Book: Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man

Overview

Francis Quarles's Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man (1638) is a richly emblematic sequence that maps human existence through short poems, engraved allegories, and moral reflections. Each plate presents a pictorial "hieroglyphick" accompanied by a motto, a compact quatrain or epigram, and an explanatory meditation that draws moral and spiritual lessons from the image. The work functions as a devotional and didactic tour of life's conditions, from youth and ambition to decline and death, folding Scripture, classical allusion, and popular proverb into a compact, memorable form.
Organized as a series of discrete but thematically linked emblems, the Hieroglyphikes reads as both a companion to Quarles's earlier emblematic writings and a standalone manual for pious reflection. The tone ranges from homely rebuke to elevated consolation, aiming to instruct readers about virtue, the transience of worldly goods, and the need for reliance on divine providence.

Structure and Style

Each entry pairs an engraved device with a textual triptych: a pictorial emblem, a short verse that captures the emblem's point, and a prose commentary that expands the moral. The style of the short poems is epigrammatic and often antithetical, using brisk contrasts and memorable turns of phrase. The explanatory prose is devotional and argumentative, moving from observation to biblical exemplum to practical exhortation.
Quarles favors clear, compact language punctuated by rhetorical figures, imagery, personification, and paradox, to make moral truths stick. The visual-verbal interplay is central: the image supplies an arresting cue, the verse sharpens the thought into a maxim, and the commentary guides the reader to spiritual application, encouraging meditation and penitential practice.

Major Themes

Transience and vanity are persistent concerns: wealth, honor, and earthly pleasures are repeatedly shown to be fleeting, deceptive, or instruments of moral danger. Humility, patience, and submission to God are presented as the proper responses to fortune's vicissitudes. Quarles repeatedly returns to providence and repentance, urging readers to take stock of their spiritual state before death or sudden calamity intervenes.
The social and existential "stages" of life, education, ambition, marriage, parenthood, old age, are treated as loci for moral testing. Quarles reads public roles and private passions morally, warning against pride, intemperance, and worldly entanglements while commending charity, temperance, and steadfast faith. The "theatre of the world" motif appears frequently: life as a play, where vanity and appearance mask truth and where the soul's destiny demands a different loyalty.

Imagery and Rhetorical Devices

Visual emblems employ familiar devices, mirrors, hourglasses, skeletons, crowns, puppets, and labyrinths, each loaded with conventional emblematic meaning. Quarles adapts these images to Protestant sensibilities, often reinterpreting classical or Catholic iconography through a scriptural lens. The pictorial economy lets complex ideas be transmitted at a glance; the accompanying verse and prose ensure the reader receives the correct moral orientation.
Quarles's use of theatrical and commonplace imagery makes lofty theology accessible to a broad readership. The language slips easily between homiletic admonition and wry observation, and the moralizing voice is tempered by pastoral concern rather than merely polemical severity.

Reception and Legacy

Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man enjoyed wide popularity in the seventeenth century and became a staple of English emblem literature and devotional practice. Its compact moralities suited private meditation, household libraries, and sermons, and its memorable lines entered common moral discourse. Modern scholarship values the work for its insights into early modern piety, print culture, and the intersection of image and text.
As an emblem book, Quarles's Hieroglyphikes stands as a lively example of how visual and verbal genres were used to shape character and conscience in Protestant England. Its blend of accessible imagery, scriptural exegesis, and pointed aphorism continues to interest readers exploring the moral imagination of the early modern period.