæc clausa erit, et non aperietur;~” and from Jeremiah’s, xxxi. 22, “~Creavit dominus novum super terram, femina circumdabit virum.~”

It requires no argument to prove the emblematical nature of the _middle_ compartment of this page from the _Biblia Pauperum;_ and the texts on scrolls are but the accessories to the devices, and serve only the more clearly to mark this Block-book as an Emblem-book.

_Plate 7_

_Plate 8_

Passing by similar Block-books, as _The Book of Canticles_, and _The Apocalypse of St. John_, we will conclude the subject with a notice of Humphreys’ pl. 5, following p. 42 of his text; it is “A Subject from the Block-book entitled ‘Ars memorandi,’ executed probably at the beginning of the fifteenth century.”

“The entire work,” we are informed, p. 42, “consists of the symbols of the four evangelists, each occupying a page, and being most grotesquely treated, the bull of St. Luke and the lion of St. Mark standing upright on their hind legs. These symbols are surrounded with various objects, calculated to recall the leading events in their respective Gospels.”

But the whole passage in explanation of the Plate is so much to our purpose, that we ask pardon of the author for inserting it entire. He says:—

“The page I have selected for reproduction is the fourth ‘image or symbol’ of St. Matthew—the Angel. The objects grouped around are many of them very curious, and, without the assistance of the accompanying explanations, would certainly not serve to aid the memory of the modern Biblical students. The symbolic Angel holds in the left hand objects numbered 18, which by the explanation we learn to be the sun and moon, accompanied by an unusual arrangement of stars and planets; intended to recall the passage, ‘there were signs in the sun and moon’—_erant signa in sole et luna_. I give the text of monkish explanation in MS. No. 19, the clasped hands, represents marriage, in reference to the generations of the Ancestors of Christ as enumerated by St. Matthew. No. 20, the cockle shell and the bunch of grapes are emblems of travelling and pilgrimage, and appear to represent the flight into Egypt; 21, the head of an ass, is intended to recall the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem riding on an ass; 22, a table, with bread-knife and drinking cup, recalls the Last Supper (_Cæna magna_); and the accompanying symbol, without a number, represents the census rendered to Cæsar.”[39]

With great kindness Mr. Corser, of Stand, offered me, in the spring of 1868, the use of a very choice Block-book, soon after sold for £415, entitled _Historia S. Joan. Euangelist. per Figuras_, and which is, I believe, the very copy from which Sotheby’s specimens of the work are taken. Whether it be the “_editio princeps_,” as a former owner claimed it to be, is doubted on merely conjectural grounds; but a most precious copy it is, internally vindicating its claim to priority. The volume measures 2.82 decimetres by 2.14; or 11 inches by 8.42. There are forty-eight leaves, in perfect preservation, printed on one side. The figures, all coloured, relate either to the traditions and legends of the Evangelist, or to the visions of the Apocalypse, the former being simply pictorial, the latter emblematical.

The two Plates uncoloured (Plate VII. and Plate VIII.) very clearly show the difference between the mere drawing and the device. The pictures of the Evangelist preaching, of Drusiana being baptized, and of the search after John, have no meaning beyond the historical or legendary event;—but the two wings of an eagle given to the woman, of the angel flying with a book above the tree of life, of the dragon persecuting the woman, and of the mother-church passing into the desert: these have a meaning beyond that of the figures delineated;—they are emblematical of hidden truths;—so are all the other plates of this Block-book which represent the visions of the Apocalypse. The date is probably 1420 to 1425.

The Bodleian Library at Oxford is very rich in this particular Block-book, possessing no fewer than _three_ copies of the _History of S. John the Evangelist_. Among its treasures, however, is a MS. on the same subject, worth them all by reason of its beauty and exquisite finish, which the Block-books certainly do not claim. This MS., on fine vellum and finely drawn and illuminated, is said to have been written in the twelfth century, and to have belonged to Henry II.

But the printing with moveable types is firmly established, and Emblem-books are among its earliest productions. At Bamberg, a city on the Regnitz, near its influx into the Main, the first purely German book was printed in 1461, by the same Pfister who published an edition of the _Biblia Pauperum_, and who probably learned his art at Mayence with Guttenberg himself. The work in question was a Collection of eighty-five Fables in German, with 101 vignettes cut on wood, each accompanied by a German text of rhyming verses. The first device, says Brunet, vol. i. p. 1096, represents three apes and a tree, and the verses begin with—

“Once on a time came an ape (_gerãt_) upright.”

