54 Emblems of our Lord and of the Saints 



Shakspeare, in his Henry VI. (part ii., act iv., 

 scene 2) : — 



''Jack Cade: What is thy name ? 

 Clerk: Emmanuel. 



Dick: They used to write it on the top of letters " 



Charles Lamb, in his " Essays of EUa," tells us of 

 the volumes of accounts at the Old South Sea House, 



with pious sentences at the beginning, without 

 which our religious ancestors never ventured to open 

 a book of business or bill of lading.;" — this latter 

 practice, and occasionally at the commencement of 

 modern wills, being all that survives of this worthy 

 custom. Whether the use of these sacred devices 

 and words was to attest the truthfulness and correct- 

 ness of what followed ; whether they were used as a 

 kind of benediction by the writer, or whether their 

 use is only an instance of the blending of the religious 

 with the secular, which was so prominent a feature in 

 all the relations of life in past times, is a question now 

 difficult of solution. 



