George Frederick Kunz

“ As no writer has made a more beautiful and telling use of precious stones in his verse than did Shakespeare, the author believed that if these references could be gathered together for comparison and for quotation, and if this were done from authentic and early editions of the great dramatist-poet's works, it would give the literary and historical student a better understanding as to what gems were used in Shakespeare's time, and in what terms he referred to them. ”

“ There can be no doubt that Shakespeare must have seen many fine jewels and glittering gems in pageants and processions during his residence in London. On certain special occasions the players were summoned to assist at royal functions, provision being made by the royal treasury for rich materials to be used in making special doublets and mantles for wear on these occasions. It has been suggested that the rich jewelling of many of the court portraits by Holbein and others must have impressed the poet by their wealth of color spread before his eyes ”

“ In judging of the jewels figured in portraits we must remember that the artist has often modified them to bring them into greater harmony with their immediate surroundings. This, in some cases, may lead him to make of a somewhat inartistically designed jewel a beautifully proportioned one. Again, he may be led to exaggerate the size of the precious stones or pearls, and to intensify or deepen their colors. A recent instance regards a portrait of the former queen of Spain by one of the foremost Spanish artists of our day. The royal lady was depicted wearing an enormous pearl ”

“ While it is not unlikely that some of the royal or noble ladies who attended the performances of Shakespeare's plays, while he was connected with the Globe Theatre, wore brilliant jewels, it is improbable that they were bedecked with the most valuable of their gems. ”

“ Moreover, we have a simile which might almost make us suppose that Shakespeare knew something of the details of the pearl fisheries, when the oysters are piled up on shore and allowed to decompose, so as to render it easier to get at the pearls, for he makes one of his characters say, speaking of an honest man in a poor dwelling, that he was like a "pearl in your foul oyster". ”

“ The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend; The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend With objects manifold: each several stone, With wit well blazon'd, smiled or made some moan.
[8] Rare word, only known in this passage. Century Dictionary gives "invisible", "unseen", "uninspected", noting that some commentators suggest "inspected", "tried", "investigated".
Had Shakespeare felt much interest in the lore of gems, he had before him most of the then available material in a book of which he seems to have made some use. ”

“ A large turning wheel was pushed around by a man holding a bar extending from it. The motion of this large wheel was transmitted to other smaller ones. The number of revolutions per minute hardly exceeded a few hundred, while in modern [60] times a speed of from 2000 to 2500 revolutions per minute is attained. The diamond cutting industry was largely in the hands of Jews in Lisbon.
The gem-cutting processes were not greatly modified for many years after Shakespeare's death, so that a representation of the wheel and mill used in 1750 gives a fairly good general idea of the modus operandi. ”

“ For the Tercentenary of Shakespeare's birth, celebrated in April, 1864, a special commemorative medal was struck in England, designed by Mr. J. Moore. The obverse shows a profile head of the poet, in the modelling of which the artist seems to have been chiefly influenced by the Stratford bust. This fundamental type he has not unskilfully combined with that of the Droeshout print in the First Folio, the dome-like forehead being evidently suggested by the latter. The nose is more accentuated than in the bust, and the mouth, though still small, is somewhat firmer. ”

“ FROM A PORTRAIT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH In the possession of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire, K.G., Hardwick Hall. The queen has jewels in her hair, a pearl eardrop, and two necklaces, one fitting closely to the neck, the other falling over the breast. The stiff brocade skirt is embroideredwith a wonderful array of aquatic birds and animals. On the left, the cushion of the chair of state is embroidered with the queen's monogram. Surmounting the chair is a crystal ball. ”

“ The greatest of the world's poets lived in a period midway between the highest development of Renaissance civilization and the foundation of our modern civilization, and he was thus at once heir to the rich treasures of a glorious past, and endowed with a poetic, or we might say a prophetic insight that makes his works appeal as closely to the readers of to-day as to those of his own time. ”

