Etruscan gold ring
British Museum
Fairholt’s “Rambles of an Artist”]
[Illustration: Silver ring with ten projections (decade ring);
that for the Creed (the bezel) has the design of the Cross.
Impression
British Museum]
[Illustration: Immense ring with female head incorrectly said to
be that of Plotina, wife of Trajan
Montfaucon, “L’Antiquité expliquée,” Paris, 1719]
[Illustration: Ancient Roman Key Rings
Fairholt’s “Rambles of an Artist”]
We are not apt to think the wearing of many rings especially in accord
with the profession of philosophy, and yet Ælian tells us that a chief
cause of the dissension between Plato (427–347 B.C.) and his
pupil, Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), arose from the blame bestowed
by Plato upon the greatest of ancient philosophers--“the master of
those who know,” as Dante calls him--because Aristotle adorned his
hand with many rings.[54] Could this have been done with a view to
impressing his students and philosophers with greater respect than they
might always have been disposed to accord to his intellectual greatness
alone? The externals of luxurious adornment made, perhaps, a more
direct appeal than the mere power of logical exposition could do,
and such an eminently practical thinker as Aristotle was may not have
been blind to these considerations.
A gold ring figured by Gorius is thought by him to have been a gift
from an ardent Roman sportswoman to a victorious charioteer, to whose
skill she may perhaps have been indebted for some material gain, since
wagering in chariot races was as common in Roman times as betting on
horse races in our own day. This ring is engraved with a woman’s head
and two heads of reined horses; the name of the donor, Pomphonica,[55]
and the words _amor_ and _hospes_, are engraved on the circlet. “Love
the Host,” as these words may be read, makes a slightly enigmatic
inscription. Indeed, it may well be that some fair Roman had the ring
made as a memento for her own use and wear. Another conjecture is that
it was a man’s ring executed as a memento of what was dearest to him,
his ladylove and his chariot horses. It was in the Cabinet of the
Tuscan grand duke Francis of Lorraine, later Emperor of Germany and
husband of Maria Theresa.[56]
A Latin inscription, from Granada, Spain, mentions a ring, set with a
jasper, that was placed by a son upon the statue of his mother. The
value of the ring is given as 7000 sestertii, indicating that the stone
was engraved; the design probably had a symbolic significance, as in
the case of most of the votive rings.[57]
Martial, in one of his epigrams (V.12) says that there was nothing
surprising in the feats performed by certain athletes, when Stella
could carry ten maidens upon one of his fingers. In a very interesting
study on this subject, C. W. King endeavors to prove that the lines
refer to a remarkable ring whereon ten precious stones must have been
associated in some way with dedicated to Minerva and the Nine Muses.
In another epigram (V.11) Martial writes of Stella turning sardonyxes,
emeralds, diamonds, and jaspers around one of his finger-joints, and
King conjectures that the Ten Maidens were represented by the opal,
sapphire (hyacinth), spinel, Oriental topaz, almandine garnet, and
pearl, in addition to the four stones enumerated above. Should this
conjecture be well-founded these different stones were set at regular
intervals, these stones being Minerva and the Muses, although we have
no direct proof of this.
This ring of the Ten Maidens suggests the decade or rosary rings, of
which so many specimens exist. Usually there were ten bosses or knobs,
as the name indicates, but occasionally there were eleven, for counting
ten Aves and a Pater. The earliest date Mr. Waterton is inclined to
assign to rings of this type is the fourteenth century.[58] A so-called
decade ring with twelve bosses is described in the catalogue of the
Londesborough Collection.[59] Here the central knob is a tooth,
opposite this is a piece of labradorite, while on either side are
set two amethysts, a chrysoprase and an emerald, two jacinths, two
turquoises, and two pearls. The twelfth knob stood for the creed.