The colophon, or subscription, at the end informs us,

“At Bamberg this little book ended is
After the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ,
When one counts a thousand four hundred year,
And to it, as truth, one and sixty more,
On the day of holy Valentine;
God shield us from the wrath divine. Amen.”

The fables were collected by Ulric Boner, a Dominican friar of Bonn, in the thirteenth or at the beginning of the fourteenth century. Their chief value is that they present the most precious remains of the Minnesingers, or German Troubadours, and possess much grace, and “une moralité piquante.” See _Biographie Universelle_, vol. v. pp. 97, 98: Paris, 1812; and vol. xxxiii. p. 584: Paris, 1823.

Of Æsop’s _Fables_ in Greek, the Milan edition, about A.D. 1480, was the earliest. There had been Latin versions, previously at Rome in 1473, at Bologna and Antwerp in 1486, and elsewhere. The German translation appeared in 1473, the Italian in 1479, the French and the English in 1484, and the Spanish in 1489. Besides these there were at least thirty other editions previous to the year 1500.

It has been doubted if Fables should be classed among the Emblem Literature,—but whether _nude_, as other emblems have been named when unclothed in the ornaments of wood or copper engravings, or _adorned_ with richly embellished devices, they are, as Whitney would name them, _naturally_ emblematical. Apart from whatever artistic skill can effect for them, they have in themselves meanings to be evolved different from those which the words convey. The Lion, the Fox, and the Ass are not simply names for the veritable animals, but emblems of different characters and qualities among the human race; they symbolize moral sentiments and actions, and when we add the figures of the creatures, though we may make pleasing and significant pictures, we do little for the real development of the emblems.

Books of Fables, however, are so numerous that they and their editors may be counted by hundreds; and as Dibdin intimates, the Bibliomaniac who had gathered up all the editions of Æsop in nearly all the languages of the civilized world, would have formed a very considerable library. Only on a few occasions therefore shall we make mention of books of Fables in our present inquiries.

We shall not however pass unnoticed, since it belongs especially to this period, the “~Dyalogus Creaturarum~,” or, _Dialogues of the Creatures_, a collection of Latin Fables, attributed in the fourteenth century to Nicolas Pergaminus, first printed at Gouda in Holland by Gerard Leeu in 1480, and at Stockholm by John Snell in 1483. (See Brunet, vol. ii. p. 674.) A French version, by Colard Mansion, was issued at Lyons in 1482, _Dialogue des Creatures moralizie_; and an English version, about 1520, by J. Rastall, “Powly’s Churche,” London, namely, “The Dialogue of Creatures moralyzed, of late translated out of latyn in to our English tonge.”

There were various editions and modifications of the work,[40] but perhaps the contrast between them cannot be better pointed out than by selecting the Fable of the Wolf and the Ass from the Gouda edition of 1480, and also from the Antwerp edition of 1584. The original edition, with the woodcut on the next page in mere outline, tells in simple Latin prose how a wolf and an ass were sawing a log of wood together. From good nature the ass worked up above, the wolf through maliciousness down below, desiring to find an opportunity for devouring the ass; therefore he complained that the ass was sending the sawdust into his eyes. The ass replied, “It is not I who am doing this,—I only guide the saw. If you wish to saw up above I am content,—I will work faithfully down below.” And so they talked on, until the wolf threatening revenge drew back, and the fissure in the beam being suddenly widened, the wedge fell upon the wolf’s head, and the wolf himself was killed.

The Antwerp edition of 1584[41] changes the simple Latin prose into the elegant Latin elegiacs of John Moerman, and the outline woodcuts of an unknown artist into the copperplate engravings of Gerard de Jode, the eldest of four generations of engravers. THE WOLF and THE ASS are made to emblematize, “scelesti hominis imago et exitus,”—_the image and end of a wicked man_. Moerman’s Latin may thus be rendered, from leaf 54, ed. 1584:—

“The Wolf and careless Ass a treaty made,
Both studious with a saw a beam to rive;—
The ready Ass above directs the blade,
The Wolf doth down below deceit contrive.
He seeks for cause the wretched Ass to slay,
And cries,—‘With sawdust much thou troublest me,—
The trouble check, or with these teeth, I say,
My spoil to be devoured thou straight shalt be.’
To this the Ass,—‘Friend Wolf, be not annoyed;
Guileless the saw I guide with might and main.’
But soon the long-eared brute would be destroyed,
When falls the wedge;—ah! ’tis the Wolf is slain.”