“ It will have been seen that the text of Shakespeare's plays gives no evidence tending to show any greater familiarity with precious stones than could be gathered from the poetry of his day, and from his intercourse with classical scholars, such as Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, and others of those who formed the unique assemblage wont to meet together at the old Mermaid Tavern in London. ”

“ Bright eyes are also compared to rock-crystal, and the setting of other gems within a bordering of crystals is evidently alluded to in the following lines from Love's Labour's Lost (Act ii, sc. 1) :
Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eyes As jewels in crystal. First Folio, "Comedies", p. 128, col. A, line 7.
We have in Richard II (Act i, sc. 2) the terms "fair and crystal" applied to a clear sky, and in Romeo and Juliet (Act i, sc. 2) the word is used to denote superlative excellence, where a lady's love is to be weighed against her rival on "crystal scales". ”

“ In spite of certain evident faults of proportion, the portrait of Shakespeare engraved by Martin Droeshout for the title page of the 1623 Folio bears internal evidence of being a fairly good likeness, for the face possesses a marked individuality. There is a belief that it was taken from the so-called "Flower" portrait, now in the Shakespeare Memorial Gallery at Stratford-upon-Avon, and which is conjectured to have been painted in 1609, at least during Shakespeare's lifetime, possibly by another Martin Droeshout, a Fleming, uncle of the engraver of the same name. ”

“ In the four leading European nations of the age—Italy, despite her high rank in art, still lacked national unity—four sovereigns of marked though widely diverse character and attainments reigned for a considerable part of Shakespeare's life. Of the "Virgin Queen" we scarcely need to write. ”

“ Rock-crystal was much more highly valued in the England of Elizabeth [28] and of James I than it is to-day, and was freely used as an adjunct to more precious material, and still was employed to some extent in the adornment of book-covers, although this usage, so common in mediæval times, was fast passing away. ”

“ That a turquoise, presumably set in a ring, was given to Shylock by Leah before their marriage, perhaps at their betrothal, is all that Shakespeare has found occasion to write of this pretty stone, one of the earliest used for adornment in the world's history, as the great mines of Nishapur, in Persia, and those of the Sinai Peninsula were worked at a very early time, the latter by the Egyptians as far back as 4000 B.C. With the opal, the poet has seized upon its most characteristic quality, its changeableness of hue, where he says in Twelfth Night (Act ii, sc. 4) : "Thy mind is a very opal". ”

“ The large wooden wheel, whose axis is the second pillar within the frame, is bent, and makes an elbow under the wheel to receive the impulsion of a bar that serves instead of a turn-handle. On the right side of the frame, where the boy stands, is the turn-handle which sets the wheel in motion by means of the elbow of its axis. ”

“ Thierry Badouer, a German goldsmith-jeweller, received from the French court, in 1572, an order for 250,000 crowns' worth of jewels to be distributed as gifts at the approaching marriage of Henri de Navarre with Marguerite de Valois. He faithfully executed his part of the task and brought the jewels with him to Paris, but before he had been able to deliver them to the Royal Treasury they were stolen from him during the confusion of the St. Bartholomew Massacre. Eventually, in the reign of Henri IV, his widow was partly reimbursed for the loss, receiving one-quarter of the amount of her claim. ”

“ As the Scotch goldsmiths cumulated the profession of money-lending with that of goldsmithing, they were usually persons of considerable account among the citizens. Heriot became a member of the company in 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada. Despite the rather straitened circumstances of the Scottish court, considerable amounts were expended for jewels, especially as the queen, Anne of Denmark, was very fond of display. ”

“ While it cannot be regarded as certain that whenever Shakespeare writes of jewels or of rings he means those in which precious stones were set, several of the passages more or less clearly indicate this, and we therefore present here the more characteristic of the lines in question:
A Death's face in a ring. Love's Labour's Lost, Act v, sc. ”

“ Indeed the origin of the fine peridots of the Middle Ages is shrouded in mystery; they are, however, believed to have been found in one or more of the islands in the Red Sea. In our day a number of specimens have been discovered on the small island of St. John in that sea; the deposit here is a jealously-guarded monopoly of the Egyptian Government. Peridots have also been found at Spyrget Island, in the Arabian Gulf. ”

