Persons who desire to leave specific rings to friends should designate them; for, otherwise, the particular article will not pass. Thus, “I give a diamond ring,” is what is called a general legacy, which may be fulfilled by the delivery of any ring of that kind; while “I give the diamond ring presented to me by A,” is a specific legacy, which can only be satisfied by the delivery of the specified subject.[86] A legacy of £50 for a ring is but a money legacy; it fastens upon no specific ring, and carries interest like other money bequests.[87]
A family ring may become an important piece of evidence in the establishment of a pedigree; and the law admits it for that purpose: upon the presumption, as Lord Erskine has it, “that a person would not wear a ring with an error upon it.”[88]
In ancient times dying persons gave their rings to some one, declaring thereby who was their heir.[89]
§ 16. We do not find in any work on orders of knighthood, any association having direct reference to a ring; but in a volume of the Imperial Magazine there is a reference to the Order of the Ring, said to have been copied from a beautifully illuminated MS., on vellum.[90] The sovereign of the order was to wear upon the fifth finger a blue enamelled ring, set round with diamonds, with the motto, Sans changer. The matter looks fictitious, for it embraces the seeming signatures of Leonora, Belvidera, Torrismond and Cæsario.
Lorenzo the Magnificent, of the Medici family, bore a diamond ring with three feathers and the motto, Semper; and when the Medici returned to Florence, Giuliano de Medici instituted an order of merit, denominated the Order of the Diamond, alluding to the impresa, an emblem of his father. This was done to secure influence by recalling the memory of the parent. The members of it had precedence on public occasions, and it was their province to preside over festivals, triumphs and exhibitions.[91]
§ 17. Rings have been found in strange places, and under interesting circumstances. We find them upon and below the earth; within the Pyramids; beneath the ashes of Pompeii and Herculaneum; and strewed over battle-fields.[92] They have been discovered on the field of Cressy.
§ 18. In Persia, at the present day, letters are seldom written and never signed by the person who sends them; and it will thus appear that the authenticity of all orders and communications, and even of a merchant’s bills, depends wholly on an impression from his seal-ring.[93] This makes the occupation of a seal-cutter one of as much trust and danger as it seems to have been in Egypt. Such a person is obliged to keep a register of every ring-seal he makes; and if one be lost or stolen from the party for whom it was cut, his life would answer for making another exactly like it. The loss of a signet-ring is considered a serious calamity; and the alarm which an Oriental exhibits when his signet is missing, can only be understood by a reference to these circumstances, as the seal-cutter is always obliged to alter the real date at which the seal was cut. The only resource of a person who has lost his seal is to have another made with a new date, and to write to his correspondents to inform them that all accounts, contracts and communications to which his former signet is affixed are null from the day on which it was lost.
Importance has been given to signets in England. This was at a time when the schoolmaster had not made many penmen. “And how great a regard was had to seals,” says Collins, in his Baronage, “appears from these testimonies; the Charter of King Henry I. to the Abbey of Evesham, being exhibited to King Henry III. and the seal being cloven in sunder, the King forthwith caused it to be confirmed,” etc., etc.; “and in 13 Ed. III., when, by misfortune, a deed, then showed in the Chancery, was severed from the seal, in the presence of the Lord Chancellor and other noble persons, command was not only given for the affixing it again thereto, but an exemplification was made thereof under the Great Seal of England, with the recital of the premises. And the counterfeiting of another man’s seal was anciently punished with transportation, as appears from this record in the reign of King John,” etc., etc. “It is also as remarkable that in 9 H. III. c. c. marks damages were recovered by Sir Ralph de Crophall, Knight, against Henry de Grendon and William de Grendon for forcibly breaking a seal from a deed. Also so tender was every man in those times of his seal, that if he had accidentally lost it, care was taken to publish the same, lest another might make use of it to his detriment, as is manifested in the case of Benedict de Hogham,” etc. “Also not much unlike to this is that of Henry de Perpount, a person of great quality, (ancestor of his Grace the Duke of Kingston,) who, on Monday, in the Octaves of St. Michael, 8 Ed. I., came into the Chancery at Lincoln and publicly declared, that he missed his seal; and protested, that if any instrument should be signed with that seal, for the time to come, it should be of no value or effect. Nor is that publication made by John de Greseley of Drakelow, in Com. Derb. 18 R. II., upon the loss of his seal, less considerable,” etc., etc.[94]
§ 19. We are aware of the value of many modern rings, arising from their being used as mere frames for jewels. And ancient ones, from the same fact or from having exquisite engraving upon them, were also highly prized. Nonius,[95] a senator, is said to have been proscribed by Anthony for the sake of a gem in a ring, worth twenty thousand sesterces.
The “Roving Englishman”[96] informs us, that the Pasha wears on his right-hand little finger, a diamond ring which once belonged to the Dey of Algiers, and cost a thousand pounds sterling.