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.”[9] “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 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 ἐμβάλλεσθαι, 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 maie, 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_, l. 159–63, the dress of “a Nonne, a Prioresse,”—