one of the most ferocious and one of the most gentle animals which inhabit the wilds of Africa, to the green sward, to the leaves of trees. He might have enlarged upon the manifold uses of the ring in human societies—either simply as an ornament to the person, or as a means of authenticating the owner’s will and wish; or as coin passing from hand to hand in commercial dealings; or as a significant symbol in momentous proceedings; or as an amulet averting disease and misfortune; or as an aid in divining the unrolled, unwritten secrets of the future. He might have entertained us with an account of the marvellous properties which superstition in various ages ascribed to rings, and he might have noticed the changes in shape and mode of wearing which, as personal ornaments, they have undergone at the fickle will of fashion. As a physician, doubtless, he wore a ring in compliance with the precepts of Hippocrates and Galen; and, after describing it, he might have agreeably indulged his discursive intellect in digressions as to the metal of which it was composed, the precious stone which adorned it, or the inscription which compressed within a few letters a lucid truth or a dark mystery.
Far be from us the presumption of attempting what the learned humourist left undone. Yet there can be no harm, perhaps, if we offer a contribution in the manner of a mémoire pour servir for the use of the future historian, to be honourably mentioned, or silently passed by in his luminous pages, as our humble performance may deserve. And the subject well demands its own historian; for within the magic circle of a little ring how many things of deep importance to the whole human race have been performed; out of its diminutive compass how much of weal and woe to individuals has issued!
Associations connected with rings crowd into the memory from history, from fiction, from art. The costly ring of Polycrates, that was as little to be got rid of as his destiny; Rogero’s, in the “Orlando Furioso;” Abdaldar’s, which when cast into the gulf, “A skinny hand came up, and caught it as it fell, and peals of devilish laughter shook the cave;”[1] Borgia’s poisoned ring; Camilla and Gil Blas; Boccaccio’s story of the three rings, told by the Jew to the Mahometan, which has been thought to shadow the doubts of a sceptic; the unseemly wager between Posthumus and Iachimo, when the former staked his wife’s honour and a jewelled ring “dear as his finger;” Isabella, disposing of her wedding-ring, described in a passage of “The Fatal Marriage,” which when read by the amiable Sophia Western, the book dropped from her hand, and a shower of tears ran down into her bosom; the antique ring of massive gold “with a cameo most beautifully executed, bearing the head of Cleopatra,” presented as a peace-offering to the Antiquary by his nephew; the ruby ring which Charles II., disguised as a gipsy woman, dropped into Alice Lee’s pitcher;[2] and a thousand others of more or less celebrity. But to indulge in general allusions will conduce little to the amusement or instruction of the reader, and with these objects in view we must treat the matter with greater particularity.
The early history of the ring, like that of all important things, is involved in obscurity; but we can readily believe that the rude pleasure received by the eyes from bright and glittering objects would induce the primitive denizens of the earth to construct ornamental appendages of an annular form as soon as they had acquired sufficient skill to cut stone or cast metal. Tubal Cain was the earliest artificer in brass or iron; and Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the first maker of rings on record. Rings are mentioned in the “Odyssey.” It was a condition imposed by Penelope on her importunate suitors, that they should shoot an arrow from the bow of the absent Ulysses through twelve rings, alternately of silver and brass, placed in a line. This task they were unable to perform; but when the wandering chief, returning in disguise, drew the cord, his shaft flashed through them all. Pliny refers to the practice of wearing rings, more than once, and after alluding to the labours undertaken with the view of extracting metal from the bowels of the earth, and precious stones from their bed, he exclaims, “How many hands are harassed that a single member of the hand may look gay!”
Amongst the oldest rings in existence may be mentioned that of Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid, which was found in a tomb near that stupendous erection. It is of gold, with hieroglyphics.[3] Various rings with Runic inscriptions have been found both in this country and in Scandinavia. They are now safely deposited in museums, and some of them have been dissertated upon by our antiquarians.
Many ancient rings have been preserved, and have at length found their way into the cabinets of collectors, on account of their reputed power to guard their wearers from harm—a power residing more perhaps in the stone than in the setting. According to an Eastern writer, the precious stones are all influential in their several ways: thus, the diamond cures madness, and soothes vain fears; the ruby dispels melancholy bodings, and ensures honourable place; the emerald prevents ill dreams, and cures the palsy; the sapphire averts the operation of enchantments; and the turquoise enlivens the eye, and heals the bite of poisonous reptiles. The Persian name of the turquoise is “Father of Isaac.” Now it will be remembered, that the ring Shylock had from Leah when he was a bachelor, was set with this stone: the ring that he declared he would not have exchanged for a wilderness of monkeys, when he heard how his daughter, after her elopement, had given it for one. Are we to suppose that the turquoise was by tradition a stone peculiarly Jewish? It does not, however, appear to have been set in any one of the four rows of stones which composed Aaron’s mysterious breast-plate. From a passage in one of Donne’s poems, it seems that it told the state of the wearer’s health by changing colour:
As a compassionate turcoise that doth tell,
By looking pale, the wearer is not well.
And Ben Jonson, when describing some parasites of Sejanus, says that they were accustomed to
