QUARLES, FRANCIS

(baptized May 8, 1592, Romford, Essex, Eng.d. Sept. 8, 1644, London), religious poet remembered for his Emblemes, the most notable emblem book in English. (An emblem book is a collection of symbolic pictures, usually accompanied by mottoes and expositions in verse and by a prose commentary.) Quarles was educated at the University of Cambridge and at Lincoln's Inn, London; he had private means and was happiest living in scholarly seclusion. With Emblemes (1635) Quarles produced a new type of emblem book. Each emblem consisted of a grotesque engraving and a paraphrase of Scripture in ornate and metaphysical language and concluded with an epigrammatic verse. Emblemes was so successful that Quarles produced another emblem book, Hieroglyphikes of the Life of Man (1638). The two were printed together in 1639, and this work became possibly the most popular book of verse of the 17th century. Quarles became chronologer to London in 1640, virtually abandoning poetry to employ his pen more lucratively. His first prose work, Enchiridion (1640), was a highly popular book of aphorisms. In the English Civil Wars he is said to have suffered for his allegiance and for writing The Loyall Convert (1644), a pamphlet defending Charles I's position.