As the Navajo silversmiths dwelt in small huts or temporary shelters which they might move away from at short notice, they were forced to build low forges directly on the ground, obliging them to crouch down while working.[48] In this respect the Pueblo artisans had a considerable advantage, since their spacious dwellings made it possible for them to set their forges solidly in a frame high enough to enable them to do their work standing. A considerable number of tools and appliances are in the workshop of the Navajo silversmith; most of them, however, of rude fabrication and not well adapted for fine and accurate work. He deserves the more credit for the quality of work he is able to produce. The following is a pretty full list of the outfit in such a workshop: Forge, bellows, anvil, crucibles, molds, tongs, scissors, pliers, files, awls, cold chisels, matrix and die for moulding buttons, wooden stake, basin, charcoal, tools and materials for soldering (blow-pipe, braid of cotton rags soaked in grease, wire, and borax), materials for polish (sandpaper, emery-paper, powdered sandstone, sand, ashes, and solid stone), and materials for whitening (a native mineral substance—almogen, salt and water).[49]

It has been noted that the Navajos had not acquired the art of making an air chamber of the mouth in operating the blow-pipe, but blew with undistended cheeks, the result being an intermittent flame. The latter is furnished by burning a thick braid of cotton rags soaked in mutton suet or some other similar kind of grease. For the polishing work, the emery paper is sparingly used because of its cost. After all the preliminary polishing has been done with sandstone, sand or ashes, the finishing is done with emery-paper. For the blanching of the silver the hydrous sulphate of ammonia, termed almogen, is used, the silver being bathed in a solution of this, with the addition of a little salt. The blow-pipe is usually made by beating out a piece of thick brass wire into a long flat strip, which is then bent into the requisite form.

Two of the best of these silversmiths were engaged to work for a short time near Fort Wingate. As has been noted, their forges are commonly set very low down, and the position of the workers was evidently an uncomfortable one. Nevertheless, they showed a great degree of persistence, working sometimes as many as from twelve to even fifteen hours in a day. When paid by the piece, artisans could earn about two dollars a day on an average. The method of chasing was excessively primitive. While one worker held the object firmly on an anvil, the other applied to it part of the shank of a file that had previously been rounded, and struck this with smart taps of a hammer. Finer figures were engraved with the sharpened part of a file, to which a peculiar zigzag, forward motion was imparted by the hand. One fault that could be charged against these silversmiths was a lack of economy as to the precious material they used, no care being taken to gather up and utilize the amount lost in filing and polishing, as well as by oxidation in the forge, so that the net loss was estimated at fourteen per cent.

While the art of the work produced can scarcely be termed finished, when judged by very high standards, still the silver ornaments executed by the Navajos possess at least the charm inherent in individual work, as contrasted with the more harmonious and finished productions of merely mechanical art, where thousands of objects of a given type of design are turned out annually in a highly-organized silversmithing establishment. With these Indians we have the “personal note” that is too often missed in the ornaments of our day. This Navajo industry has received much encouragement from the managers of the Santa Fé Railroad, and from its agencies. Although the art among the Navajos is generally believed to have been introduced by Spanish influence, the fact that before the Spanish Conquest the native Mexicans were able to work metals with considerable skill would make it not improbable that it spread to the New Mexico tribes, and perhaps from them to the ancestors of the Navajos of to-day. The Navajo Indians belong to the Athapascan race and emigrated from the northwestern coast. Copper had been worked into ornaments from of old by Indians of the same stock in Alaska, and some remains indicate that this was the case, in rare instances, with the Navajos.

The superiority of the Navajos of a later time to the Pueblos as silversmiths, may, perhaps, result from their already acquired knowledge of copper-working. As the Navajo men had not the occupation of farming, as had the Pueblos, silversmithing gained favor among them as a fad, as a means of relieving the tedium of idleness. There is rarely any tendency to transmit this art directly from father to son, individual preferences being the chief factors. Indeed there is so little of the caste spirit among the Navajos that the occupation of the father counts for but little in determining that of the son. This is largely dependent upon the fact that descent is principally traced through the mother. Exogamy, marrying outside the clan, is the orthodox code of the Navajos, a man being expected to avoid taking a wife from the clan to which his mother belonged,—a wise precaution for them.

As an early description of the lack of silversmiths’ instruments of precision among the Navajos in planning and executing their work, Mr. Matthews says of conditions as he observed them thirty-five years ago:

“The smiths whom I have seen working had no dividers, square, measure, or any instrument of precision. As before stated, I have seen scissors used as compasses, but as a rule they find approximate centres with the eye and cut all shapes and engrave all figures by the unaided guidance of this unreliable organ. Often they cut out their designs in paper first and from them mark off patterns on the metal. Even in the matter of cutting patterns they do not seem to know the simple device of doubling the paper in order to secure lateral conformity.”

