Emblems Miscellaneous will include some which have been omitted, or which remain unclassified from not belonging to any of the foregoing divisions. They are placed here without any attempt to bring them into any special order.

Several words and forms of thought employed by the Emblem writers, and especially by Whitney, have counterparts, if not direct imitations, in Shakespeare’s dramas; he often treats of the same heroes in the same way.

Thus, in reference to Paris and Helen, Whitney utters his opinion respecting them (p. 79),—

And Shakespeare sets forth Troilus (Troilus and Cressida, act ii. sc. 2, l. 81, vol. vi. p. 164) as saying of Helen,—

And then, as adding (l. 92),—

Whitney inscribes a frontispiece or dedication of his work with the letters, D. O. M.,—i.e., Deo, Optimo, Maximo,—“To God, best, greatest,”—and writes,—

Very similar sentiments are enunciated in several of the dramas; as in Twelfth Night (act iii. sc. 4, l. 340, vol. iii. p. 285),—

In Henry VIII. (act v. sc. 3, l. 10, vol. vi. p. 103), the Lord Chancellor says to Cranmer,—

Even Banquo (Macbeth, act ii. sc. 1, l. 7, vol. vii. P. 444) can utter the prayer,—

And very graphically does Richard III. (act iv. sc. 2, l. 65, vol. v. p. 583) describe our sinfulness as prompting sin,—

Or as Romeo puts the case (Romeo and Juliet, act v. sc. 3, l. 61, vol. vii. p. 124),—

Coriolanus thus speaks of man’s “unstable lightness” (Coriolanus, act iii. sc. 1, l. 160, vol. vi. p. 344),—

Human dependence upon God’s blessing is well expressed by the conqueror at Agincourt (Henry V., act iv. sc. 7, l. 82, vol. iv. p. 582),—“Praised be God, and not our strength, for it;” and (act iv. sc. 8, l. 100),—

And simply yet truly does the Bishop of Carlisle point out that dependence to Richard II. (act iii. sc. 2, l. 29, vol. iv. p. 164),—

The closing thought of Whitney’s whole passage is embodied in Wolsey’s earnest charge to Cromwell (Henry VIII., act iii. sc. 2, l. 446, vol. vi. p. 79),—

The various methods of treating the very same subject by the professed Emblem writers will prove that, even with a full knowledge of their works, a later author may yet allow scarcely a hint to escape him, that he was acquainted, in some particular instance, with the sentiments and expressions of his predecessors; indeed, that knowledge itself may give birth to thoughts widely different in their general character. To establish this position we offer a certain proverb which both Sambucus and Whitney adopt, the almost paradoxical saying, We flee the things which we follow, and they flee us,—

Finally, in that noble soliloquy of Hamlet (act iii. sc. 1, lines 60–69, vol. viii. p. 79),—

So the Evils of Human Life and the Eulogy on Death, ascribed in Holbein’s Simulachres de la Mort to Alcidamus, sign. Liij verso^[181] may have been suggestive of the lines in continuation of the above soliloquy in Hamlet, namely (lines 70–76),—

To another of the devices of the Images of Death (Lyons, 1547), attributed to Holbein, we may also refer as the source of one of the Dramatist’s descriptions, in Douce’s Dance of Death, (London, 1833, and Bonn’s, 1858); the device in question is numbered XLIII. and bears the title of the Idiot Fool. Woltmann’s Holbein and his Time (Leipzig, 1868, vol. ii. p. 121), names the figure “Narr des Todes,”—Death’s Fool,—and thus discourses respecting it. “Among the supplemental Figures,”—that is to say, in the edition of 1545, supplemental to the forty-one Figures in the edition of 1538,—“is found that of the Fool, which formerly in the Spectacle-plays of the Dance of Death represented by living persons played an important part. Also as these were no longer wont to be exhibited, the Episode of the contest of Death with the Fool was kept separate, and for the diversion of the people became a pantomimic representation. From England expressly have we information that this usage maintained itself down to the former century. The Fool’s efforts and evasions in order to escape from Death, who in the end became his master, form the subject of the particular figures. On such representations Shakespeare thought in his verses in Measure for Measure” (act iii. sc. 1, lines 6–13, vol. i. p. 334). Though Woltmann gives only three lines, we add the whole passage better to bring out the sense,—

The action described by Shakespeare is so conformable to Holbein’s Figures of Death and the Idiot Fool that, without doing violence to the probability, we may conclude that the two portraits had been in the Poet’s eye as well as in his mind.

Woltmann’s remarks in continuation uphold this idea. He says (vol. ii. p. 122),—

“Also in the Holbein picture the Fool is foolish enough to think that he can slip away from Death. He springs aside, seeks through his movements to delude him, and brandishes the leather-club, in order unseen to plant a blow on his adversary; and this adversary seems in sport to give in, skips near him, playing on the bag-pipe, but unobserved has him fast by the garment, in order not again to let him loose.”

Old Time is a character introduced by way of Chorus into the Winter’s Tale (act iv. sc. 1, l. 7, vol. III. p. 371), and he takes upon himself “to use his wings,” as he says,—

Something of the same paradox which appears in the Emblematist’s motto, “What we follow we flee,” also distinguishes the quibbling dialogue about time between Dromio of Syracuse and Adriana (Comedy of Errors, act iv. sc. 2, l. 53, vol. i. p. 437),—

Almost of the same complexion are some of the other strong contrasts of epithets which Shakespeare applies. Iachimo, in Cymbeline (act i. sc. 6, l. 46, vol. ix. p. 185), uses the expressions,—

But “old fond paradoxes, to make fools laugh i’ the ale-house,” are also given forth from the storehouse of his conceits. Desdemona and Emilia and Iago play at these follies (Othello, act ii. sc. 1, l. 129, vol. viii. p. 477), and thus some of them are uttered,—

We thus return, by a wandering path indeed, to the paradoxical saying with which we set out,—concerning “fleeing what we follow;” for Iago’s paragon of a woman,—

Taken by itself, the coincidence of a few words in the dedications of works by different authors is of trifling importance; but when we notice how brief are the lines in which Shakespeare commends his “Venus and Adonis” to the patronage of the Earl of Southampton, it is remarkable that he has adopted an expression almost singular, which Whitney had beforehand employed in the long dedication of his Emblems to the Earl of Leycester. “Being abashed,” says Whitney, “that my habillitie can not affoorde them such, as are fit to be offred vp to so honorable a suruaighe” (p. xi); and Shakespeare, “I leave it to your honourable survey, and your Honour to your heart’s content.” Whitney then declares, “yet if it shall like your honour to allowe of anie of them, I shall thinke my pen set to the booke in happie hour; and it shall incourage mee, to assay some matter of more momente, as soon as leasure will further my desire in that behalfe;” and Shakespeare, adopting the same idea, also affirms, “only if your Honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour.” Comparing these passages together, the inference appears not unwarranted, that Whitney’s dedication had been read by Shakespeare, and that the tenor of it abided in his memory, and so was made use of by him.

From the well-known lines of Horace (Ode ii. 10),—

several of the Emblem writers, and Shakespeare after them, tell of the huge pine and of its contests with the tempests; and how lofty towers fall with a heavier crash, and how the lightnings smite the highest mountains. Sambucus (edition 1569, p. 279) and Whitney (p. 59) do this, as a comment for the injunction, Nimium rebus ne fide secundis,—“Be not too confident in prosperity.” In this instance the stanzas of Whitney serve well to express the verses of Sambucus,—