The Phœnix is Reusner’s 36th Emblem (bk. ii. p. 98),— Vnica ſemper auis _EMBLEMA XXXVI._ [Illustration: _Reusner, 1581._] _Quæ thuris lacrymis, & ſucco viuit amomi:_[165] _Fert cunas Phœnix, buſta paterna, ſuas._ Sixteen elegiac lines of Latin are devoted to its praise and typical signification, mixed with some curious theological conjectures,— “On tears of frankincense, and on the juice of balsam lives The Phœnix, and bears its cradle, the coffin of its sire. Always alone is this bird;—itself its own father and son, By death alone does it give to itself a new life. For oft as on earth it has lived the ten ages through, Dying at last, in the fire it is born of its own funeral pile. So to himself and to his, Christ gives life by his death, Life to his servants, whom in equal love he joins to himself. True Man is he, the one true God, arbiter of ages, Who illumines with light, with his spirit cherishes all. Happy, who by holy baptisms in Christ is reborn, In the sacred stream he takes hold of life,—in the stream he obtains it.” And again, in reference to the birth unto life eternal,— “If men report true, death over again forms the Phœnix, To this bird both life and death the same funeral pile may prove. Onward, executioners! of the saints burn ye the sainted bodies; For whom ye desire perdition, to them brings the flame new birth.” Whitney, borrowing his woodcut and motto from Plantin’s edition of “LES DEVISES HEROIQVES,” 1562, to a very considerable degree makes the explanatory stanzas his own both in the conception and in the expression. The chief town near to his birth-place had on December 10, 1583, been almost totally destroyed by fire, but through the munificence of the Queen and many friends, by 1586, “the whole site and frame of the town, so suddenly ruined, was with great speed re-edified in that beautifull manner,” says the chronicler, “that now it is.” The Phœnix (p. 177) is standing in the midst of the flames, and with outspreading wings is prepared for another flight in renewed youth and vigour. _Vnica semper auis._ _To my countrimen of the_ Namptwiche _in Cheshire_. [Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._] “THE Phœnix rare, with fethers freshe of hewe, ARABIAS righte, and sacred to the Sonne: Whome, other birdes with wonder seeme to vewe, Dothe liue vntill a thousande yeares bee ronne: Then makes a pile: which, when with Sonne it burnes, Shee flies therein, and so to ashes turnes. Whereof, behoulde, an other Phœnix rare, With speede dothe rise most beautifull and faire: And thoughe for truthe, this manie doe declare, Yet thereunto, I meane not for to sweare: Althoughe I knowe that Aucthors witnes true, What here I write, bothe of the oulde, and newe.