Sometimes, where there are eleven projections, ten paternosters and the
creed were to be recited. A good example of a decade ring is one of
silver in the British Museum. The ten projections for the paternosters
are very marked and the eleventh, for the creed, which forms the bezel,
has the form of a crucifix, the cross resting on three steps. This
rises to a considerable relative height above the hoop. Such a ring
could scarcely be worn with comfort, its liturgical use evidently being
the paramount idea of the maker.[60]
The gold and silver chaplet rings, with a cross and ten beads or
bosses in relief upon the hoop, were frequently used by the Knights
of Malta, in the eighteenth century; indeed this type of ring is said
to have been invented by them. Their use as substitutes for the less
convenient chaplet was spreading, until in 1836 the matter was referred
by Pope Gregory XVI to the tribunal of penitentiaries. Its decision,
transmitted by the Cardinal Penitentiary Castracane, as to the question
“whether the gold or silver rings, surrounded by ten bosses, which are
used by some pious persons for the recitation of the Rosary of the
Blessed Virgin, can be blessed with the appropriate indulgences,” was
in the negative.[61]
The ring-money used by the ancient Gauls and Britons illustrates
the employment of what might be ornamental objects as currency. An
exceptionally fine specimen made of nearly pure gold was recently
found by a farmer while he was ploughing a field near Woodstock,
Oxfordshire, England. Of course many or most of these rings were not
worn but merely used as money.
A legal use of a sapphire ring to bind a bargain is recorded in a
deed of gift, from about 1200 A.D., by a certain John Long
to William Prohume, clerk, of land and houses in St. Martin’s Street,
Exeter, at a rent of 6_s_ 8_d_, which sum was to be donated
to St. John’s Hospital in Exeter. The grantor acknowledges the receipt
of 45 marks and of a gold ring set with a sapphire as the price of this
lease on very favorable terms.[62]
Precious stones set in rings sometimes served to hide a “talisman” of a
peculiar kind, namely, a dose of death-dealing poison, kept as a last
resort to free the wearer of the ring from disgrace or from a worse
death. So we are told that when Marcus Crassus stripped the Capitoline
Temple of its treasures of gold, the faithful guardian broke between
his teeth the stone set in his ring, swallowed the poison hidden
beneath it, and immediately expired.[63] The great Hannibal, also,
had recourse to the poison contained in his ring, when he was on the
point of being given up to his bitter enemies, the Romans. Of this ring
the satirist Juvenal wrote as follows: “_Cannarum vindex et tanti
sanguinis ultor Anulus_,” or “That ring, the avenger of those who
fell at Cannæ, and of so much blood that had been shed.” Another great
man, the peerless orator Demosthenes, is said to have carried with him
a similar ring. In a Rabbinical commentary on Deuteronomy occurs the
following curious passage:
Hast thou then no ring? Suck it out and thou wilt die.
This has been explained as referring to a hollow ring filled with
liquid poison.[64]
Some ancient gold rings were made hollow, so that they could be
filled with mastic or brimstone, or an aromatic material. In the old
“Oneirocriticon,” or “Dream Book” of Artemidorus, to see a ring of
this kind in a dream portended treachery or deceit, as they enclosed
something hidden from view, while a ring solidly wrought by the hammer
was exactly what it purported to be.[65]
The poison-rings of the Borgias are not fabulous, for some of them
still exist, one bearing the date 1503 and the motto of Cæsar Borgia in
Old French, “_Fays ce que doys avien que pourra_” (Do your duty,
happen what may). Beneath the bezel of this ring there is a sliding
panel and when this is displaced there appears a small space where the
poison was kept. Such rings simply afforded a ready supply of poison
at need, but another type constituted a death-dealing weapon. It is
curious to note how in a ring of this latter type the Renaissance
goldsmith has combined an artistic idea with the nefarious quality
of the jewel. The bezel is wrought into the shape of a lion, and
the hollow claws of the animal admit the passage of a subtle poison
concealed in a small reservoir back of the bezel. By a mechanical
device the poison was pressed out of the cavity through the lion’s
claws, and it is conjectured that the death-wound could have been
inflicted by turning the bezel of the ring inward, so that a hearty
grasp would produce a few slight punctures in the enemy’s hand.[66]
While these Borgia rings represent an extreme of diabolical ingenuity,
the perfumed rings, the use of which has been revived to a certain
extent of late, constitute a refinement of civilization. This ring is
generally made of plain gold with a small elastic ball and valve at
the back. This is squeezed flat and the ring is immersed in a perfumed
liquid; when the pressure is removed the scent is drawn into the
ring by suction. An ingenious adjustment renders it possible for the
wearer to discharge a jet or spray of perfume by the exercise of a
very trifling pressure. Not only perfumes but disinfectants also are
sometimes used, and rings charged in this way may be said to represent
antidotes of the dreaded poison rings, not perhaps in a literal sense,
but at least in the sense of being curative rings.
