580 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 189. 



nexion with that interesting branch of literature 

 called Boohs of Emblems. To these it shall be 

 my endeavour to reply. 



First. Some years ago I made particular inquiry 

 from the surviving relatives of the late Rev. Wil- 

 liam Beloe, whether among his manuscripts there 

 had been found any "Treatise on Emblems," or 

 any notices which had a bearing on the subject ? 

 They informed me that they had made search, but 

 without success. 



Second. Of Thomas Combe, mentioned by Meres 

 in his Palladis Tamia, I have been unable to learn 

 anything. 



Third. It appears certain that Bunyan never 

 published any Book of Emblems, whatever may 

 Lave been hawked under his name ; nor can I find, 

 in the Account of his Life and Writings just pub- 

 lished in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London, or in 

 any preceding edition of his works, that such a 

 production was ever contemplated by him. 



Fourth. In the extensive and valuable " English 

 Books of Emblems" furnished (chiefly from his 

 own library) by Mr. Cokser, he mentions E,. 

 Burton's Choice Emblems, Divine and Moral ; or 

 Delights for the Ingenious, t^'C, 12mo. 172L Per- 

 haps my learned and accomplished friend may not 

 be aware that Burton is an assumed name, placed 

 in the title-pages of several cheap books which ap- 

 peared at the end of the seventeenth and the be- 

 ginning of the eighteenth centuries, but which 

 were thought to have been written by a Mr. Na- 

 thaniel Crouch, a bookseller, who sold them. I 

 have a sixth edition of these " choice emblems," 

 dated 1732, which was then sold for "two shillings 

 bound." The work is merely a collection of fifty 

 emblems, taken, without acknowledgment, from 

 George Wither, the copper-plate engravings being 

 poor copies from those of Depasse. To this sixth 

 edition there is prefixed a portrait of K. Charles I., 

 with eight pages of sympathising verses. 



Mb. Corser's list of English works is very com- 

 plete. I possess, however, an unpublished manu- 

 script translation of Alciato into English verse. 

 It is of the time of James I., and possesses much 

 merit; but it has unfortunately been mutilated. 



I also possess the following : 



" Amorum Emblemata figuris seneis incisa studio 

 Othonis Vaeni, IBatavo-Lugflunensis. Emblemes of 

 Liove, with verses in Latin, English, and Italian, obi. 

 4to. : Antverpiee, 1608." 



Prefixed is an English dedication " to the most 

 Honourable and Worthy Brothers William, Earl 

 of Pembroke, and Philip, Earl of Montgomerie, 

 Patrons of Learning and Chevalrie," whose coat 

 of arms also is given. 



" The Doctrine of Morality, or a View of Human 

 Life accordhig to the Stoic Philosophy, &c. A trans- 

 lation, by T. M. Gibbs, from the French of M. De 

 Gombcrville, with 103 copperplates by Daret, folio: 

 London, 1721." 



To each engraving are appended quotations 

 from Horace, &c., with English translations : but 

 both engravings and quotations have been pirated 

 (without the least acknowledgment) from Vaa 

 Veen's Horatia Emblemata. 



It must be admitted that a comprehensive work 

 on European Books of Emblems, illustrated with 

 fac-similes of the various engravings, &c., is a 

 great desideratum in modern literature. I feel 

 highly flattered by the kind commendations which 

 Mr. Corser has bestowed upon my two small at- 

 tempts towards such a work, and by his encou- 

 rao^ing me to proceed " to enlarge and complete " 

 the same. Now, I do not altogether despair of 

 enlarging It. But when my excellent friend puts 

 forwai'd a proposal to complete it, he should be 

 informed that my library alone contains nearly 

 250 volumes strictly emblematical, and published 

 during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

 By far the greater part of these are in Latin. To 

 carry forward a work of such magnitude to any- 

 thing like completion must therefore be rather 

 wished for than expected. Jos. B. Yates. 



West Dingle, near Liverpool. 



Allow me to add the following to Mr. Corseb's 

 list : 



" The Christian's Divine Amusement, consisting of 

 Emblems and Hieroglyphicks on a great Variety of 

 Subjects, Moral and Divine, in four books. By the 

 late Rev. Mr. J. Jones. Embellished with near 100 

 beautiful emblematical cuts, 12mo. pp. 191.: London, 

 1764." 



I know not who the Rev. Mr. J. wa?, but his 

 book is the old one of Francis Quarles. The 

 author, or rather adapter, attacks and demolishes 

 the fixble as a method of instruction, and would 

 substitute the emblems. In remodelling Quarles, 

 Mr. Jones makes the following alterations, or im- 

 provements : — Instead of the Latin motto undei' 

 each cut, he presents us with four lines of English 

 verse, which contain a general explanation of the 

 emblem. The page facing the cut lie divides into 

 two parts or sections of odes and hymns suited to 

 common psalmody, and the moral, or application, 

 also in a poetical dress. 



A prose work belonging to the class under notice 

 is an 



" Emblematical Representation of the Paradise of 

 God; showing the Nature of Spiritual Industry, in 

 the similitude of a Garden well ordered, dressed, and 

 kept. London, 1779." 



The author of this was a visionary Scots gardener 

 named Alexander Clark, who had been favoured 

 with a special manifestation of divine glory, "by 

 which," he says, "(to my own astonishment) I was 

 enabled to see through every profound passage 

 of Scripture, and to spiritualise every material 

 thing;" but he belongs to my fanatical rather 



