Читать книгу The History and Poetry of Finger-rings онлайн

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In referring to Irish rings, it may be well to mention one which was found in the county of Westmeath, with some very ancient remains.[72] It is remarkable, from being set with many diamonds in beautifully squared work. On account of the place where it was discovered, a suggestion has been made that it may have belonged to Rose Failge, Prince of Ireland, eldest son of Calhoir the Great, who reigned A. D. 122, he being called the Hero of Rings. However, diamonds do not appear to have been named among precious stones at that early period.

The author is not aware that diamonds are often set loosely or upon swivel in a ring. We have mention of one in the reign of James I. of England. Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, (nicknamed by a cotemporary “Robert the Devil,” and by James called his “little Beagle,”) was dangerously ill at Bath; but on a report of his recovery, the King sent purposely the Lord Hay to him, with a token, “which was a fair diamond, set or rather hung square in a gold ring without a foil”—and this message, “That the favor and affection he bore him was and should be ever, as the form and matter of that, endless, pure and most perfect.”[73] A writer, given to detraction, says that this great statesman died of the disease of Herod, upon the top of a mole-hill; and that his body burst the lead it was wrapped in. On his tomb lies the skeleton of the Earl curiously carved. He seemed well to weigh the glory of a courtier, for in writing to Sir John Harrington,[74] he said: “Good Knight, rest content and give heed to one that hath sorrowed in the bright lustre of a Court, and gone heavily even on the best seeming fair ground. ’Tis a great task to prove one’s honesty and yet not spoil one’s fortune. You have tasted a little hereof in our blessed Queen’s time, who was more than a man, and, in truth, sometimes less than a woman. I wish I waited now in your presence chamber, with ease at my food and rest in my bed. I am pushed from the shore of comfort, and know not where the winds and waves of a Court will bear me. I know it bringeth little comfort on earth; and he is, I reckon, no wise man that looketh this way to heaven.”