IN the use of the word Emblem there is seldom a strict adherence observed to an exact definition,—so, when Emblem Literature is spoken of, considerable latitude is taken and allowed as to the kind of works which the terms shall embrace. In one sense every book which has a picture set in it, or on it, is an emblem-book,—the diagrams in a mathematical treatise or in an exposition of science, inasmuch as they may be, and often are, detached from the text, are emblems; and when to Tennyson’s exquisite poem of “ELAINE,” Gustave Doré conjoins those wonderful drawings which are themselves poetic, he gives us a book of emblems;—Tennyson is the one artist that out of the gold of his own soul fashioned a vase incorruptible,—and Doré is that second artist who placed about it ornaments of beauty, fashioned also out of the riches of his mind. Yet by universal consent, these and countless other works, scientific, historical, poetic, and religious, which artistic skill has embellished, are never regarded as emblematical in their character. The “picture and short posie, expressing some particular conceit,” seem almost essential for bringing any work within the province of the Emblem Literature;—but the practical application of the test is conceived in a very liberal spirit, so that while the small fish sail through, the shark and the sea-dog rend the meshes to tatters. A proverb or witty saying, as, in Don Sebastian Orozco’s “EMBLEMAS MORALES” (Madrid 1610), “Divesqve miserqve,” _both rich and wretched_, may be pictured by king Midas at the table where everything is turned to gold, and may be set forth in an eight-lined stanza, to declare how the master of millions was famishing though surrounded by abundance;—and these things constitute the Emblem. Some scene from Bible History shall be taken, as, in “~Les figures du vieil Testament, & du nouuel~” (at Paris, about 1503), _Moses at the burning bush_; where are printed, as if an Emblem text, the passage from Exodus iii. 2–4, and by its side the portraits of David and Esaias; across the page is a triplet woodcut, representing Moses at the bush, and Mary in the stable at Bethlehem with Christ in the manger-cradle; various scrolls with sentences from the Scriptures adorn the page:—such representations claim a place in the Emblem Literature. Boissard’s _Theatrum Vitæ Humanæ_ (Metz, 1596) shall mingle, in curious continuity, the Creation and Fall of Man, Ninus king of the Assyrians, Pandora and Prometheus, the Gods of Egypt, the Death of Seneca, Naboth and Jezabel, the Advent of Christ and the Last Judgment;—yet they are all Emblems,—because each has a “picture and a short posie” setting forth its “conceit.” To be sure there are some pages of Latin prose serving to explain or confuse, as the case may be, each particular imagination; but the text constitutes the emblem, and however long and tedious the comment, it is from the text the composition derives its name.