No more needs be said respecting the knowledge of Emblem-books in Britain, unless it be to give the remarks of Tod, the learned editor of Spenser’s works, edition 1845, p. x. “_The Visions_ are little things, done probably when Spenser was _young_, according to the taste of the times for Emblems.[83] The _Theatre of Wordlings_, I must add, evidently presents a series of Emblems.” II. We will now state some of the general indications that Shakespeare was acquainted with Emblem-books, or at least had imbibed “the taste of the times.” Here and there in Shakespeare’s works, even from the way in which sayings and mottoes, in Spanish, as well as in French and Latin, are employed, we have indications that he had seen and, it may be, had studied some of the Emblem-writers of his day, and participated of their spirit. Thus Falstaff’s friend, the ancient Pistol, _2 Henry IV._ act. ii. sc. 4, l. 165, vol. iv. p. 405, quotes the doggerel line, as given in the note, _Si fortuna me tormenta, il sperare me contenta_,—“If fortune torments me, hope contents me,”—which doubtless was the motto on his sword, which he immediately lays down. As quoted, the line is Spanish; a slight alteration would make it Italian; but Douce’s conjecture appears well founded, that as Pistol was preparing to lay aside his sword, he read off the motto which was upon it. Such mottoes were common as inscriptions upon swords; and Douce, vol. i. pp. 452, 3, gives the drawing of one with the French line, “Si fortune me tourmente, L’esperance me contente.” [Illustration: _Douce, 1807._] He gives it, too, as a fact, that “Haniball Gonsaga being in the low-countries overthrowne from his horse by an English captaine and commanded to yeeld himselfe prisoner, _kist his sword_, and gave it to the Englishman, saying, ‘_Si fortuna me tormenta, il speranza me contenta_.’” Allow that Shakespeare served in the Netherlands, and we may readily suppose that he had heard the motto from the very Englishman to whom Gonsaga had surrendered. The Clown in _Twelfth Night_, act. i. sc. 5, l. 50, vol. iii. p. 234, replies to the Lady Olivia ordering him as a fool to be taken away,—“Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, _cucullus non facit monachum_, [—it is not the hood that makes the monk,]—that’s as much to say as I wear not motley in my brain.” The saying is one which might appropriately adorn any Emblem-book of the day;—and the motley-wear receives a good illustration from a corresponding expression in Whitney, p. 81: “The little childe, is pleas’de with cockhorse gaie, Although he aske a courser of the beste: The ideot likes, with bables for to plaie, And is disgrac’de when he is brauelie dreste: A motley coate, a cockescombe, or a bell, Hee better likes, than Jewelles that excell.”