A poison ring of Venetian workmanship has a richly engraved hoop, the
setting consisting of a pointed diamond on either side of which are
two cabochon-cut rubies. On touching a spring at the side of the bezel
holding the diamond, the upper half, in which the stone is set, springs
open, revealing a space beneath in which a small quantity of poison
could be concealed, enough in the case of the more active poisons to
furnish a lethal dose, either for an enemy or for the wearer of the
ring himself in case of need.[67]
The son of the great Egmont was involved more or less directly in
an unsuccessful plot to poison the Prince of Orange in 1582. It was
asserted that the crime was committed at the would-be assassin’s own
table, by means of a drug concealed in a ring. This story appeared to
be confirmed by the alleged finding in Egmont’s lodgings of a hollow
ring filled with poison.[68]
A writer on poison mysteries describes a possible poison ring in the
great British Museum collection. The bezel has a repository covered by
a thin-cut onyx on which is engraved the head of a horned faun.[69]
However, in the British Museum Catalogue of Rings by O. M. Dalton,
the statement is made that there are no authentic poison rings in
the Museum, and that “the mere possession of a locket-bezel does
not suffice to lend romance to a ring perhaps intended to contain a
harmless perfume.”[70]
A golden ring-dial in the British Museum collection is a flat band
around the middle of which runs a channel in which another, movable
ring, fits closely. The month-names are engraved on the band, six above
the channel and six below it. The movable ring has a small hole with
a star on one side, and a hand with index and second fingers extended
on the other. Inside, the numbers of the hours from 4 A.M.
to 8 P.M. are engraved in two lines, the hour of noon being
beyond them at the point opposite to the ring which suspends the dial.
In using a dial-ring the aperture in the movable ring was brought in
a line with the month in which the observation was taken; this being
done the figure on the inside upon which the sun’s ray would fall would
give the approximate time of day.[71]
Shakespeare provides Touchstone with a dial ring in “As You Like It”
(Act II, sc. 7) where Jaques says:
“Good morrow fool,” quoth I. “No, Sir, quoth he,
Call me not fool, till heaven hath sent me fortune.”
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says, very wisely, “It is ten o’clock.”
A watch-ring of the eighteenth century is in the Franks Bequest
Collection of the British Museum. The oval watch in the bezel is framed
with pearls, on the back of the ring are the initials A.R. As the
bezel measures but nine-tenths of an inch in length, this tiny watch
exemplifies the skill of the watch-makers of the time. The entire ring
weighs but 175 grains.[72]
The custom of leaving memorial rings for the friends of the departed
had its origin in the bestowal of more substantial bequests. In fact,
these rings stand in somewhat the same relation to such bequests as
does the wedding ring to the gifts the husband was expected to make to
his wife when he wedded her. In both cases this has been lost sight
of, and the intrinsic value of the objects being slight, only the
sentimental value is considered.
An early instance of the bequest of rings is offered in the case of
Richard II (1366–1400), who, by his testament, left a gold ring to
each of the nine executors, five of whom were bishops and four great
nobles.[73] In the seventeenth century one who held, and still holds
sway in another realm, that of literature, conformed to this usage,
for in Shakespeare’s will, dated March 25, 1616, rings were bequeathed
to Hamlett Sadler, William Reynoldes, Anthony Nash and John Nash,
his fellow townsmen, as well as to three actors, Burbage, Heming and
Condell, who had the privilege of “creating” parts in the greatest
dramas ever written. The sum of 26s 8d is appropriated for each of
these rings, about $6.50 of our money.
As the fashion became more prevalent, the number of rings provided
for in the wills of well-known persons must have constituted quite
a charge upon their estates. The quaint and delightful Pepys, that
close observer and great gossip who knew all the prominent people of
the London of his day, left directions on his death, in 1703, for the
distribution of 123 memorial rings among his friends. One of the most
important events in English history is believed to have given such a
great vogue to this usage.
The death of Charles I on the scaffold, January 30, 1649--his martyrdom
as the royalists called it--created an ineffaceable impression upon
the minds and hearts of those who had taken the king’s side in the
struggle with the parliamentary party. To commemorate this sad event
and to obey the last injunction of the unfortunate monarch, “remember,”
a great number of memorial rings were made, bearing the name and often
the portrait of Charles, and these were worn by the royalists. It
appears that this seemed to make the bestowal of memorial rings a more
general custom than before, as from this time an increased number of
such rings appear.
