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Here is another anecdote of a priest, in worse taste than the last. Albert Pio, Prince of Caspi, was buried with extraordinary pomp in the Church of the Cordeliers at Paris. He had been deprived of his principality by the Duke of Ferrara, became an author, and finally a fanatic. Entering one day into one of the churches at Madrid, he presented holy water to a lady who had a very thin hand, ornamented by a most beautiful and valuable ring. He exclaimed in a loud voice as she reached the water, “Madam, I admire the ring more than the hand.” The lady instantly exclaimed, with reference to the cordon or rope with which he was decorated, “And for my part, I admire the halter more than I do the ass.” He was buried in the habit of a Cordelier; and Erasmus made a satire on the circumstance, entitled the “Seraphic Interment.”

The Hebrew women wore a number of rings upon their fingers.[84]

Hippocrates, in treating of the decency of dress to be observed by physicians, enjoins the use of rings. We have somewhere seen it suggested, that the rings thus worn by physicians might have contained aromatic water or preservative essence, in the same way as their canes were supposed to do; and hence the action of putting the heads or tops of the latter to their noses when consulting in a sick-room.