Note 167 — Chapter VI · CLASSIFICATION OF THE CORRESPONDENCIES AND PARALLELISMS OF SHAKESPEARE WITH EMBLEM WRITERS. (continued 4)

The whole stanza as given on the last page, beginning with the line,—

“The Pellican, for to reuiue her younge,”

is quoted in Knight’s “Pictorial Shakspere” (vol. i. p. 154), in illustration of these lines from Hamlet concerning “the kind life-rendering pelican.” The woodcut which Knight gives is also copied from Whitney, and the following remark added,—“Amongst old books of emblems there is one on which Shakspere himself might have looked, containing the subjoined representation. It is entitled ‘A Choice of Emblemes and other Devices by Geffrey Whitney, 1586.’” Knight thus appears prepared to recognise what we contend for, that Emblem writers were known to Shakespeare.