The types of these rings varied considerably in the course of
centuries. Those of the sixteenth century were made of plain gold,
or of gold enamelled with representations of a skeleton, spade and
pick, hour-glass, or similar emblems of death; the inscription was
engraved, usually on the inside of the ring; occasionally the bezel
was rounded into the form of a skull. In the period succeeding the
death of Queen Anne (1714), and extending to about 1774, the fashion
gradually changed, and the inscriptions, instead of being engraved,
were in raised letters, thrown into greater relief by the application
of white and black enamel. This style is said to have been brought
from France, and the earliest specimens are presumed to have been
executed by French workmen; an example of this type of ring, dating
from 1717, is in the Crisp Collection. In one such ring the inscription
is enamelled _within_ the hoop. An exceptionally fine specimen of
the rings of this period is that in memory of Richard Pett, who died
February 23, 1765, aged 76 years.[74] This bears an amethyst and four
rose diamonds in an openwork setting. Another innovation during this
period is the employment of white enamel in the case of rings in memory
of young maidens; the earliest example dates from 1726 and was given as
a memento of the death, at fifteen years, of Dorothy Tenison, daughter
of the Bishop of Ossory. In their search for novelty the goldsmiths
sometimes had resort to rather grewsome decorations, and the bezel
of some rings has the form of a coffin, within which lies a skeleton,
carefully done in enamel.
The last quarter of the eighteenth century supplies us with some of
the most elaborately designed memorial rings. In many of these the
bezel shows various emblematic figures formed of gold wire, seed
pearls, ivory and enamel; one ring of this type has the inscription:
“Heaven has in store what thou hast lost.” However, hair soon became
the favorite material. At first, a lock of hair from the head of the
deceased person was enclosed in the bezel, no attempt being made to
form any pattern; but soon the hair was spread out over the surface and
arranged in the form of a tree; later on, these rings show us an urn
placed beneath the tree, and still later we have in addition a male or
female figure in an attitude of grief, all these being formed entirely
of hair.
A unique ring in the Crisp Collection[75] is a memento of the death of
seven children, the eldest not over nine years, who perished in a fire
in Leadenhall Street, London. This gold and ivory ring bears a design
showing seven cherubs’ heads surrounding the words: “To eternal bliss.”
At the back of the bezel is inscribed: “Translated 18 January 1782.”
As a rule there is little variety in the inscriptions upon memorial
rings. “_Memento mori_,” and “Not lost but gone before” are most
frequent. On the ring of Princess Amelia, the favorite daughter of
George III, who died November 2, 1810, are the words “Remember me.”[76]
There is a touching story regarding this ring. On her death-bed the
princess ordered that it should be made and had a lock of her hair
enclosed in it. As she lay dying she put the ring on her father’s
finger with the words of the inscription. The loss of this dearly
beloved daughter appears to have finally determined the madness of the
unhappy king, for he never recovered his reason after the event.
Another interesting ring is that dedicated to the memory of the rather
notorious Lord Lovat, who was beheaded in London, April 9, 1747, for
alleged complicity in the Jacobite rising of 1745. This is set with
a crystal, beneath which is some hair between two rose diamonds, and
bears Lovat’s last words, the famous line of Horace, “_Dulce et
decorum est pro patria mori_.”[77]
The extravagance and tastelessness shown in many of the more elaborate
forms of the memorial ring, have had the natural result of causing a
reversion to the severe simplicity of the earlier types, and a plain,
but massive gold ring, with the words, “To the memory of ----” became
the usual type.
[Illustration:
1, memorial ring of Charles I, concealed portrait beneath a
table-cut diamond. 2, memorial ring with two skeletons supporting
a sarcophagus. When the lid is raised a minute skeleton is seen
within
Fairholt’s “Rambles of an Artist”]
[Illustration:
1, design for a memorial ring from the “Recueil des Ouvrages
d’Orfevrerie” by Gilles l’Egaré; early part of reign of Louis XIV.
