Thomas Jenner

The first work attributed to Jenner himself is The Soules Solace; or Thirty and one Spirituall Emblems (edition 1626; 1631; 1639; 1651 under a new title, Divine Mysteries that cannot be seene, made plain by that which can be seene). It contains thirty copper-plate engravings (one repeated), each with descriptive letterpress. Some of those were influenced by Gabriel Rollenhagen. Other emblematists thought to have influenced Jenner were Dutch, Jacob Cats and Florentius Schoonhoven. The final engraving, of a person in gay attire, with hat and plume, sitting and smoking at a table, is accompanied by a poem, once strangely attributed to George Wither, whose portrait the engraving was taken to be. The poem was in fact an allegorical work on earthly existence, and its burden was "Thus thinke, then drinke Tobacco." Wither, an opponent of smoking, wrote a reply with the counter-refrain, "Thus thinke, drinke no Tobacco." The themes of other engravings were based on sermons preached in London, and exhibit anti-Catholic feeling. There is possibly allusion to the Fatal Vespers. The preachers of the sermons are indicated by two initials only. It has been argued that in particular the 27th engraving, "The new creation", with imagery based on an untuned musical instrument, could have been taken from preaching of John Donne. Jenner produced two more works in the same general vein. The Ages of Sin, or Sinne's Birth and Growth. With the Stepps and Degrees of Sin from thought to finall Impenitencie consists of a series of engraved plates in which, as in Francis Quarles's Emblems, each is accompanied by six metrical lines. There is also The Path of Life and the Way that leadeth down to the Chambers of Death or the Steps to Hell and the Steps to Heaven, in which all men may see their ways set forth in copper prints. London, 1656. It is debated whether this last work should be classified as an emblem book. Freeman disqualifies this book by Jenner as an emblem book, by a general four-point criterion. Manning elucidates Jenner's intention by means of a biblical motto, associated with the emblematist Filippo Picinelli by his translator Augustin Erath, and paraphrased on the title page of Jenner's book as "by the outward and visible we may the easier see that which is inward and invisible".