Mrs. Pott's Emblem Plates Found in the British Library
Plate II.
Comments on Plate II.
Some have roses, fleur-de-lis, etc.
30. Serpent, with its tail in its mouth emblem of eternity 3 inches diameter. British Museum, 15c ii.
31. Five-pointed star in circle. Five is a mystic number, meaning the soul of the world. A star, the emblem of a heavenly messenger, or teacher. The circle – the world.
32. The ship or ark of the church. Cotton MSS. Nero vi. 108. 1529. British Museum, 318c vii. 1400.
Plate II. Starting from #1
1/3. Unicorns. Symbol of the church. One marked as if for cipher. There are four other varieties, 1430, and more 1460 all German. Ars Moriendi. 1440. Also in Apocalypse, and in the Speculum, first edition, 1430-1465.
4/5. Unicorns. Drayton’s Poems, three patterns. Brit. Mus., 11,573. (Sotheby.) 1620.
6. Talbot or hound, symbol of hunting or experience. The Oxford Book St. Jerome. Sotheby. Printed date, 1468.
7. Talbot, from a Dutch Bible, copy of the Aretin. The paper of the Bodleian copy of the Aretin, dated Oxford, 1479, exhibits no fewer than twenty-two different paper-marks, nearly all of which occur in the Dutch Bible of 1477. Brit. Mus., 318c. 1477.
8 A dog-headed figure merging into a horn or spire. Anthony Bacon's correspondence. Tennison MSS., Lambeth Palace.
9/11. Bulls' heads. Brit. Mus., 318c. Circa 1470.
12. Bull's head. The original is seven inches high. Ars Moriendi.
13/20. Bulls' heads. No. 20 is seven inches long. Brit. Mus., 318c. 1400.
21/ 22. Anchors. See PLATE I. Brit. Mus., 318c.
22/26. Letters G-, M, P, Y. See 'Sotheby's Principia Xylographica, xi., leaf 8, chap. 25. In the Barclay copy of the Apocalypse, the I H S are elaborately introduced in the style of the early English letters, and with crosses and flourishes. MSS. and the Apocalypse, Spenser copy. 1440, 1460.