July 2. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



13 



it was by his advice that the author of Paradise 

 Lout once more entered into the bonds of wedlock. 

 Mr. Marsh, to clear up all doubt upon the subject, 

 and having previously established the identity of 

 the family,°examined the parish reorister at Wist- 

 aston, and there found that " Elizabeth, the 

 daughter of Randolph MynshuU, was baptized the 

 30th day of December, 1638;" so that, if baptized 

 shortly after birth, she must have been about 

 twenty-six years old when united to Milton in 

 1664, and about eighty-nine at her death, which 

 occurred in 1727. 



V. M., and all others who desire farther en- 

 lightenment on the subject, will do well to refer 

 to the volume before mentioned, which forms the 

 twenty-fourth of the series published by the 

 Chetham Society. T. Hughes. 



Chester. 



BOOKS OP EMBLEMS — JACOB BEHMEN. 



(Vol. vii., pp. 469. 579.) 



Perhaps you will allow poor old Jacob Behmen, 

 the inspired cobbler of Gorlitz, a niche in your 

 temple of writers of emblems. I think he is legi- 

 timately entitled to that distinction. His works 

 are nearly ail couched in emblems ; and, besides 

 his own figures, his principles were pictorially illus- 

 trated by his disciple William Law (the author of 

 The Way to Divine Knowledge, The Serious Call, 

 &c.), in some seventeen simple, and four com- 

 pound emblematic drawings. Of these the most 

 remarkable, and in fact the most intelligible, are 

 three compound emblems representing the Crea- 

 tion, Apostasy, and Redemption of Man. Every 

 phase of each stage in the soul's history is dis- 

 closed to view by means of double and single 

 doors. We are now concerned only with such of 

 Behmen's emblematic works as have been trans- 

 lated into English. The following list contains 

 only those in my own library. I am acquainted 

 with no others : 



(1.) "The Works of Jacob Behmen, the Teutonic 

 Theosopher, to which is prefixed the Life of the 

 Author, with Figures illustrating his Principles, 

 left by the Rev. William Law, M.A. In four 

 thick Volumes, royal 4to. London : printed for 

 M. Richardson in Paternoster Row, mdcclxiv." 

 With a fine portrait of Behmen facing the title- 

 page of the first volume. This edition contains 

 the following works : 



1. Aurora : the Day-spring, or Dawning of the Day 

 in the East ; or Morning-redness in the Rising of the 

 ■Sun : that is, the Root or Mother of Philosophy, 

 Astrology, and Theology, from the True Ground ; or, 

 A Description of Nature. 



2. The Three Principles of the Divine Essence of 

 the Eternal : Dark, Light, and Temporary World. 



3. Mysterium Magnum : or an Explanation of the 

 First Book of Moses called Genesis. 



4. Four Tables of Divine Revelation. 



5. The High and Deep-Searcliing of the Threefold 

 Life of Man, through or according to the Three Prin- 

 ciples. 



6. Forty Questions concerning the Soul, proposed 

 by Dr. Balthasar Walter, and answered by Jacob 

 Behmen. 



7. The Treatise of the Incarnation. 



8. The Clavis, or an Explanation of some Principal 

 Points and Expressions. 



9. Signatura Rerum. 



10. Of the Election of Grace; or of God's Will to- 

 wards Man, commonly called Predestination. 



11. The Way to Christ discovered in the following 

 Treatises : — I. Of True Repentance. II. Of True 

 Resignation. III. Of Regeneration. IV. Of Super- 

 natural Life. 



12. A Discourse between a Soul hungry and 

 thirsty after the Fountain of Life, the sweet Love of 

 Jesus Christ, and a Soul enlightened. 



13. A Treatise of the Four Complexions, or a Con- 

 solatory Instruction for a Sad and Assaulted Heart in 

 the Time of Temptation. 



14. A Treatise of Christ's Testament, Baptism, and 

 the Supper. 



(2.) " Theosophic Letters, or Epistles of the Man 

 from God enlightened in Grace, Jacob Behmen, 

 of Old Seidenburgh, wherein everywhere [are ?] 

 Divine Blessed Exhortations to true Repentance 

 and Amendment, as also Plaine Instructions con- 

 cerning the highly worthy and precious Know- 

 ledge of the Divine and Natural Wisdome; toge- 

 ther with a Right Touchstone or Trlall of these 

 Times, for an Introduction to the Author's other 

 Writings : published in English for the good of 

 the sincere Lovers of true Christianltle, by I. S.*" 

 (I have only a MS. copy of this publication.) 



(3.) A beautiful MS. translation of " The Way 

 to Christ." This is hardly so accurate as the one 

 already referred to, though some of the expres- 

 sions are better chosen. The date of this MS. is 

 about 1730, or earlier. 



(4.) A fair MS. translation of Jacob Behmen's 

 treatise called " A Fundamental Instruction con- 

 cerning the Earthly and concerning the Heavenly 

 Mystery ; how they two stand in one another, and 

 how in the Earthly the Heavenly becometh mani- 

 fested or revealed, wherein then you shall see 

 Babell the great citty upon Earth stand with its 

 Forms and Wonders ; and wherefore, or out of 

 what, Babell is generated, and where Antichrist 

 will stand quite naked. Comprised in Nine Texts. 

 Written May 8, 1620, in High Dutch." (I have 

 seen no printed translation of this treatise.) 



(5.) MS. translation of the fourth treatise of 

 " The Way to Christ," viz. " of the Supersensual 

 Life." This is a less accurate rendering than 

 either of the others above mentioned. 



Perhaps your mystic correspondents will kindly 

 furnish lists of other publications and MSS. of 



[* J. Sparrow Ed.] 



