21 



effect of the whole. Not one in a hundred can produce a 

 really good Emblem ; not one in a thousand is competent to 

 pass judgment upon the Emblems of others/* 



"In entering upon art historical review of Emblematical 

 publications, it is much to be regretted, that the limits pre- 

 scribed to this Essay will not permit any thing Like a complete 

 detail of a series of works so learned, instructive, and orna- 

 mental. 



" The celebrated civilian Andrea Alciato or Alzato was the 

 first who composed and pubHshed a printed collection or 

 'Book of Emblems' He was born at Alzato, in the Duchy of 

 Milan, a.d. 1492. Equally eminent for professional elo- 

 quence and learning, and for his attainments in polite Litera- 

 ture, he was invited and caressed by various potentates and 

 universities, and died at Pavia in January, 1550, full of wealth 

 and honours. Though opposed, by the jealousy of contempo- 

 rary professors, he succeeded in introducing an arrangement 

 and phraseology infinitely superior to the barbarous jargon 

 which had hitherto prevailed in the pleadings and writings of 

 the Civilians, and was said to have united in his own person 

 the praises which were divided between Crassus and Scoevola 

 by Cicero, who characterized the one as the lawyer who was 

 the most eloquent, and the other as the orator best skilled in 

 law. By Erasmus he is styled f unicum hujus aetatis* miraculurn 

 ac studiorum delicium/t His Emblems, composed in Latin 

 verse, evince much learning and observation, and are pro- 

 nounced by the elder Scaliger to be 'beautiful, chaste, and 

 elegant, though not deficient in strength, conveying sentiments 

 such as may be advantageously applied to civil life/ They 

 made their first appearance at Milan in the year 1522, and were 

 reprinted nine years afterwards at Augsburg, but so incorrectly, 

 that the author undertook to revise them. This being done, and 



• Hachtenbnrg's preface to ' Philolhei Symbola Christiana,' fol. Franco/, 1577. 

 + Erasmi Epistola;, London, fol. 1612, p. 1363. 

 D 



