Читать книгу The History and Poetry of Finger-rings - Charles Eugene Edwards - Страница 6

“Against Sir Hugh Montgomerie

So right his shaft he set,

The gray-goose-wing that was therein

In his heart blood was wet.”

A father and son of this family were opposed to each other in the battle of Marston Moor. The father, from his bearing, had the popular appellation of Gray Steel. We find the amulet borne in the coats of arms of several of the peers and gentlemen of England.

Louis IX. of France, St. Louis, took for his device a marguerite or daisy and fleur-de-lis, in allusion to the name of Queen Marguerite his wife and the arms of France, which were also his own.[100] He had a ring made with a relief around it in enamel, which represented a garland of marguerites and fleurs-de-lis. One was engraven on a sapphire with these words, “This ring contains all we love.” Thus, it has been said, did this excellent prince show his people that he loved nothing but Religion, France and his wife. It is a question, however, whether the emblem on the escutcheon of the kings of France is really a fleur-de-lis. Some think it was originally a toad, which formed the crest of the helmet worn by Pharamond; and others, the golden bees which were discovered in the tomb of Childeric at Tournay in 1653.[101] The story is that Clovis, after baptism, received a fleur-de-lis from an angel. Since then France has been called “the empire of lilies.” The coat of arms of Clovis and his successors was a field of azure, seeded with golden fleurs-de-lis.

§ 22. The story of losing rings and finding them in fish, is as old as Pliny, and we shall have to mention Solomon’s ring, which, it is said, was found in one. We have an English statement[102] of a Mrs. Todd, of Deptford, who, in going in a boat to Whitstable, endeavored to prove that no person need be poor who was willing to be otherwise; and, being excited with her argument, she took off her gold ring and throwing it into the sea, said, “It was as much impossible for any person to be poor, who had an inclination to be otherwise, as for her ever to see that ring again.” The second day after this, and when she had landed, she bought some mackerel, which the servant commenced to dress for dinner, whereupon there was found a gold ring in one. The servant ran to show it to her mistress, and the ring proved to be that which she had thrown away.

We are told in Brand’s “History of Newcastle,” that a gentleman of that city, in the middle of the seventeenth century, dropped a ring from his hand over the bridge into the river Tyne. Years passed on; he had lost all hopes of recovering the ring, when one day his wife bought a fish in the market, and in the stomach of that fish was the identical jewel which had been lost! From the pains taken to commemorate this event, it would appear to be true; it was merely an occurrence possible, but extremely unlikely to have occurred.

We are inclined to add in this section a circumstance connected with a ring as it appeared in a respectable English periodical. Fact, here, beats fiction:

“Many years ago a lady sent her servant, a young man about twenty years of age, and a native of that part of the country where his mistress resided, to the neighboring town with a ring, which required some alteration, to be delivered into the hands of a jeweller. The young man went the shortest way across the fields; and coming to a little wooden bridge that crossed a small stream, he leant against the rail, and took the ring out of its case to look at it. While doing so, it slipped out of his hand, and fell into the water. In vain he searched for it, even till it grew dark. He thought it fell into the hollow of a stump of a tree under water, but he could not find it. The time taken in the search was so long, that he feared to return and tell his story, thinking it incredible, and that he should be even suspected of having gone into evil company and gamed it away or sold it. In this fear he determined never to return—left wages and clothes, and fairly ran away. This seemingly great misfortune was the making of him. His intermediate history I know not; but this, that after many years’ absence, either in the East or West Indies, he returned with a very considerable fortune. He now wished to clear himself with his old mistress; ascertained that she was living; purchased a diamond ring of considerable value, which he determined to present in person, and clear his character, by telling his tale, to which the credit of his present position might testify. He took the coach to the town of——, and from thence set out to walk the distance of a few miles. He found, I should tell you, on alighting, a gentleman who resided in the neighborhood, who was bound for the adjacent village. They walked together, and in conversation, this former servant, now a gentleman, with graceful manners and agreeable address, communicated the circumstance that made him leave the country abruptly many years before. As he was telling this, they came to the very wooden bridge. ‘There,’ said he; ‘it was just here that I dropped the ring; and there is the very bit of old tree into a hole of which it fell—just there.’ At the same time he put down the point of his umbrella into the hole of the knot in the tree, and drawing it up, to the astonishment of both, found the very ring on the ferrule of the umbrella.”

Here also was an occurrence against which one would have previously said the chances were as one to infinity. It was a circumstance which we see to be most unlikely, yet must acknowledge to be possible, and, when well authenticated, to be true.

In the year 1765, a codfish was sold, and in its stomach was a gold ring. It had remained there so long that the inscription was worn off, although the scrolls in which it had been written remained entire.[103] Codfish, like sharks, swallow any thing, whether fresh or salted, bits of wood, red cloth, and even a whole book has been found in one. We are not aware, however, that a cod has turned “State’s evidence,” as it is said a shark did. A shark had swallowed a log-book, thrown overboard to him by a pirate; and afterwards repenting, took the first hook that offered, and thus turned State’s evidence—so as to hang the villain by the revelation of the document.[104]

§ 23. Poetical riddles are but a low species of verse, and yet the best of poets have made them. We find a neat one on a ring, which, in riddle-phrase, has been said to “unite two people together and touch only one.” It runs thus:

“Though small of body, it contains

The extremes of pleasure and of pains;

Has no beginning, nor no end;

More hollow than the falsest friend.

If it entraps some headless zany,

Or, in its magic circle, any

Have entered, from its sorcery

No power on earth can set them free.

At least, all human force is vain,

Or less than many hundred men.

Though endless, yet not short, nor long;

And what though it’s so wondrous strong,

The veriest child, that’s pleased to try,

Might carry fifty such as I.”

George Herbert—“Holy Mr. Herbert,” as Isaac Walton calls him—has an enigma in which a ring appears. We must confess our inability to solve it, and leave readers to do so. It is entitled—

“HOPE.

“I gave to Hope a watch of mine; but he

An anchor gave to me.

Then an old prayer-book I did present,

And he an optic sent.

With that, I gave a phial full of tears;

But he a few green ears.

Ah, loiterer! I’ll no more, no more I’ll bring:

I did expect a ring.”

§ 24. Rings are sometimes misapplied. In the church of Loretto is the house in which some Catholics say the Virgin mother of Jesus was born, it having occupied a lane in Nazareth where Christ resided, and which, after a long flight of years, was transported by angels to Loretto. It must, as it stood in Nazareth, have resembled a mud cabin. Within it is a miraculous statue of the Virgin and child, in cedar wood. “The Bambino,” says an authoress, “holds up his hand, as if to sport a superb diamond ring on his finger, presented to him by Cardinal Antonelli; it is a single diamond, and weighs thirty grains.”[105]

§ 25. The scenes through which many rings are carried must be as remarkable as those exhibited in “The Adventures of a Guinea,” or “of a Feather.” “My Lady Rochford,” writes Horace Walpole, “desired me t’other day to give her a motto for a ruby ring, which had been given by a handsome woman of quality to a fine man; he gave it to his mistress, she to Lord *****, he to my Lady; who, I think, does not deny that it has not yet finished its travels. I excused myself for some time, on the difficulty of reducing such a history to a poesy—at last I proposed this:

‘This was given by woman to man and by man to woman.’”[106]

It may be well for the author to so far take the part of a jeweller, as to sort his Rings before he exhibits them.

We propose to speak of:

1.—Rings connected with power.

2.—Rings having supposed charms and virtues, or connected with degradation and slavery, or used for sad and wicked purposes.

3.—Rings coupled with remarkable historical characters or circumstances.

4.—Rings of love, affection and friendship.