possess affinity but not identity,-they have no absolute convertibility of the one for the other.

An example of Emblem and Symbol united occurs in Symeoni's Dedication * "To Madame Diana of Poitiers, Dutchess of Valentinois;"

* "LA VITA ET METAMORFOSEO:""A Lione, per Giouanni di Tornes," Svo, 1559, pp. 2, 3.

The word emblem, ußλnua, is one that has strayed very widely from its first meaning, and yet by a sort of natural process, as the apple grows out of the crab, its signification now is akin to what it was in distant ages. It then denoted the thing, whether implement or ornament, placed in, or thrown on, and so joined to, some other thing. Thus a word of cognate origin, Epibles, in the Iliad, bk. xxiv. 1. 453,* denoted the bolt of fir that held fast the door;-it was something put against the door, the peg or bar that kept it from opening. So in the Odyssey, bk. ii. 1. 37, the sceptre, the emblem of command, was the baton which the herald Peisēnor placed in the hand of the son of Ulysses; and again in the Iliad, bk. xiii. 1. 319, 20,‡ the flaming torch was the implement which the son of Kronos might throw on the swift ships.

Of the changes through which a word may pass, "the word Emblem presents one of the most remarkable instances." They cannot be better given than in the "Sketch of that branch of Literature called BOOKS OF EMBLEMS," read in 1848 before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, by the late Joseph Brooks Yates, Esq. He says of the word EMBLEM, pp. 8, 9,-" its present signification, Type or allusive representation,' is of comparatively modern use, while its original meaning is become obsolete. Among the Greeks an Emblem (εμβλημα), derived from ενβαλλειν, meant something thrown in or inserted after the fashion of what we now call Marquetry and Mosaic work, or in the form of a detached ornament to be affixed to a pillar, a tablet, or a vase, and put off or on, as there might be occasion. Pliny, in his Natural History," bk. xxxiii. c. 12,

"mentions an artist called Pytheus, who executed works of this last description in silver, one of which, intended to be attached to a jar (in phialæ emblemate), represented Ulysses and Diomed carrying off the Palladium.* It weighed two ounces, and sold for 10,000 sesterces = 80%. 14s. 7d. of our money. According to one ancient manuscript of Pliny, it sold for double that amount. Marcus Curtius leaping into the gulph forms the subject of a beautiful silver Emblem, in the possession of the writer. When the arts of Greece were transplanted into Italy and Sicily, the word Emblema became naturalised in the Latin tongue, though not without some resistance on the part of the reigning prince Tiberius. That emperor is reported by Suetonius,” Tiber. Cæsar Vita, c. 71, "to have found fault with the introduction of the word into a Decree of the Senate, as being of foreign growth. Cicero, however, had used it in his orations against Verres, where he accuses that rapacious governor (amongst other crimes) of having compelled the people of Haluntium to bring to him their vases, from which he carefully abstracted the valuable Emblems and inserted them upon his own golden vessels. Quintilian,” lib. 2, cap. 4, "soon after this period, in enumerating the arts of oratory used by the pleaders of his day, describes some of them. as in the habit of preparing and committing to memory certain highly finished clauses, to be inserted (as occasion might arise) like Emblems in the body of their orations." ↑

"Such was the meaning of the term in the classical ages of Greece and Rome; nor was its signification altered until some time after the revival of literature in the fifteenth century."

Our own Geoffrey Whitney, deriving, as he does the other

* Philemon Holland names the work of art, "A broad goblet or standing piece,” "with a device appendant to it, for to be set on and taken off with a vice."

+ Now the property of his grandson, Mr. Henry Yates Thompson, of Thingwall, near Liverpool.

+ Quidam

scriptos eos (scilicet locos) memoriæque diligentissime mandatos, inpromptu habuerent, ut quoties esset occasio, extemporales eorum dictiones, his, velut Emblematibus exornarentur."—Quint. Lib. 2, cap. 4.

parts of his Choice of Emblemes from the writers on the subject that preceded him, gives very exactly the same explanation as Mr. Yates. In his address "To the Reader" (p. 2) he says ;— "It resteth now to shewe breeflie what this worde Embleme signifieth, and whereof it commeth, which thoughe it be borrowed of others, & not proper in the Englishe tonge, yet that which it signifieth: Is, and hathe bin alwaies in vse amongst vs, which worde being in Greek έμβάλλεσθαι, vel ἐπεμβλῆσθαι is as muche to saye in Englishe as To set in, or to put in properlie ment by suche figures, or workes; as are wroughte in plate, or in stones in the pauementes, or on the waules, or suche like, for the adorning of the place: hauinge some wittie deuise expressed with cunning woorkemanship, somethinge obscure to be perceiued at the first, whereby, when with further consideration it is vnderstood, it maie the greater delighte the behoulder. And althoughe the worde dothe comprehende manie thinges, and diuers matters maie be therein contained; yet all Emblemes for the most parte, maie be reduced into these three kindes, which is Historicall, Naturall, & Morall. Historicall, as representing the actes of some noble persons, being matter of historie. Naturall, as in expressing the natures of creatures, for example, the loue of the yonge Storkes, to the oulde, or of suche like. Morall, pertaining to vertue and instruction of life, which is the chiefe of the three, and the other two maye bee in some sorte drawen into this head. For, all doe tende vnto discipline, and morall preceptes of liuing. I mighte write more at large hereof, and of the difference of Emblema, Symbolum, & Ænigma, hauinge all (as it weare) some affinitie one with the other. But bicause my meaning is to write as briefely as I maic, for the auoiding of tediousnes, I referre them that would further inquire therof, to And. Alciatus, Guiliel. Perrerius, Achilles Bocchius & to diuers others that haue written thereof, wel knowne to the learned. For I purpose at this present, to write onelie of this worde Embleme:

Bicause it chieflie doth pertaine vnto the matter I haue in hande, whereof I hope this muche, shall giue them some taste that weare ignoraunt of the same."

Whitney's namesake, to whom flattering friendship compared him, Geoffrey Chaucer, gives us more than the touch of an Emblem, when he describes, in the Canterbury Tales, 1. 159-63, the dress of " a Nonne, a Prioresse,❞—

"Of smale corall aboute hire arm she bare
A pair of bedes, gauded all with grene;
And theron heng a broche of gold ful shene,
On whiche was first ywritten a crouned A,
And after, Amor vincit omnia."*

So the "Cristofre," which the Yeoman wore, 1. 115,

"A Cristofre on his brest of silver shene,"

was doubtless a true Emblem, to be put on, and taken off, as occasion served,—and was probably a cross with the image of Christ upon it and if pictured forth according to the description in The Legend of Good Women, 1. 1196-8, an emblematical device was exhibited, where

"With saddle redde, embrouded with delite

Of gold the barres, up enbossed high,

Sate Dido, all in gold and perrie wrigh."

This form, the natural form of the Emblem, we may illustrate from a Greek coin, figured in Eschenburg's Manual of Classical Literature, by Fisk, ed. 1844, pl. xl. p. 351.

The Flying Horse and other ornaments of this coin on the helmet of Minerva are Emblems,-and so are the owl, the olive wreath, and the amphora, or two-handled vase. Were these

* So the note in illustration quotes from Gower, Conf. Am. f. 190,

"Upon the gaudees all without

Was wryte of gold, pur reposer."