As the Navajos have no silver mines in their country, they depend largely for their material upon Mexican silver dollars worth about 48 cents in United States money. These are melted and then molded, or else cut and hammered into the desired forms. Sometimes, United States half or quarter dollars are used in this way, although such silver costs more than twice as much, because of its worth as currency. Before silver was freely used, copper and brass were bought at the trading posts and favored as materials; a supply of these metals being often secured by melting down parts of the kettles or pans furnished to the Indians by the United States Government, or else bought from white settlers. Some old Navajo silversmiths assert that the art of working silver was introduced from Mexico about sixty years ago, toward the middle of the last century. About this time a Mexican silversmith named Cassilio came to the Navajo country and taught his art to a Navajo blacksmith called by his people Atsidi Sani, or the “Old Smith.” Cassilio is said to have been still living about 1872. An artisan considered to be one of the best, if not the very best of the Navajo silversmiths of our day, who is called Beshlagai Ilini Altsosigi or the “Slender Silversmith,” originally learned his art from Mexicans. The fact that Lieut. James H. Simpson, who explored the heart of the Navajo country in 1849, has nothing to say about silversmithing, although he details very fully the various arts and industries of the Navajos, goes far to prove the truth of the statement that Navajo silversmithing dates from a later time.[50]

Borax is now generally used for soldering, but before it was brought to their country, the Navajo silversmiths are said to have mined a certain substance for this use, probably a kind of native alum. Rock salt, an easily attainable material, called in the Navajo tongue tse dokozh (saline rock), was used for whitening tarnished or oxidized silver. For this purpose the salt was dissolved in boiling water, into which the silver articles were thrown and left for a time. In place of the sandstone, sand and ashes originally used, the silversmiths are now able to employ sandpaper or emery paper bought at the stores. Of the tools employed we have already treated at some length. The details in this and the preceding paragraph have been derived from the very interesting and valuable “Ethnologic Dictionary of the Navaho Language,” published in 1910 by the Franciscan Fathers, at St. Michaels, Arizona.[51] Here the nouns and verbs denoting action are grouped in the only really logical way, under the respective industries and trades, or other forms of human activity. As some of the foremost writers on the origin of language have urged that its beginnings are to be sought in the various rhythmic exclamations of a body of workers, at first uttered automatically and later used consciously as calls to work, or to favor a coördination of efforts, no better classification of the vocabulary of a primitive race can be employed.

The various forms and qualities of silver rings found full expression in the Navajo language, a proof of the importance accorded to this branch of silversmithing among them. The word for ring being yostsá, we have the following designations:[52]

Rings are not in favor with the Eskimos, who do not appear to make or wear any. Indeed, Admiral Peary found it impossible to dispose of a lot of rings he had taken with him on one of his Arctic trips in the belief that they would be attractive to the Eskimos, and good objects of barter.[53] Perhaps in the intense Arctic cold even the slightest pressure on the finger may have been avoided, lest it should impede circulation and increase the danger of having the fingers frost-bitten.

The Mendæans of Mesopotamia are the silversmiths of this region, and they exhibit much skill in their work. The greatest demand is for cigarette cases and for signet rings and seals, although they make a variety of other small ornamental objects. Their methods of work are quite characteristic. In the case of the smaller objects, such as rings, etc., they hammer them out from a heated silver bar. When the general form has been attained, they work up the surface with a steel file or pencil, which has a triangular point; with it the desired design is laboriously engraved. This process being completed, a black metallic powder, made into a paste, is rubbed over the entire surface, naturally accumulating more or less, according to the greater or lesser depths of the cuttings; the object is then placed in a charcoal forge and fired. After it has remained therein long enough, it is removed and the superfluous powder is rubbed or worked off. The completed ring or other ornament then offers most beautiful contrasts between the bright silver and the lustrous black inlay. The Mendæans are sometimes called “Christians of St. John,” because of their great veneration for John the Baptist. However, they in no sense deserve the name of Christians, their peculiar, eclectic doctrine being a mixture of ancient and Christian Gnosticism, with certain elements of the old Persian religion. They have quite a literature, dating back to the early centuries of our era, and written in an Aramaic dialect similar to that of the Talmud.

THE PURPOSES OF RING WEARING

The wearing of rings as ornaments for the hand requires no explanation in view of the innate love of adornment shown from the very earliest periods of human history. However, apart from this merely ornamental use, rings were applied to many special uses and were worn for many definite purposes, some of which are so important as to merit extended notice in separate chapters; others again are less far-reaching and less significant, and certain of these will be explained and illustrated here.

