10 



author the word appears to have been generally employed in 

 its present acceptation.* 



" The close of the 15 th and the beginning of the 16th centu- 

 ries were signalized by stirring events. The invention of Print- 

 ing and Engraving, the discovery of a New World, and the 

 Reformation iu the Church, evoked talent which had hereto- 

 fore been overlaid by feudal and monastic institutions. In the 

 application of that talent science was found to be of slow 

 development ; government, political ceconomy, municipal and 

 international law, required to be tested by successive genera- 

 tions of men. But the plain broad maxims of morality remain 

 the same in every age ; the fire of poetical genius bursts forth 

 without waiting for the slow advance of civilization and refine- 

 ment ; while the graphic arts at once present to the eye the 

 most forcible illustration of those precepts which philosophy 

 and poetry may have bodied forth. Here then were the 

 elements for the species of literature now to be brought under 

 review, a literature which was much cultivated, and in fact 

 occupied a prominent place amongst the various productions of 

 the learned and ingenious who flourished at that period. Such 

 was the origin of collections, or as they are commonly called 

 Books of Emblems. Their object was to present to the eye a 

 series of elegant and interesting pictures on a small scale, such 

 as were proper to be affixed to furniture, vases, &rc, or to in- 

 form and beguile a leisure hour. Each Emblem was accom- 

 panied by a short poetical Illustration, generally in Latin, (the 

 universal language of European scholars,) and the whole was 

 frequently headed by a lemma or title. From the peculiarly 

 perishable nature of such works very few manuscript books 

 of Emblems appear to be at present in existence ; although it 

 is certain that such were produced, not merely by eminent 



* " Underfoot the violet, 



Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay, 



Broider'd the ground, more colour'd than with stone 



Of costliest emblem." 



Paradiu Losl, b. if., I. 700—703. 



