The occurrence of the fish and ring in the arms of Glasgow and in the Stepney monument, is “confirmation strong as proofs of holy writ” of the truth of these stories, in the minds of the vulgar, who would regard scepticism in the same light as religious infidelity.
Fig. 180. | Fig. 181. |
Memorial rings were sometimes made to exhibit a small portrait, and on some occasions to conceal one beneath the stone. Such is the ring, [Fig. 180], from the Londesborough collection, which was made for some devoted adherent of King Charles I., when such devotion was dangerous. A table-cut diamond is set within an oval rim, acting as a lid to a small case opening by means of a spring, and revealing a portrait of Charles executed in enamel. The face of the ring, its back, and side portions of the shank, are decorated with engraved scroll-work, filled in with black enamel. “Relics” of this kind are consecrated by much higher associations than what the mere crust of time bestows upon them; and even were they not sufficiently old to excite the notice of the antiquary, they are well deserving of attention from their exhibiting “memorials of feelings which must ever command respect and admiration.” Horace Walpole had in the Strawberry Hill collection, “one of the only seven mourning rings given at the burial of Charles I. It has the king’s head in miniature behind a death’s head; between the letters C. R. the motto, ‘Prepared be to follow me.’”
A much more lugubrious memorial is presented from the same collection, [Fig. 181]. Two figures of skeletons surround the finger and support a small sarcophagus. The ring is of gold enamelled, the skeletons being made still more hideous by a covering of white enamel. The lid of the sarcophagus is also enamelled, with a Maltese cross in red, on a black ground studded with gilt hearts. This lid is made to slide off, and display a very minute skeleton lying within.
These doleful decorations first came into favour and fashion at the court of France, when Diana of Poictiers became the mistress of Henry II. At that time she was a widow, and in mourning; so black and white became fashionable colours: jewels were formed like funeral memorials; golden ornaments shaped like coffins, holding enamelled skeletons, hung from the neck; and watches made to fit in little silver skulls were attached to the waist.
In the Duke of Newcastle’s comedy, The Country Captain, 1649, a lady of title is told that when she resides in the country a great show of finger-rings will not be necessary: “Shew your white hand with but one diamond when you carve, and be not ashamed to wear your own wedding ringe with the old poesy.” That many rings were worn by persons of both sexes is clear from another passage in the same play, where a fop is described, “who makes his fingers like jewellers’ cards to set rings upon.”
The stock of rings described in the same author’s play, The Varietie, as the treasure of an old country lady, is amusingly indicative of past legacies or memorials, as well as of the tastes of the yeomanry: “A toad-stone, two Turkies (Turquoise), six thumb-rings, three alderman’s seals, five gemels, and foure death’s head.” The enumeration concludes with the uncomplimentary observation, “these are alehouse ornaments.”
These death’s-head rings were very commonly worn by the middle classes in the latter part of the sixteenth and the early part of the seventeenth centuries; particularly by such as affected a respectable gravity. Luther used to wear a gold ring, with a small death’s head in enamel, and these words, “Mori sæpe cogita” (Think oft on death); round the setting was engraved “O mors, ero mors tua” (Death, I will be thy death). This ring is preserved at Dresden. Shakspere, in his Love’s Labour’s Lost (Act V. scene 2), makes his jesting courtier, Biron, compare the countenance of Holophernes to “a death’s face in a ring.” We have already adverted to a similar ring worn by one of Shakspere’s fellow townsmen.
Fig. 182. | Figs. 183 and 184. |