Now, since so many Emblems from various authors were gathered to adorn a royal bed,[80] “a very antient oak wooden bed,” and “a lady’s closet,” in widely distant parts of Britain, the supposition is most reasonable that the knowledge of them pervaded the cultivated and literary society of England and Scotland; and that Shakespeare, as a member of such society, would also be acquainted with them. The facts themselves are testimonies of a generally diffused judgment and taste, by which Emblematic devices for ornaments would be understood and appreciated. And the facts we have mentioned are not solitary. About the period in question, in various mansions of the two kingdoms, Device and Emblem were employed for their adorning. In 1619, close upon Shakespeare’s time, and most likely influenced by his writings, there was set up in the Ancient Hall of the Leycesters of Lower Tabley, Cheshire, a richly carved and very curious chimney-piece, which may be briefly described as emblematizing country pursuits in connection with those of heraldry, literature, and the drama. In high relief, on one of the upright slabs, is a Lucrece, as the poet represents the deed, line 1723,— “Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheathed.” On the other slab is a Cleopatra, with the deadly creature in her hand, though not at the very moment when she addressed the asp;—act. v. sc. 2, l. 305, vol. ix. p. 151,— “Peace, peace! Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, That sucks the nurse asleep?” The cross slab represents the hunting of stag and hare, which with the hounds have wonderfully human faces. Here might the words of Titus Andronicus, act. ii. sc. 2, l. 1, vol. vii. p. 456, be applied,— “The hunt is up, the moon is bright and gray, The fields are fragrant, and the woods are green; Uncouple here, and let us make a bay, And wake the emperor and his lovely bride, And rouse the prince, and ring a hunter’s peal That all the court may echo with the noise.” The heraldic insignia of the Leycesters surmount the whole, but just below them, in a large medallion, is an undeniable Emblem, similar to one which in 1624 appeared in Hermann Hugo’s _Pia Desideria_, bk. i. emb. xv. p. 117; _Defecit in dolore vita mea et anni mei in gemitibus_ (_Psal._ xxx. or rather _Psal._ xxxi. 10),—“My life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing.” Appended to Hugo’s device are seventy-six lines of Latin elegiac verses, and five pages of illustrative quotations from the Fathers; but the character of the Emblem will be seen from the device presented. Drayton in his _Barons’ Wars_, bk. vi., published in 1598, shows how the knowledge of our subject had spread and was spreading; as when he says of certain ornaments,—