2, English memorial ring converted into a memorial of Charles I by
the following inscription inside the hoop: “C. R., Jan. 30, 1649,
Martyr.” 3, memorial ring, early part of Eighteenth Century
Fairholt’s “Rambles of an Artist”]
[Illustration: Gold memorial ring of Capt. Robert Jackson, died
October 29, 1726, aged fifty-six years
British Museum]
[Illustration:
Cameo portrait of Louis XII of France, cut in a pale ruby. On
the gold plate at the back of the bezel is the inscription: Loys
XII^{me} Roy de France deceda 1 Janvier, 1515. Latter part of
Fifteenth or beginning of Sixteenth Century. Double linear size
C. D. Fortnum’s “Antique Gems and Jewels in Her Majesty’s
Collection at Windsor Castle”]
[Illustration:
Nelson memorial ring. Gold ring with two initial letters: N,
beneath a viscount’s coronet, referring to the title Viscount
Nelson of the Nile; and B, beneath a ducal coronet, for the title
Duke of Bronté
British Museum]
[Illustration:
Napoleon memorial ring of gold, said to be one of six given those
concerned in his escape from Elba in 1815. Portrait concealed
beneath hinged lid
British Museum]
Seven Nelson memorial rings were shown at the Royal Naval Exhibition at
Chelsea in 1891; two of these contained some of the hero’s hair, and
one belonged to those distributed among Nelson’s captains and other
officers after his death. Of the two rings enclosing hair, one set with
a diamond was loaned by Messrs. Lambert & Co. and the other by Admiral
Sir Arthur Farquhar, K.C.B.[78] A fine specimen of a Nelson ring is
in the British Museum. The broad, flat hoop expands at the shoulders,
and in a raised oblong bezel are figured a viscount’s coronet and a
ducal coronet with N beneath the former and B beneath the latter,
indicating his titles Viscount Nelson of the Nile and Duke of Bronté.
Below the letters is the name Trafalgar and on the exterior of the hoop
appears Nelson’s motto “_Palmam qui meruit ferat_” (Let him bear
the palm who merits it).
There is historic record of two memorial rings, one set with an
emerald and the other with a sapphire, the gifts of two unhappy royal
personages made shortly before death. The first of these rings was
bestowed upon the great French preacher Bossuet by the Stuart princess
Henrietta Anne, who, on her death-bed, directed that after she had
gone to rest there should be given to Bossuet “the emerald ring she
had ordered to be made for him.” Of the second ring, that set with
a sapphire, we learn that shortly before her execution in 1587, the
unfortunate Mary of Scotland took it from her finger and sent it to her
faithful follower, Lord John Hamilton, in whose family it has since
then been passed down from generation to generation as a priceless
heirloom.[79]
Several memorial or mourning rings are among the treasures of the
Figdor Collection in Vienna. One of these is of massive silver and
has the Old French inscription: “_dort couat_,” (rest in peace);
it was found at Huy, near Statte, Belgium, and represents work of the
fifteenth century. Another is of enamelled gold, and is evidently for a
woman’s wear. The inscription is: “R. C. Not lost but gone before,” in
gilt letters on a white enamel ground. This is an English ring of about
1800. A German ring of the eighteenth century has its head formed in
the shape of a coffin, on which are skull and cross-bones; on its sides
is the inscription: “Hir ist Ruhe,” (Here is rest). When the lid is
lifted, a heart is disclosed in the coffin.[80]
_Memento mori_ rings, bearing a death’s head, were sometimes left
as legacies. Such was the “golde ringe with a deathe’s head” bequeathed
by Thomasin Heath to her sister in 1596, “for a remembrance of my
good will.” Shakespeare wrote in his Love’s Labour’s Lost (Act V, sc.
2) of “a Death’s face in a ring,” where poor, pedantic Holofernes’
countenance is made the subject of mockery. A rather unaccountable
circumstance is that such rings are asserted to have been worn, toward
the end of the sixteenth century, by professional “ladies light o’
love,” if we can safely generalize from a passage in Marston’s “Dutch
Courtezan.”[81]
The ruthless executions carried out after the suppression of the last
Jacobite revolt in 1745, are memorialized in a ring of the period.
This is of gold, the inscriptions being defined by a white enamel
background. On the panel-shaped bezel are the letters B. D. L. K., the
initials of the Jacobite lords, Balmerino, Kilmarnock (exec. Aug. 18,
1746), Deruentwater (exec. Dec. 8, 1746), and Lovat (exec. April 9,
1747), and the dates 8, DEC. 9, AP. 18, AU; in the middle is an axe and
the date 1746. The initials of seventeen of these lords’ followers,
executed on Kensington Common in the same year, are marked on the hoop
of the ring.[82]