“It happened from time to time that one or other of the most important Chambers sent a card in rhyme to the other Chambers of the same province, whereby they were invited to be at a given time in the town where the senders of the card were established, for the sake of the celebration of a poetical feast. This card contained further everything by which it was desired that the Chambers, which were to make their appearance, should illustrate this feast, viz., the performance of an allegorical play (_zinnespel_) in response to some given question;[60] the preparation of _esbatementez_ (drawings), _facéties_ (jests), prologues; the execution of splendid entries and processions; the exhibitions of beautifully painted coats of arms, &c. These entries were of two kinds, _landiuweelen_, and _haagspelen_>;—the _landjewels_ were the most splendid, and were performed in towns; the _hedge-plays_ belonged properly to villages, though sometimes in towns these followed the performance of a landjewel.” Originally, _landjewel_ meant a prize of honour of the land; called also _landprys_ (land-prize). Such were the periodic jubilees of a neighbouring people, their “land-jewels,” as they were termed, when the birthtime of our greatest English dramatist arrived. And as we mark the wide and increasing streams of the Emblem Literature flowing over every European land, and how the common tongue of Rome gave one language to all Christendom, can we deem it probable that any man of genius, of discernment, and of only the usual attainments of his compeers, would live by the side of these streams and never dip his finger into the waters, nor wet even the soles of his feet where the babbling emblems flowed? Some there have been to maintain that Shakespeare had visited the Netherlands, or even resided there; and it is consequently within the limits of no unreasonable conjecture that he had seen the _landjewels_ distributed, and at the sight felt himself inspirited to win a nobler fame. [Illustration: _Whitney, 1586._] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SECTION IV. _EMBLEM WORKS AND EDITIONS BETWEEN A.D. 1564 AND A.D. 1616._ IN the year at which this Section begins, Shakespeare was born, and for a whole century the Emblem tide never ebbed. There was an uninterrupted succession of new writers and of new editions. Many eminent names have appeared in the past, and names as eminent will adorn the future.