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“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]