MORAL.

“Insonti qui insidias struit, ipse perit.”

“Who for the innocent spreads snares,
Himself shall perish unawares.”

“_The wicked man his nets doth spread
The innocent to take the while;
But who would harm his brother’s head
Doth perish from his selfish guile.
God will not deem him innocent,
Nor raise him to the stars above,
Who on unrighteous thoughts is bent,
Or neighbours serves with feigned love.
But after death to the fiery marsh
Of Phlegethon shall he be hurled,
Where Tartaræan Pluto harsh
With hated sceptres rules a world_.”

As in the Blandford Catalogue, it has been usual to count among Emblem-books the “ECATONPHYLA,” printed at Venice in 1491. The French translation of 1536 describes the title as, “signifiãt centiesme amour, sciemment appropriees a la dame ayãt en elle autant damour que cent aultres dames en pouroient comprendre,” _signifying a hundredth love, knowingly appropriated to the lady having in her as much love as a hundred other ladies could possibly comprehend_. (Brunet’s _Manuel_, i. c. 131, 132.) The author of this work, of which there are several editions, was the celebrated Italian architect, Leoni-Baptista Alberti, born of a noble family of Florence in 1398, and living as some suppose up to 1480. He was a universal scholar, a doctor of laws, a priest, a painter, and a good mechanic.

We are inclined to ask whether _Gli Trionfi del Petrarcha_, printed at Bologna in 1475,—especially, when as in the Venice editions of 1500 and 1523 they were adorned by the vignettes and wood engravings of Zoan Andrea Veneziano,—whether these “Triumphs of Love, Chastity, and Death” may not, from their highly allegorical character, be included among the Emblem-books of this age?[42] The same question we might ask respecting “~Das Heldenbuch~,”—_The Book of Heroes_,—printed at Augsburg, in 1477, by Gunther Zainer, who had first been a printer at Cracow about 1465; and also concerning the “~Libri Cronicarum cũ figuris et imaginibus ab inicio mũdi~,” a large folio known as the _Chronicles of Nuremberg_, which with its 2000 fine wood engravings, attributed to Michael Wohlgemuth, was published in that city in 1493.[43]

The original “~Todtentanz~,” or _Dance of Death_, painted as a memorial of the plague which raged during the Council of Bâle, held between 1431 and 1446 (Bryan, p. 335), certainly was not the work of either of the Holbeins. There are several representations of a Death-dance in the fifteenth century, between 1485 and 1496 (Brunet, v. 873, 874); and there can be little doubt of their emblematical character. The renowned _Dance of Death_ by Hans Holbein the younger we will reserve for its proper place in the next section.

We must not however leave unmentioned _The Dance of Macaber_, especially as it is presented to us in an English form by John Lydgate, a monk of the Benedictine abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, who was born about 1375, and attained his greatest eminence about 1430. His own power for supplying the materials for an Emblem-device we observe in the lines on “_God’s Providence_.”

“God hath a thousand handés to chastise;
A thousand dartés of punicion;
A thousand bowés made in divers wise;
A thousand arlblasts bent in his dongèon.”

For an account of Lydgate’s _Dance of Macaber_, and indeed for his version in English, we should do well to consult the remarks by Francis Douce, in Wenceslaus Hollar’s _Dance of Death_, published about the year 1790, and more particularly the remarks in Douce’s Dissertation, edition 1833.

_Plate 9_

~Stultifera Nauis.~

~Narragonice profectionis nunquam satis laudata Nauis: per Sebastianũ Brant: vernaculo vulgarique sermone & rhythmo / pro cũctorum mortaliũ fatuitatis semitas effugere cupiẽtiũ directione / speculo / cõmodoque & salute: proque inertis ignaue̦que stultitie̦ perpetua infamia / execratione / & confutatione / nuper fabricata: Atque iam pridem per Iacobum Locher / cognomẽto Philomusum: Sue̦uũ: in latinũ traducta eloquiũ: & per Sebastianũ Brant denuo seduloque reuisa / & noua quadã exactaque emendatõe elimata: atque superadditis quibusdã nouis / admirãdisque fatuorum generibus suppleta: fœlĩci exorditur principio.~

_~.1497.
Nihil sine causa.
Io.de.Olpe.~_

The earliest known edition of _La Danse Macabre_, originally composed in German, is dated at Paris, 1484, but before the completion of the century there were seven or eight other reprints, some with alterations and others with additions. It was a most popular work, issued at least eight or ten times during the sixteenth century, and still exciting interest.[44] At p. 39 may be seen copies of some of the devices as used by Verard.

