J. G. Johnson

“ We have been more reconciled to the sight of rings in the ears of men (it is a common custom amongst the lower classes on the continent to wear them thus) since we learned that our own Shakspeare adopted the fashion; at least if the accuracy of the portrait once belonging to Lord Ellesmere may be trusted. At all events this mode of wearing rings was common amongst the gallants of Shakspeare’s day. When Master Matthew (Every Man in his Humour, 1596) was in straits for money, he offered to pawn the jewel in his ear. The thumb at some periods has been adorned with a ring. ”

“ Charles being conscious of his dangerous position, thought it prudent to gain the woman over to his interests by some species of bribe. One day, when preparing to wash his hands before seating himself at table, he drew from his finger a ring of great value, and purposely let it fall near the duchess, who picked it up from the floor and presented it to the owner. “No, madame,” said he, “the ring is in a hand too beautiful for me to take it again.” The trick answered its purpose; but the duchess was not the only one with whom Charles had to contend. ”

“ The Gauls and Britons, he says, placed the ornament on the middle finger, whereas, in his day at Rome, that was the only finger on which it was not carried. In the seventeenth century a fashion prevailed in England of having a skull cut on the stone, a mode dictated by the same feeling, one would think, that induces a tobacco-smoker to have the bowl of his hookah carved in the shape of a grinning caput mortuum. Among the whimsical figures to which the countenance of the pedant Holofernes is likened by the merry lords in “Love’s Labour Lost,” is a death’s face in a ring. ”

“ A few miscellaneous references to art, verbal and pictorial, where this ornament is introduced being given we shall cease to task the reader’s patience. In the hands of a true artist it is a powerful instrument in telling his story or heightening its effect. When Hogarth wished to expose the wretched passion of avarice in an old man who had bartered away the happiness of his daughter for an alliance with a titled spendthrift, he painted him drawing off the ring from her fingers as she lay in the extremity of death. ”

“ The early history of the ring, like that of all important things, is involved in obscurity; but we can readily believe that the rude pleasure received by the eyes from bright and glittering objects would induce the primitive denizens of the earth to construct ornamental appendages of an annular form as soon as they had acquired sufficient skill to cut stone or cast metal. ”

“ Ancient ring-money found in various parts of the island, may be seen in the British Museum: and bronze rings used for a similar purpose have been disinterred in Ireland.
Antiquarians are of opinion that large rings of gold, occasionally dug up in Scandinavia, were used at the ceremony of administering an oath.
Some persons have been known to carry poison secreted under the stone; Demosthenes is said to have been one of them, so that he had always a means of terminating his existence in that which seemed to others nothing but an innocent ornament. ”

“ The peculiar authenticity ascribed to impressions of signets has led to their being often employed to effect a sinister purpose both in real life and in fiction. The atrocious violence to which the virtuous wife of a Roman senator fell a victim was accomplished, it will be remembered, by the Emperor Valentinian, by means of her husband’s signet ring. ”

“ The composition of an apt motto was deemed no dishonourable task by the great wits of a by-gone age, and their pens seemed to have been guided by a rule something like that given by Sir Toby to his friend Sir Andrew for the composition of his challenge. “Be brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and full of invention.” ”

“ Many ancient rings have been preserved, and have at length found their way into the cabinets of collectors, on account of their reputed power to guard their wearers from harm—a power residing more perhaps in the stone than in the setting. According to an Eastern writer, the precious stones are all influential in their several ways: thus, the diamond cures madness, and soothes vain fears; the ruby dispels melancholy bodings, and ensures honourable place; the emerald prevents ill dreams, and cures the palsy ”

“ Charles V. of Germany and James I. of England had rings ornamented in a similar manner, and in the museum at Dresden is to be seen a ring set with a minute horologe.
Amongst the accumulations of elegant and fantastic shapes into which stone and precious metal are found carved in the cabinets of princes or in national museums may often be seen rings whose claim to preservation is that they have been worn by some illustrious departed. In the public library at Wolfenbüttel are Luther’s marriage and doctor’s rings ”

“ The kinge shall first put upon him his sword, after the ringe on the left finger.” A ring formed part of the peculiar attire of the Roman bishops; and in our own church it still appears at the ceremonies which take place on the occasion of an episcopal investment. The privilege of wearing a ring became an object of ambition to haughty abbots, who witnessed with an ill grace any marks of superior dignity on the persons of others. In the records of the abbey of Glastonbury, there is a grant from Pope Alexander VI. to the abbot, of the right to wear a mitre and a ring ”