themselves of food or drink during this Mumbo-Jumbo play, but afterwards a species of toddy makes them like “Roger the Monk,” namely, “excessively drunk.”
The true shape of the pearl should be a perfect sphere. In India, and elsewhere, those of the largest size find the readiest sale, and realise immense prices. The very finest pearls are sent to Europe, and of these the very finest of the fine are sent to London and Paris. Thence the great people of the land procure their choice specimens. The late Emperor of Russia used to purchase for his wife, of whom he was exceedingly fond, the very finest pearl he could procure: a virgin pearl and a perfect sphere was what he sought, for he would not have any that had been worn by others. After five-and-twenty years’ search, he presented to the Empress such a necklace as had never before been seen.
Immense prices have been given and are still given for pearls. Julius Cæsar, in love with the mother of Marcus Brutus, is said to have donated her with a pearl worth 48,417l. 10s., which we can believe or not according to our natures. Marc Antony, as all the world has read, drank, dissolved in vinegar, a pearl which cost 80,729l. of our money. Clodius the glutton (surely a gourmet, not a gourmand) swallowed one worth 8072l. 18s. One of the modern pearls was bought by Tavernier at Catifa, and sold by him to the Shah of Persia for 110,000l.; another was obtained by Philip II. of Spain, off the Columbian coast, which weighed 250 carats, and was valued at 150,000 dollars.
Tavernier’s pearl, if engraved, would illustrate the rocky and bad shapes which are too often found. Of the 960,000 pounds weight of oyster-shells imported annually into the United Kingdom we say nothing; nor need we more than advert to the 1,000,000 pounds of the same material cut up by the Chinese for like ornamental purposes.
Did the scope of our paper include a description of the substitute for the real pearl, the marvellously clever imitation which is worn, wittingly, by many a gracious lady, and unwittingly by many another, we should have another interesting story to tell. But these imitations may be considered as frauds upon our placid creditor the oyster—or, shall we say, compositions with him, and beneath the notice of debtors who are trying to behave honestly to a bivalve.
OUR VOLUNTEERS.
If we were to look for the very root and spring of the present Volunteer movement, we should find it possibly in the celebrated letter of the Duke of Wellington, with which he rudely awakened Englishmen from the dream they had dreamed since Waterloo and Trafalgar, that our isle would be inviolate “come the four corners of the world in arms to shock us.” The Saxon mind from that time slowly took alarm, and since the establishment of the empire the whole nation has turned in upon itself, as it were, to consult its own deep instincts as to what should be done. The “Times,” appreciating the blind instincts of the people, first shaped and moulded the movement in the direction it ultimately took; but it was to the voice of song that we owe the rapid and splendid development of peaceful citizens into armed battalions ready for the field. The philosopher who notes the shapeless grains of sand grouping themselves into regular forms, when influenced by the vibrations of certain sounds, could in the Volunteer movement see an analogous movement in the moral world, when the Poet Laureate’s stirring song “Riflemen Form” thrilled through the land, and at a stroke organised into serried lines the mobs of panic-stricken citizens. We question if any section of the nation has been taken so much by surprise by this movement as the military caste. Having experience of the lowest stratum only of the population in our own country, and of the National Guards on the Continent, it did not believe that the office, the chamber, and the shop, could turn out, at six months’ notice, regiments worthy to be brigaded with regular troops, forgetting that in the Great Rebellion the shopkeepers of London marched to Gloucester, and there and then decided for ever, in England, the contest between despotism and liberty. Those again who remembered with a supercilious smile the National Guard of continental nations—middle-aged gentlemen, fat and frowsy, who do duty on compulsion—should not have confounded their capabilities with the picked youth of this country; athletes, with bone, muscle, and pluck enough to go anywhere and do anything.
“But, what about the Review?” exclaims our reader. Well, then, there are some subjects so well thumbed that a writer’s only choice is to talk round them. Among the many hundred thousands who crowded Hyde Park on the 23rd of June, jammed tight between two Guardsmen in the purgatorial space before the stands, we noticed the long and sombre line of England’s Home Army slowly pass before the Queen. Across the green sod this sombre riband of men came on and on, their ranks ruled as straight as lines, and the whole mass sweeping round with a movement like the spokes of a wheel. For an hour and a half came the tramp, tramp, unbroken by a sound save by the distant music, their own feet, and the occasional cheers of the spectators, for it was perhaps wisely ordered that none but the Queen’s band should play during the Review. Persons accustomed to the reviews of regular troops were struck by the exceeding simplicity of the uniforms. There was no holiday attire here. Grey and green made up the long column, save that, like a lance, at its head, fluttered the brilliant scarlet of the Artillery Company and the bright tunics of the Huntingdonshire Mounted Rifles. It was impossible to avoid drawing comparisons between the different corps as they marched past; indeed, the line of military spectators who fringed the reserved standings were very demonstrative indeed in their professional criticisms, and it is but just to say that in no instance was there the slightest shade of professional jealousy evinced by them. “What splendid horses!” we heard a Guardsman involuntarily exclaim, as the Huntingdonshire Mounted Rifles went past; “Her Majesty don’t mount our men like that.” Every horse perhaps was a valuable