Doubtless both the woodcuts and the plates are very unequal in their execution; but to have aimed at a uniformity even of high excellence would have been to sacrifice truth to mere embellishment. It should be borne in mind what one of our objects has been,—namely, to place before the reader examples of the Emblem devices themselves, very nearly as they existed in their own day, and not to attempt the ideal perfection to which modern art rightly aspires. The Edition of Shakespeare from which the extracts are taken is the very excellent one, in nine volumes, issued from Cambridge, 1863–1866. Its numbering of the lines for purposes of reference is most valuable. Our work offers information, and consequently advantage, to three classes of the literary public:— 1st. To the Book Agent and Book Antiquarian, so far as relates to books of Emblems previous to the early part of the seventeenth century, A. D. 1616. In a collected and methodical form, aided not a little by the General Index, the first chapters and sections of our volume supply information that is widely scattered, and not to be obtained without considerable trouble and search. The authors, titles, and dates of the _chief_ editions of Emblem books within the period treated of, are clearly though briefly given, arranged according to the languages in which the books were printed, and accompanied where requisite by notices and remarks. There is not to be found, I believe, in any other work so much information about the early Emblem books, gathered together in so compendious and orderly a manner. 2nd. To the Students and Scholars of Shakespeare,—a widely-extended and ever-increasing community. Another aspect of the Master’s reading and attainments is opened to them; and into the yet unquarried illustrations of which his marvellous writings are susceptible, another adit is driven. We may have followed him through Histories and Legends, through the Epic and the Ballad, through Popular Tales and Philosophic Treatises,—from the forest glade to the halls and gardens of palaces,—across the wild moor where the weird sisters muttered and prophesied, and to that moon-lighted bank where the sweet Jessica was sitting in all maiden loveliness;—but if only for variety’s sake it may interest us, even if it does not impart pleasure, to mark how much his mind was in accord with the once popular Emblem literature, which now perchance awakens scarcely a thought or a regret, though great scholars and men of genius devoted themselves to it; and how from that literature, imbued with its spirit and heightening its power, even he—the self-reliant one—borrowed help and imagery, and made his own creations more his own than otherwise they would have been.