§ 20. Heroes, philosophers, poets—indeed, men of all classes leave remembrances in the shape of rings. The will of Washington contains this: “To my sisters-in-law Hannah Washington and Mildred Washington, to my friends Eleanor Stuart, Hannah Washington of Fairfield and Elizabeth Washington of Hayfield, I give each a mourning ring of the value of one hundred dollars. These bequests are not made for the intrinsic value of them, but as mementoes of my esteem and regard.” Shakspeare bequeathes such tokens to several friends—among them, to his brother players, whom he calls “my poor fellows”—“twenty shillings eight pence apiece to buy them rings.” Pope bequeathed sums of five pounds to friends, who were to lay them out in rings. This great poet was no admirer of funerals that blackened all the way or of gorgeous tombs: “As to my body, my will is that it be buried near the monument of my dear parents at Twickenham, with the addition after the words filius fecit of these only, et sibi: Qui obiit anno 17—, ætatis—: and that it be carried to the grave by six of the poorest men of the parish, to each of whom I order a suit of gray coarse cloth as mourning.”

The affection which Dr. Johnson bore to the memory of his wife was a pretty point in his heavy character: “March 28, 1753. I kept this day as the anniversary of my Letty’s death, with prayer and tears in the morning. In the evening I prayed for her conditionally, if it were lawful.” Her wedding-ring, when she became his wife, was, after her death, preserved by him as long as he lived with an affectionate care in a little round wooden box and in the inside of which he pasted a slip of paper thus inscribed by him in fair characters:

“Eheu!
Eliz. Johnson
Nupta Jul. 9o, 1736,
Mortua, eheu!
Mart. 17o, 1752.”[368]

Husbands can love, where friends may see nothing to admire: Mrs. Johnson has been summed up as “perpetual illness and perpetual opium.”[369]

Lord Eldon wore a mourning ring for his wife. In his will we find this: “And I direct that I may be buried in the same tomb at Kingston in which my most beloved wife is buried and as near to her remains as possible; and I desire that the ring which I wear on my finger may be put with my body into my coffin and be buried with me.”[370]

The last gift of Tom Moore’s mother to him was her wedding-ring: “Have been preparing my dear mother for my leaving her, now that I see her so much better. She is quite reconciled to my going; and said this morning, ‘Now, my dear Tom, don’t let yourself be again alarmed about me in this manner, nor hurried away from your house and business.’ She then said she must, before I left her this morning, give me her wedding-ring as her last gift; and, accordingly sending for the little trinket-box in which she kept it, she, herself, put the ring on my finger.”[371]

The poet Gray was the possessor of trinkets; and, perhaps, we may refer these to the “effeminacy” and “visible fastidiousness” mentioned in Temple’s Life, (adopted by Mason.) In his will, the poet gives an amount of stock to Richard Stonehewer, and adds: “and I beg his acceptance of one of my diamond rings,” while to Dr. Thomas Wharton he bequeaths £500—and, “I desire him also to accept of one of my diamond rings.” He bequeaths his watches, rings, etc., to his cousins Mary Antrobus and Dorothy Comyns, to be equally and amicably shared between them.

§ 21. On the 1st of March, 1854, the ship Powhattan sailed from Havre for New-York, with two hundred and fifty passengers. Not far from Barnegat Inlet she became a wreck, so complete that not a vestige of her reached land. The passengers were seen to cling to the bulwarks and, then, drop off by fifties; her captain, through his trumpet, could be heard to implore attention to them; while the sea crushed and dashed all to death on the fretted beach. The clothing of one of the victims, who was not more than twenty years of age, showed her to have belonged to the wealthy class of Germans. She was beautiful even as she lay in death dabbled with sea-weed and scum. Upon her fingers were two rings; one, plain and the other had a heart attached to it. They were marked P. S. and B. S. 1854. This we gather from a fleeting newspaper. While the mind sighs as it leaves the corpse to its shallow, seaside, foreign and premature grave, a curiosity is awakened by the rings and the attendant emblem. The date shows them to be very late gifts. Were these tokens of affection from brother and sister—for one heart might well do for both—and who placed them upon that now cold hand, then glowing with an affection that throbbed from under those rings? Or, was this young creature on her way to her youthful husband, who had come before and built up a home and whose betrothal was shown in the heart, while the plain ring had made them one before God and the church and who was watching for her and, in fancy, had, through day dreams and in night watching, fancied the vessel sweep into port and the hand, that lovingly wore his gifts, wave a recognition? It may be that father and mother were the donors, with a blessing and a prayer and the added almost certainty of thought that she who received with a last kiss, would long survive parents to reverence the tokens, hallow their memory and think of Fatherland! Oh, how much of fact, of poetry, of sadness may crowd around a little ring!!