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 6s 8d, 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:

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:

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.

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]

In the possession of Waldo Lincoln, of Worcester, Mass., is a memorial ring consisting of a narrow plain gold band. There is faintly discernible on this a winged head, apparently a skull, similar to the heads of this type sometimes to be seen sculptured on old gravestones. Around the inner side of the band runs the following inscription: “Ho^ble I. Winslow Esq^r., ob. 14 Dec^r. 1738 Æ 68.”[83] This refers to Isaac Winslow, a son of the noted Josiah Winslow (1629–1680), governor of Plymouth Colony from 1673 until his death, and who was the first native-born governor in New England. It was during his term of office that the severe contest with the Indians, known as King Philip’s War, was fought out successfully.

A mourning ring with a strangely materialistic motto is that executed by order of the Beefsteak Club to commemorate the demise of John Thornhill, Esq., on September 23, 1757, according to the inscription in white enamel on the hoop. The bezel is flat and of oval form, enamelled in pale blue and white; in the centre is shown a gridiron and around this is the legend: “Beef and Liberty.”[84] The Beefsteak Club, formed early in the eighteenth century, was Tory in politics, an opponent of the Kit-Cat Club, whose members were devoted to the success of the Whigs.

Rings as memorials of the dead suggest the mention of a memorial ring of another kind, one destined to favor the revival of a defunct government. When Napoleon I was exiled to Elba after the overthrow of his empire and the restoration of the Bourbons, many of his faithful followers clung to the hope that he would return and re-establish his rule in France. In order to aid in keeping this hope alive, a number of rings were made which could be worn with impunity, but which could also serve when desired as proofs of the wearers’ attachment to the Napoleonic cause. One of these is described as a gold ring on which a minute gold and enamel coffin was set; on pressing a spring at the side of the ring a section of the circlet sprang up and revealed a tiny figure of Napoleon executed in enamel.[85]

At the English Bar, the usage long existed that certain chosen barristers should be given the title and superior rank of serjeants. In important cases, a serjeant was usually retained as principal manager and chief representative at the trial, and generally made the statement of the case in court, while one or more ordinary barristers got up the evidence and aided in the examination of witnesses; no serjeants have been appointed since 1868. As with almost all the stages of an English law-student’s and barrister’s progress, heavy expenses had to be born by the new serjeant, as he was expected not only to give a splendid dinner, or rather a series of dinners lasting for a week, to all who were closely or distantly related to his preferment, but to bestow a gold ring upon each one of the numerous guests, these “serjeant rings” varying in elegance and value according to the rank of the recipient.

So strictly was this purely traditional custom construed that a close watch was kept to prevent any cheapening of the quality or intrinsic value of these obligatory rings. As it had been laid down by a leading authority that the ring to be given to a chief justice, or “chief baron,” must have the weight of twenty shillings’ worth of gold, a formal protest was made on one occasion, when rings weighing a tenth less than this had been bestowed, not, as Lord Chief Justice Kelynge told the newly appointed serjeants, because of the money value, but “that it might not be drawn into a precedent.”[86] The average cost of one of these bestowals of rings has been estimated at about £40 ($200).

The first definite notice of the bestowal of serjeants’ rings comes from the later years of Elizabeth’s reign, although the usage is believed to date back at least as far as the time of Henry VI (1422–1461). The Latin motto on a ring of Sir John Fineux, called in 1485, is “Suæ quisque fortunæ faber,” or “Every man is the artizan of his own fortune.” The mottoes engraved on these rings have varied from reign to reign. One of Elizabeth’s time bears “Lex regis præsidium” (The Law is the stronghold of the King); under Charles II the motto was “Adest Carolus magnus” (Charles the Great is with us). Much more dignified and telling is the motto in James II’s reign, “Deus, lex, rex” (God, the Law, the King), implying that God is the source of the law, and that the law is above kings. As to the heavy tax sometimes imposed upon a new barrister’s pecuniary resources, it is stated that on one occasion 1409 rings were given at an expense of £773 ($3865). The usage, though maintained to a considerable extent, became somewhat less oppressive toward the end of the eighteenth century, but even in 1856 rings were given, some of them bearing the motto “Cedant arma togæ” (Arms will give place to the Gown) in allusion to the approaching peace with Russia after the Crimean War.[87]

About 1830, when popular feeling was roused to the highest pitch by the agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws, many rings were set with the following stones, the initial letters forming the word “repeal”: