6. "Newly Devised" Emblems
Whitney took great pains in calling attention to the fact that a number
of emblems in both the MS and Choice were newly devised.
In the "Epistle Dedicatorie" to the Earl of Leicester, he writes: "I hope it
shalbee the more delightfull, bicause none to my knowledge, hathe assayed
the same before: &, for that diuers of the inuentiõs are of my
owne slender workmanship." In the title-page to Choice, the
new inventions are underscored after the derivative nature of the entire
collection is announced: "For the moste parte gathered out of sundrie
writers, | Englished and Moralized. | AND DIVERS NEWLY DEVISED,
| by Geffrey Whitney." Unwilling, as it were, to let the fact of his having
devised some new emblems slip past his reader going into the second part
of Choice, he emphasizes it again in the half-title, this time
by reducing the statement "For the most parte gathered out of sundrie
writers" to simply "gathered." The fact that fourteen out of the fifteen
"newly devised" emblems appear in the second part is therefore accurately
reflected in "And diuerse newlie deuised" on the half-title. In the order in
which they appear in Choice, with MS folio numbers
following in square brackets, these fifteen emblems are:
- 95[29]
- 112[95]
- 114
- 129[77v]
- 131[80]
- 145[34]
- 161
- 167[94b]
- 168a[60va]
- 184[36]
- 185
- 198[19]
- 203[98v]
- 225
- 230
Strangely, little study has hitherto been made on these emblems, beyond
listing them either as "untraced" or "newly devised"; especially lacking is
an attempt to trace their non-emblematic pictorial or textual sources. The
present effort will begin with those emblems that are based on simple,
definite pictorial or textual sources, continue with those that are based on
more complex and eclectic sources, and end with those that are based on
less certain, textual sources only. Since ten of the fifteen are in the MS, any
changes in the process of converting from one version to another will again
be noted.
Two "newly devised" emblems that have definite pictorial sources are
Wh 203 and Wh 112. Wh 203, "A ship drawn by Providence," is based on
the crest to Sir Francis Drake's coat of arms. According to Arthur Charles
Fox-Davies in The Art of Heraldry, the arms are: "Sable, a
fess wavy between two stars argent. Crest: a ship under reef, drawn round
a terrestrial globe with a cable by a hand issuing from clouds all
proper."[27] The last detail signifies
divine assistance given to Drake during his circumnavigation (1577-1580)
and is highlighted above the ship by the motto "Auxilio divino" (Fig.
31),[28] which Whitney borrowed for
his emblem. The emblem in praise of Sir Francis Drake is dedicated to his
cousin, Richard Drake, and concerns itself with celebrating Sir Francis'
seamanship and God's providential help. The MS artist simply transposed
the crest into a drawing, which the Choice artist copied
faithfully (as
is the case of all the "newly devised" emblems when there are no other
models). The surrounding sun, moon, stars, and clouds were apparently
added to support the verse. Written in poulter's measure, the poem begins
by emphasizing the meteorological dangers that beset Drake's voyages:
"Throvghe scorchinge heate, throughe coulde, in stormes, and tempests
force, | By ragged rocks, by shelfes, and sandes: this Knighte did keepe his
course." The reason for Drake's constancy is that "God was on his side,"
and the reason for his success is that he made it "By helpe of power
deuine." Whitney goes on to compare the enchantment by which Medea
helped Jason win the golden fleece (marginal note: Ouid.Met.lib.7) with the
divine help given to Drake and belittles the small conquest of Jason. He
concludes by challenging other world explorers to bring golden sands back
from Ganges and by urging those stay-at-homes to give maximum praises
to Drake for his incomparable feats. Wh 112, "The Schoolmaster
of Faleria," with its motto of "Habet & bellum suas leges" is based
upon Plutarch's life of Furius Camillus. Specifically, Whitney took the
motto out of a speech by Camillus, which he quotes in toto in the margin,
a portion of which reads: ". . . & tamen apud bonos viros, habentur
etiam belli quaedam leges. . . ." Of greater significance is the fact that
Whitney also cited in the margin the precise edition from which this speech
was extracted: "Verba Camilli apud Plutarchum. Xylandro interprete." This
edition of Plutarch is probably that published by Sigismund Feyerabendt at
Frankfort on the Main in 1580. It is decorated with large woodcuts
designed by Jost Amman. Whitney followed this Latin
version of Plutarch's account closely, especially in the first three lines of
the last sextet, describing the whipping of the schoolmaster by his students
on orders of Camillus: "Haec postquam dixit, lictoribus mandauit, vt
proditori vestes deriperent, manusque in tergum revincirent: pueris autem
virgas flagellaque darent, quibus eum ferientes in vrbem compellerent" (fol.
43
v). This may be further compared with the equally faithful rendering
from Amyot's French version by Sir Thomas North: "Therefore he
commaunded his sergeants to teare the clothes of the backe of this vile
schoolemaster, and to binde his hands behinde him: and that they should
geve the children roodes and whippes in their handes, to whippe the traitour
backe againe into the cittie . . . that had thus betrayed them and grieved
their parents." Although in Whitney's verse the binding of the
schoolmaster's hands has been omitted, the MS artist included this detail in
his drawing as he copied faithfully from Amman's
design. In reducing the original large woodcut of 109 x 148 mm. (4¼
x 5⅞”) into 67 x 95 mm. (2⅝ x 3¾”), he
lessened the number of students from eight to six and eliminated the troops
on the battlements as well as a burning town in the background (Figs. 32,
33). In further reducing the MS drawing into a square of 57 mm.
(2¼”), the
Choice artist had to eliminate further
the city gate and a soldier standing in front of it, but he managed to restore
the number of students to the original eight—another instance of his
copying directly from the original model (Fig. 34). As a result, the woodcut
of Wh 112 differs much from the original; yet, with Camillus on horseback
in the background and the whipping of the schoolmaster by his students in
the center unchanged, it represents adequately both the verse and the moral
of this "newly devised" emblem.
[29]
There are four emblems whose pictorial sources are not so definite;
all of them are however related in a greater or lesser degree to Aesop's
fables or their analogues. Wh 184 and Wh 95 may have been based on
contemporary Aesopic illustrations even though their woodcuts differ
significantly from their models, whereas Wh 145 and Wh 161 are only
analogus to two extant fables. The woodcut in Wh 184, "Ox & the
cur," diverges noticeably from the design in Freitag's Mythologia
Ethica (1579) which Green suggested as a source. The etching in
Freitag depicts this Aesop's fable of "dog in the manger" as taking place
out of doors. Outside a farmhouse, the snarling dog occupies a haystack
under what appears to be a lean-to, whereas Whitney's woodcut shows the
two animals indoors with the dog inside the manger, refusing to allow the
ox to feed. Since illustrated editions of Aesop's fables were readily
available in Whitney's days—in fact, no fewer
than five editions were printed by Plantin between 1560 and 1581
[30] —it is highly likely that the MS artist
modeled his drawing after one of the illustrations in Aesop of the same
fable. The fact remains, however, that the resultant woodcut of Wh 184 has
a unique design unlike any of its probable models (Figs. 36-38).
[31] It is not inconceivable that the MS artist
who signed the drawing with his monogram [HA] devised it deliberately
differently from his Aesopic models. Similar to Wh 184 in having a
ready-to-hand model in Aesop is Wh 95, "De Inuido & Auaro,
iocosum," although its woodcut differs even more significantly from its
model than that of Wh 184. "Cupidus et Invidus," one of the five fables by
Avianus, begins with Jupiter sending Phoebus to learn the dubious minds
of men, and its illustration shows the envious man, his one eye plucked out,
talking to Jupiter while a man (Phoebus in disguise?) with a dagger is
plucking out both eyes of the covetous man lying on the ground (Fig. 39).
The MS motto differs from that of Wh 95 in that it is more explicit of the
moral: "Mutua auaritiae & inuidiae pœna," but the drawing is
faithfully copied by the
Choice artist. It depicts the envious
man pointing at three eyes on the ground in front of him to the covetous
man who is blinded in both eyes (Fig. 40). Moreover, the verse differs
from the text of the fable in that Wh 95 plunges into the terms right away:
"The Goddes agreed, two men
their wishe should haue. . . ." According to Whitney's marginal annotation
(Auth. de Gueuara in Epistolis suis), his verse is based on the retelling of
the same fable in one letter from Antonio de Guevara's collection of
familiar epistles. In a contemporary English translation by Geffray Fenton
entitled the
Golden Epistles (1575), this letter has the caption
of "One friend writeth to another of the rage of Envie, and the nature
thereof," in which the original fable is greatly expanded and extensively
moralized. Since this particular letter is not found in the original Spanish
collection nor in subsequent Italian, French and English translations except
in Fenton
[32] and since, more
importantly, the wordings in Fenton are at times similar to those of Wh 95,
it is highly probable that Whitney used this version. Quoted below is the
relevant portion with similar wordings from Whitney in quotes interpolated
in square brackets:
. . . Whereupon he [the angel] willed them to aske what they would,
and who made the first demaund should not onely haue fully all that he
required, but the other should haue forthwith double as much. The one of
these . . . was a couetous man, and the other an envious man, betwene
whom this offer of the Angell bred no small contention ["They longe did
striue, who shoulde the firste demaunde"]. For, the couetous man, who
dwelles alwayes insatiable in the desire of gaine, would not make the first
demaund, hauing regard to the wordes of the Angell promising double to
the second ]"The Couetous man refus'de, bicause his mate, | Shoulde
haue his gifte then doubled out of handes"[. The envious man, on the
other-side, whose condicion is to desire that no good happen to an other,
vsed scilence, determining rather to loase the benefite of the first demaund,
then that his companion should enioye the double of his gaine. . . . For,
being in this conflict who should aske first, and
that of necessitie a demaunde must be made, the enuious man, thinking by
the sufferance of simple harme in himselfe, to bring about double hurt to
his fellowe, desired of the Angell that one of his eyes might bee put out,
wherewith at the instant he lost one eye, and his companion was made blind
of both (fol. 139r-v).
Apart from the obvious difference in Whitney, who has the gods compel
the envious man to begin: "Wherefore the Goddes . . . did commaunde,
th'Enuious man beginne," the most important similarity is that the two men
receive instantaneously what they have been promised: "Which beinge
say'd, he did his wishe obtaine: | So but one eye, was lefte vnto them
twaine." In the original fable, Phoebus laughs on hearing the envious man's
request and goes back to Jupiter to report on that man's malice, and the
moral of the fable weighs heavily against the sin of envy:
Tum sortem sapiens humanam risit Apollo,
Invidiaeque malum rettulit ipse Iovi,
Quae, dum proventis aliorum gaudet iniquis,
Laetior infelix et sua damna cupit.
Although the purpose of the letter in the
Golden Epistles is
also to illustrate the evils of envy, in its conclusion the writer introduces the
element, borrowed by Whitney, of the envious man being used by the gods
as a scourge of the covetous man: "So that where the one refused to bee
satisfied with that which sufficed, the other was raysed as a scourge of his
insatiable desires ['Wherefore the Goddes did plague him for his sinne'] and
the one as wretched in spite ['who did not craue, what Midas cheife did
choose, | Because his frende, the fruite thereof should finde'], as his
companion in couetousneese, the one became the iust instrument of reuenge
to another: A iustice of due force against such as striue in the quarrell of
enuie and couetousness, both which, being contagious infections in the
nature of man, the one poysoneth his soule, and the other consumes and
dries up his body: of all other vices in the world, enuie is the most
auncient, of most custome, and of greatest
continuance, yea euen to the end of the world" (fols. 139
v-140
r).
Touching also upon the evils of both sins, Whitney however singles out
covetousness:
See heare how vile, theise caytiffes doe appeare,
To God, and man: but chieflie (as wee see)
The Couetous man, who hurteth farre, and neare.
Where spyteful men, theire owne tormentors bee.
But bothe be bad, and he that is the beste,
God keepe him thence, where honest men doe reste.
Quoting thus at length from the textual source of Whitney's verse in Wh 95
and finding no similar pictorial source for its woodcut leads to but one
conclusion: the MS artist drew his picture on the basis of Whitney's verse
alone. The genius of the artist is nowhere more cleverly seen than in the
drawing of the three eyes on the ground, symbolizing the instant fulfillment
of sinful retribution.
This same artist who signed his name with [HA] also drew the picture
of "In curiosos" on fol. 34, later Wh 145. This emblem is not based on an
Aesopic fable but represents perhaps an analogue of the fable about an ape
imitating the fishermen and getting entangled in their nets.[33] Interestingly
enough its woodcut is similar to one of the 60 emblems in Hernando de
Soto's
Emblemas moralizados.
[34] It is not entirely improbable that
Hernando de Soto might have copied from
Choice, even
though it is more likely that both artists based their emblems on a common
source now untraceable. Nonetheless, it is equally possible that the MS
artist drew the picture solely on the basis of the verse in Wh 145, as he had
done for Wh 95. Wh 161, "The sick fox & the lion," is unique in that
it borrows its motto "Ars deluditur arte" from Sam 42, yet its woodcut has
nothing in common with that in Sambucus. The latter shows a frog holding
a stick in its mouth in order to avoid being swallowed by a menacing fish,
whereas Wh 161 depicts a lion trying to trick a sick fox into letting him
lick the patient with his allegedly "medicinal" tongue. It is probable that
Whitney turned to his own Wh 210, "Lion feigning sickness," for an
indirect pictorial model.
While Wh 210 is based on one of the standard Aesop's fables,
[35] the reversing of roles in Wh 161 is not to
be found in Aesop or in any of its later additions. The nearest analogue
could be the fable concerning a wolf and a sick ass which normally follows
the sick lion and the fox in most collections of Aesop (Caxton, Book IV,
Fable 12). Unlike Whitney's fox, however, the sick ass, true to his nature,
allows the wolf to lick his wounds and so loses his life. Moreover, Wh 161
and Wh 210 have similar outcomes, the fox outwitting the lion in both
instances, as they are given similar mottoes: "Ars deluditur arte" and
"Fraus meretur fraudem." It is highly probable, therefore, that Whitney
instructed the
Choice artist to devise a new emblem by
exchanging the positions of the lion and the fox in Wh 210 for the woodcut
of Wh 161.
Two "newly devised" emblems (Wh 198 and Wh 114) base their
woodcuts on textual sources, although both might have partial emblematic
sources. Diogenes' living in a "tonne" and King Alexander's visiting him
are the subject of one of the 74 copperplates engraved by Geerhardt de
Jode, in a collection of scenes from human lives called
Μιχροχόσμοζ or Parvus
Mundus.[36] It is probable that
the MS artist could have modeled his design partially on the plate by de
Jode. However, Whitney's emblem is far from being simply a lesson on
Diogenes' contentment alone. "Animus, non res" is illustrated in the second
sextet with the lives of three wisemen, Diogenes, Bias, and Codrus. The
four sextets, other than the first, all have copious notes to suggest the
sources of Whitney's ideas. Especially, the third and fourth sextets are no
more than translations of quotations respectively from Horace's Epistle to
Lollius Maximus (I, ll. 51-53)
and Ausonius' Septem Sapientum Sententiae (1. Bias
Prieneus). But the design of the
drawing is based on the second sextet and the last two lines of the fourth
sextet:
Diogenes, within a tonne did dwell,
No choice of place, nor store of pelfe he had;
And all his goodes, coulde Bias beare right well,
And Codrvs had small cates, his harte to gladde
His meate was rootes: his table, was a stoole,
Yet these for witte, did set the worlde to school?
. . . . . . . . .
Which proues: the man was ritcher in the tonne,
Then was the Kinge, that manie landes had wonne.
The first two and the last two lines above form the basis of Diogenes and
King Alexander for which Whitney cites in the margin Erasmus' adage
"vita doliaris" as his source. Codrus and his stool, to the right of Diogenes'
tun, are more difficult to identify. Whitney's marginal note suggests
Juvenal's
Satyre (III, 10) as source: "Tota domus Codri rheda
componitur vna." There is no mention in Juvenal of Codrus' meat being
roots and his table being a stool. It is possible that Whitney found the ideas
about the roots and the stool in sources other than Juvenal. Anyway, in
designing the picture of contentment in poverty, the MS artist added Codrus
and his stool with roots scattered in front of it to a rather commonplace
emblematic representation of Diogenes. Inasmuch as Codrus is new, this
emblem may properly be considered as "newly devised."
According to the marginalia, the account in Wh 114 of Attilius'
heroic suffering of torture and death as a result of his keeping faith even
with his enemies, as reflected in the motto "Hostis etiam seruanda fides,"
is based on those of Nepos, Eutropius, Italicus, and Gellius. From
Cornelius Nepos' De viri illustres (Paris, 1500, Cap. xl)
Whitney took for the first sextet of his verse the details of Attilius' success
in overcoming two hundred thousand men, three score ships and two
hundred towns in his African campaigns. The capture of Attilius by
Xantippus and imprisonment at Carthage, and his return to Rome for the
truce and exchange of prisoners of war, and his advice against the enemy's
proposals are also elaborated in Flavius Eutropius' Breviarium
historiae Romanorum. In a contemporary translation of the brief
history by Nicolas Haward, Eutropius' account is rendered as follows:
"And as for him, he was not worthye to be so muche esteamed (being now
very aged)
that for his cause, and the redeminge of a fewe others whyche were
detained prisonners, at Carthage, so many thousand of their enemies should
be restored. Regulus sone after, returned to Carthage: whome the
Romaynes offered to detaine still at Rome. But hee denied that he woulde
remayne in that city, in which he could not haue the name of an honest
Citezen, sith that he had so long bene among the Carthaginiens. Whom
(after his returne to Carthage,) the Carthaginiens with most cruel
tormẽts put to death."[37] In
adapting this account for his second and third sextets, Whitney omitted
several interesting details
concerning Attilius' refusal to consider himself an honest Roman citizen
because of his long captivity in Carthage, his unwillingness to live with his
wife Marcia, and his persuasion of the Roman Senate not to grant a truce
to the Carthaginians; instead, he emphasized Attilius' love for his own
country and his insistence on returning to Carthage to keep his words. For
the details of Attilius' torture, which Eutropius did not choose to elaborate,
Whitney had to rely on the story of Aulus Gellius'
Noctes
Atticae, especially for the statement in his verse on Attilius'
"mangled eies, the Sonne all daye assailes"; for the details of his death,
Whitney borrowed from both Nepos and Italicus. These two details, the
manners of torture and death, are extremely important because they form
the bases of Whitney's woodcut. The bright sun at the upper left corner of
the picture shines mercilessly upon Attilius' eyes, the lids of which have
been pulled apart and sewn fast so that they cannot
be closed. This form of torture is based on the account by Aelius Tubero
in his
Historiis from which Gellius quotes: "'In atras,' inquit,
'et profundas tenegras eum claudebant ac diu post, ubi erat uisus sol
ardentissimus, repente educebant et aduersus ictus solis oppositum
continebant atque intendere in caelum oculos cogebant. Palpebras quoque
eius, ne coniuere posset, sursum ac deorsum diductas insuebant,'"
(
Noctes Atticae, VII, iv, 2). Nepos describes Attilius' death
briefly at the end of his account mentioning specifically the wooden box
with nails all around inside into which the Roman general was thrust. So,
in greater detail it is described by Italicus,
[38] who records Marus' narration of Attilius'
death to the latter's son Serranus. There being no known illustration of
Attilius' torture in quite the same manner as in Whitney's woodcut,
[39] it is highly probable that the
Choice artist drew the
picture on the basis of the verse alone. What is especially significant about
this verse is its highly eclectic nature, based as it is on the accounts of
Nepos, Eutropius, Italicus, and Gellius.
Equally eclectic is the "newly devised" woodcut of Wh 225. It seems
to have been based on three separate emblems from Montenay. As has been
pointed out in the section on woodcut designs, there are nine emblems in
Choice that are copied from models in Montenay's
Emblèmes ou devises chrestiennes. All except Wh 225 are
fairly close copies of their models (as seen in Figs. 27-30). For the design
of "Superest quod suprà est" (Wh 225) the Choice artist
seems to have made a composite drawing from Mon
(12), Mon (56), and Mon (63). There are three key ingredients in
Whitney's emblem whose single couplet in poulter's measure quotes the
Christian wayfarer as saying: "Adewe deceiptfull worlde, thy pleasures I
detest: | Nowe, others with thy showes delude; my hope in heauen doth
rest." To represent "heauen" the artist uses the Hebrew word
Yahweh encircled by radiance and clouds; to depict the
"deceiptfull worlde," he uses a globe; and the speaker of the couplet just
quoted is identified as a pilgrim whose back is turned away from the globe
on the ground and whose face is uplifted towards the sky where the word
Yahweh shines above the clouds, and towards that direction
he is walking with a long staff (Fig. 43). Now, although the artist has
copied eight other emblems from Montenay, there is none among the one
hundred emblems of Montenay that comes close to having all these
ingredients in one picture. The closest model is Mon (63) "Beati pauperes"
which shares a similar idea
with "Superest quod suprà est" in that both the poor in spirit and the
pilgrim are steadfast in God and in heavenly things. Mon (63) also has
Yahweh and a globe; however, instead of a pilgrim, as
demanded by its subject naturally, the poor in spirit is represented by a
naked child, who is lifting up his heart on the tip of a long stick towards
Yahweh (Fig. 42). Furthermore, the globe is pictured
differently from that in Whitney's emblem. For the latter, drawn with
longitudes and latitudes as well as the names of the three continents, Asia,
Europa, and Africa, the artist modeled on that in Mon (56), "Nemo
duobus," which he must have already copied for Wh 223, "Nemo potest
duobus dominis seruire" (Fig. 44). There are thirteen emblems with a globe
in them in Montenay; only in (56) is the globe drawn with lines and names
of the continents. Since Whitney's artist had just copied it for Wh 223, he
no doubt conveniently used the same globe once more in Wh 225. It is
highly
probable, therefore, that he had both Mon (56) and Mon (63) in front of
him when he designed Wh 225; for the globe he copied from (56), for
Yahweh he copied from (63). For the pilgrim, however, he
needed another model, which he found in Mon (12), "Sed futuram
inquirimus" (Fig. 45). Above all, all three of Montenay's emblems share
the same idea of
contemptus mundi with the motto of
"Superest quod suprà est" in Wh 225. As for the four-sextet alternate
verse, Whitney seems to have written it on his own, basing it entirely on
numerous scriptural verses (all annotated in the margin). So, unlike Wh 114
whose verse is a composite from four different sources and whose woodcut
is based on the verse alone, Wh 225 has a composite woodcut based on
three different models, even though they all come from the same source,
Montenay's
Emblèmes.
Wh 131 "Scripta manent" may also be the result of composite
borrowing from different pictorial or textual sources. Green (pp. 178, 124)
suggested that the woodcut design could have been based on one emblem
from Coustau's Pegma, whose woodcut pictures buildings in
ruin, and one emblem from Horapollo's Hieroglyphica, which
depicts the lasting value of books. Two considerations, however, argue
against the validity of this
suggestion. One is the fact that apart from the suggested use here in Wh
131, nowhere else did Whitney borrow from these two sources. The other
is that both the mutability theme represented by buildings in ruin and the
permanence of writings represented by books are such commonplaces that
any emblem that contains ruined buildings and any emblem that portrays
books and manuscripts would have inspired Whitney's emblem. His verse
in Wh 131 also could have been inspired in a composite way; whether or
not he knew Coustau and Horapollo is less material. As for the woodcut,
the MS artist could have simply drawn from Whitney's text. From the
discussion of the ten "newly devised" emblems so far, both the MS and the
Choice artists have been shown to be competent painters,
capable of drawing from textual descriptions alone. Accordingly, since no
pictorial sources have been found for Wh 168a, Wh 185, Wh 129, and Wh
167, it may be assumed that Whitney's artists drew their illustrations
from Whitney's verses alone. Assumed still useful is Green's caution after
he has listed 23 emblems as "newly devised": "We cannot however say
with certainty that the whole of these 23 emblems are original; further
researches may lessen the number, and two or three works, to which I have
not obtained access, seem likely to supply some of the missing
identifications . . ." (p. 237). That his number has been reduced to 15 bears
out the accuracy of his prediction; however exhaustive the present research
has been—and in the field of iconographical and emblematic study no
research can ever hope to be exhaustive—the assumption that the number
may still be lessened by further researches remains valid. On the other
hand, as long as only non-emblematic pictorial or textual sources should be
found, such discovery would in no way lessen the number of "newly
devised" emblems. On the contrary, it would only strengthen the impression
that Whitney was a resourceful emblem-writer. The last
emblem, Wh 230, no doubt is entirely original with Whitney. "Tempus
omnia terminat" is a fitting finale for the
Choice of 248
emblems; "And all must ende, that euer was begonne."
One outcome of this comparative study of the two versions of
Choice is certainly a better understanding of the intricate
interdependence and interaction among the motto, the woodcut, and the
verse of an emblem. Changes in one necessitate changes in the other two,
and most of the changes are brought about by Whitney's desire to achieve
greater harmony among these three components. Differences between the
MS and the printed versions and discrepancies among the three components
exist because the MS artist generally followed Whitney's verse faithfully
and did not hesitate to alter his model, whereas the Choice
artist, in recopying the MS drawings based on La Perrière and Aneau,
tended to follow his models rather than the MS drawings (except of course
Wh 108). In the case of the "newly devised" emblems that are in the MS,
the Choice artist still followed directly the original source
(e.g., Wh 112), but copied the MS drawing faithfully when it
was his only model (e.g., Wh 95). By using identical woodblocks from his
source emblem-books and by not having time to revise his verses to
harmonize with the cuts, Whitney left some emblems in
Choice with woodcuts that are unsupported by their verses.
The exposition in this essay of these discrepancies has provided a number
of insights into Whitney's manner of collecting his emblems from other
sources. Moreover, the review of his sources and the examination of his
marginal annotations contribute to a fuller knowledge of how Whitney put
together an emblem-book. But it is among the 15 "newly devised"
emblems, particularly among the 10 with their pictorial and textual sources
traced in the last section, that Whitney revealed himself to be a competent
emblematist, and of especial significance to literature students are those
"newly devised" emblems that are based on more than one pictorial or
textual source.