The chief Emblem deviser and writer towards the end of the century was Sebastian Brandt, born at Strasburg in 1458, and after a life of great usefulness and honour dying at Bâle in 1520. The publication in German Iambic verse of his “~Narren Schyff~,” Bâle, Nuremberg, Rüttlingen, and Augsburg, A.D. 1494, forms quite an epoch in Emblem-book literature. Previous to A.D. 1500, _Locher_, crowned poet laureate by the Emperor Maximilian I., translated the German into Latin verse, with the title “~Stultifera Nauis~” (see Plate IX.); _Riviere_ of Poitiers, the Latin into French verse, “~La Nef des Folz du Monde~;” and _Droyn_ of Amiens, into French prose, “~La grãt Nef des Folz du Monde~.” Early in the next century, 1504, or even in 1500, there was a Flemish version; and in 1509 two English versions,—_one_ translated out of French, “THE SHYPPE OF FOOLES,” by Henry Watson, and printed by “Wynkyn de Worde, MCCCCCIX.” (see Dibdin’s _Tour_, ii. p. 103); _the other_,—“STULTIFERA NAUIS,” or “~The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde~;” “Inprentyd in the Cyte of London, by Richard Pynson, M.D.IX.” (Dibdin’s _Typ. Ant._ ii. p. 431.) This latter was “_translated out of Latin, French, and Duch into Englishe_, by Alexander Barclay, _Priest_;” and reprinted in 1570, during Shakespeare’s childhood by the “Printer to the Queenes Maiestie.” At the same time, 1570, another work by Barclay was published, which, although without devices, partakes of an allegorical or even of an emblematical character; it is _The Mirrour of good Maners_; “conteining the foure Cardinal Vertues.”

Dibdin, in his _Bibliographical Antiquarian_, iii. p. 101, mentions “a pretty little volume—‘as fresh as a daisy,’ the _Hortulus Rosarum de Valle Lachrymarum_, ‘A little Garden of Roses from the Valley of Tears’ (to which a Latin ode by S. Brandt is prefixed), printed by J. de Olpe in 1499,”—but he gives no intimation of its character; conjecturing from its title and from the woodcuts with which it is adorned, it will probably on further inquiry be found to bear an emblematical meaning.

Dibdin also, in the same work, iii. p. 294, names “a German version of the ‘HORTULUS ANIMÆ’ of S. Brant,” in manuscript; “undoubtedly,” he says, “among the loveliest books in the Imperial Library.” The Latin edition was printed at Strasburg in 1498, and is ornamented with figures on wood; many of these are mere pictures, without any symbolical meaning,—but it often is the case that the illuminated manuscripts, especially if devotional, and the early printed books of every kind that have pictorial illustrations in them, present various examples of symbolical and emblematical devices.

The last works we shall name of the period antecedent to A.D. 1501, are due to the industry and skill of John Sicile, herald at arms to Alphonso King of Aragon, who died in 1458. Sicile, it seems, prepared two manuscripts, _one_ the Blazonry of Arms,—the _other_, the Blazonry of Colours. Of the former there was an edition printed at Paris in 1495, _Le_ BLASON _de toutes Armes et Ecutz_, &c.—and of the latter at Lyons early in the sixteenth century, _Le Blason des Couleurs en Armes, Liurees et deuises_. Within an hundred years, ending with 1595, above sixteen editions of the two works were issued.

Several other authors there are belonging to the period of which we treat,—but enough have been named to show to what an extent Emblem devices and Emblem-books had been adopted, and with what an impetus the invention of moveable types and greater skill in engraving had acted to multiply the departments of the Emblem Literature. It was an impetus which gathered new strength in its course, and which, previous to Shakespeare’s youth and maturity, had made an entrance into almost every European nation. Already in 1500, from Sweden to Italy and from Poland to Spain, the touch was felt which was to awaken nearly every city to the west of Constantinople, to share in the supposed honours of adding to the number of Emblem volumes.

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