A collection of emblemes, ancient and moderne : quickened vvith metricall illustrations, both morall and divine : and disposed into lotteries
Basic Information
A Collection of Emblemes, Ancient and Moderne is an English emblem book by George Wither, first published in London in 1635 by Henry Taunton. Wither was an English poet, pamphleteer, and satirist who lived from 1588 to 1667. The book contains 200 emblem plates arranged across four books. The engraved images were made by Crispin de Passe and originally belonged to Gabriel Rollenhagen’s Emblemata Sacra (1611–1613). Wither supplied the English verses and moral-theological interpretations. The full title describes the emblems as “quickened with metricall illustrations, both morall and divine,” meaning that the images are brought to life through poetic commentary and spiritual reflection. The work was also “disposed into lotteries,” allowing readers to draw or select emblems as a form of moral recreation, contemplation, and instruction.
Form and Purpose
An emblem book joins image, motto, and verse into a single symbolic unit. The image gives the visible sign. The motto gives the key or riddle. The verse unfolds the moral, spiritual, or philosophical meaning. Wither’s book belongs to the early modern emblem tradition, where pictures were treated as vessels of hidden doctrine, ethical teaching, and divine instruction. It is especially useful for the Royal Art because it shows the older Western habit of reading the world symbolically: every creature, object, scene, and gesture becomes a mirror of the soul and a sign of invisible truth.
The Lottery System
Wither’s book was not only a collection of images and poems. It was also designed as a symbolic lottery system. The reader could pose a question, turn to the rotating dials at the back of the book, spin the pointer, receive an emblem number, and then turn to that emblem for reflection. Wither described this as an “honest and pleasant recreation.” This language allowed the work to remain within the bounds of moral play and Christian instruction, rather than open divination. Earlier lot books had appeared in Italy in the late fifteenth century, often using dice, numbers, or tables to direct the reader to pre-written answers. Wither transformed this older genre by uniting the mechanism of lots with a full emblem book of 200 symbolic images. The result was not a simple answer-book. The reader received an image, motto, and poem that required interpretation. The emblem became a mirror of conscience rather than a mechanical fortune.
Images, Mottoes, and Reinterpretation
The engravings were originally made by Crispijn van de Passe the Elder for Gabriel Rollenhagen’s Nucleus emblematorum. When the plates were reused for Wither’s book, the original Latin mottoes were cut away and replaced with new ones. Wither therefore worked in reverse: he did not begin with his own images, but received an existing symbolic corpus and read new meanings into it. Some plates were already worn by the time of the 1635 edition. In some cases, the same image appears more than once in the book, but with a different context, poem, and meaning. This makes the book especially interesting as a practice of symbolic interpretation. One image can become multiple teachings, depending on its placement, motto, and moral frame.
A Map of Human Experience
The book is arranged into four sections of 50 emblems each. These can be read as a broad moral journey: the private self, life among others, maturity and responsibility, and the larger horizon of time, fate, death, and what remains after us. The emblems address enduring human themes: character, patience, fear, temptation, reputation, trust, power, justice, ambition, envy, greed, exhaustion, self-deception, love, guilt, conflict, hope, loss, and the search for meaning. The symbolic language remains alive because the images are archetypal. A spider may become an image of deception. A snail may teach patience. A young person standing between Virtue and Vice becomes the eternal image of moral choice.
Reception and Later Use
The book was not a popular success in Wither’s own time, and Wither was mocked by some contemporaries, including Ben Jonson. Wither’s life was marked by conflict with authority, including imprisonment for political pamphlets. His reflections on virtue, reputation, fate, and conscience were not abstract literary exercises, but were written by a man who knew public conflict and personal consequence. Over time, the engravings became valuable to art historians and emblem scholars, while the book’s original use as a working symbolic system was often left aside. The modern School of the Heart Oracle Deck attempts to restore this practical function by turning the 200 emblems back into a usable deck for reflection, question, and interpretation.