“ So that if the wooden wheel be twenty times larger than the iron one, a hundred turns of the larger wheel will cause a thousand revolutions of the smaller one. The method of holding the diamond in place over the iron wheel, when in motion, so that it presses upon the latter and is polished thereby, is shown in the lower right-hand corner of the plate.
The German traveller, Paul Hentzner, who visited England in 1598, toward the end of Elizabeth's life, describes her jewelling in the following words:
"The Queen had in her ears two pearls with very rich drops; she wore false hair and that red ”

“ A tender line is that in the "Passionate Pilgrim" (hardly from Shakespeare's hand, however) :
Bright orient pearl, alack, too timely shaded.
More varied are the allusions to rock-crystal or crystal, as the poet calls it. In one place ("Venus and Adonis", l. 491) there are [30] "crystal tears", and these form "a crystal tide" that flows down the cheeks and drops in the bosom (Idem, l. 957) . On the other hand, the eyes are likened to this stone, as in "crystal eyne" ("Venus and Adonis", l. 633) , or "crystal eyes" (Sonnet xlvi, l. 6) . ”

“ Heriot also lists a ring delivered about 1607 to Margaret Hartsyde, one of the royal household, describing it as "sett all about with diamondis, and a table diamond on the head"; that is, in the bezel. He states that he had been given to understand that this was by direction of Her Majesty. His precaution in making this note appears to have been fully justified, for this Margaret Hartsyde was tried in Edinburgh, May 31, 1608, on the charge of having purloined a pearl belonging to the queen and valued at £110. ”

“ The immense Star of South Africa, weighing 531 metric carats, five times the weight of the Koh-i-nûr, is intrinsically worth much more, but lacks the manifold dramatic and historic associations of its Indian sister.
Strange to say, the beautiful sapphire is only twice named by Shakespeare, once as an adjunct to the pearl in embroidery (Merry Wives of Windsor, Act v, sc. 5) . The single mention of chrysolite is much more impressive: [22]
If heaven would make me such another world, Of one entire and perfect chrysolite! Othello, Act v, sc. 2. ”

“ The pearl as a simile for great and transcendent value, perhaps suggested by the Pearl of Great Price of the Gospel, is used of Helen of Greece in the lines (Troilus and Cressida, Act ii, sc. 2) :
She is a pearl Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships. At end of "Histories", page unnumbered
(p. 596 of facsimile) , Col. A, line 19.
This being an allusion to the Greek fleet sent out under Agamemnon and Menelaus to bring back the truant wife from Troy. ”

“ Printer's mark of Richard Field, as shown on the title-page of the first edition of Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis", 1593, the unique copy of which is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. A hand emerging from a cloud upholds the "Anchor of Hope", about which are twined two laurel branches. ”

“ The writer manages to weave in much material slightly or not at all connected with his main theme. Legh was the son of a Fleet Street draper. He seems to have studied a variety of subjects and gathered together many scraps of curious information. He died of the plague, October 13, 1563. His book went through several [38] editions during Shakespeare's lifetime. Following the first edition of 1562 came successive ones in 1576, 1591, 1597, and one bearing the imprint of J. Jaggard in 1616. ”

“ The nobility also, such of them at least as possessed the means, were inclined to deck themselves out with brilliant jewels and splendid ornaments of massive gold. Heriot's appointment as goldsmith to the queen dates from 1597; soon after this he was made jeweller and goldsmith to the king. He followed the court to London in 1603, when King James succeeded to Elizabeth, and at the time of his death, February 12, 1624, had amassed the [54] sum of £50,000 by his profitable connection with the court, and had also acquired lands and houses at Rochampton, in Surrey, and St. ”

“ This certainly was suggested by the common belief in naturally luminous stones, a belief partly due to a superstitious explanation of the ruddy brilliancy of rubies and garnets as resulting from a hidden fire in the stone, and partly, perhaps, to the occasional observation of the phenomena of phosphorescence or fluorescence in certain precious stones. ”