CURRENT LITERATURE.
Andrew Alciati and his Books of Emblems. By Henry Green, M.A. (Trfibner.)—Alciati was one of the most eminent juriseonsults of the day, a native of Milan, whoso life was divided between France and Italy, both of which countries contended for his services, offering for them salaries which translated into our money seem exceedingly large. At the age of twenty-six he was appointed Professor of Law at Avignon, with a salary of .£125, having previously practised his profession at Milan for about four years. At Avignon he remained for three years, then returned to Milan; and then again, at the invitation of King Francis I., found his way back to France, becoming Professor in the University of Bourges, with a salary which in the second year amounted to £250. His stay at Bourges lasted for five years, and he quitted it unwillingly for Pavia, at the call of Francis Sforza. From Pavia he went to Ferrara, and finally at Pavia ended a life fall of labours and honours. These labours and honours are all forgotten, but the books of emblems which were the amusement of his leisure keep his memory fresh in the estimation of enthusiasts like Mr. Green. We are not altogether given up to the useful, if bibliography still commands the affections of students so de- voted. The labour which Mr. Green has bestowed on the one point, whether there ever was a certain Milan edition of Alciati's Emblems, would of itself have made a man moderately well informed on any ordinary subject. He has inquired for it in every library of Europe, and concludes that it does not exist. If it did, it would be valuable only for its blunders. But if the Milan edition is a myth, there are plenty of real ones. Mr. Green enumerates more than 170, one of them being from his own hand ; 127 of these appeared in the sixteenth century, 41 in the seventeenth, 15 in the eighteenth, there being a gap of nearly ninety years between the last and the revival initiated by the Holbein Society of Manchester. An edition is, it seems, about to be published, with the epigrams rendered into English verse.
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