Some of Shakespeare’s expressions,—some of the turns of thought, when he is speaking of injuries,—are so similar to those used by the Emblem writers in treating of the same subject, that we reasonably conclude “the famous Scenicke Poet, Master W. Shakespeare,” was intimate with their works, or with the work of some one out of their number; and, as will appear in a page or two, very probably those expressions and turns of thought had their origin in the reading of Whitney’s _Choice of Emblemes_ rather than in the study of the French and Italian authors. Of the same cast of idea with the lines illustrative of _Scribit in marmore læsus_, are the words of Marc Antony’s oration over Cæsar (_Julius Cæsar_, act iii. sc. 2, l. 73, vol. vii. p. 375),— “I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Cæsar.” A sentiment, almost the converse of this, and of higher moral excellence, crops out where certainly we should not expect to find it—in the _Timon of Athens_ (act iii. sc. 5, l. 31, vol. vii. p. 254),— “He’s truly valiant that can wisely suffer The worst that man can breathe, and make his wrongs His outsides, to wear them like his raiment, carelessly, And ne’er prefer his injuries to his heart, To bring it into danger. If wrongs be evils and enforce us kill, What folly ’tis to hazard life for ill!” In that scene of unparalleled beauty, tenderness, and simplicity, in which there is related to Queen Katharine the death of “the great child of honour,” as she terms him, Cardinal Wolsey (_Henry VIII._, act iv. sc. 2, l. 27, vol. vi. p. 87), Griffith describes him as,— “Full of repentance, Continual meditations, tears and sorrows, He gave his honours to the world again, His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.” And just afterwards (l. 44), when the Queen had been speaking with some asperity of the Cardinal’s greater faults, Griffith remonstrates,— “Noble Madam, Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues We write in water. May it please your highness To hear me speak his good now?” How very like to the sentiment here enunciated is that of Whitney (p. 183),— “In marble harde our harmes wee alwayes graue, Bicause, wee still will beare the same in minde: In duste wee write the benifittes wee haue, Where they are soone defaced with the winde. So, wronges wee houlde, and neuer will forgiue, And soone forget, that still with vs shoulde liue.”