[7] Addison remarks that when at Rome he had ‘seen old Roman rings so very thick about, and with such large stones in them, that it is no wonder a fop should reckon them a little cumbersome in the summer season of so hot a climate.’
A Roman ring found in Hungary contained more than two ounces of gold.
[8] ‘As soon as the despotic power of the Cæsars was established,’ remarks the Rev. C. W. King (‘Handbook of Engraved Gems’), ‘it became a mark of loyalty to adorn either one’s house, or one’s hand, with the visible presence of the sovereign. Capitolinus notices that the individual was looked upon as an impious wretch, who, having the means, did not set up at home a statue of M. Aurelius; and, a century later, the Senate obliged by an edict every householder to keep a picture of the restorer of the Empire, Aurelian. That official swore such portraits in their rings as an indispensable mark of distinction may be deduced from the negotiations of Claudius (preserved by Pliny) confining the entrée at court to such as had received from him a gold ring having the imperial bust carved on it.’
[9] Xenophon, in his ‘Economics,’ states that the Greek matrons had the power of sealing up, or placing the seal upon the house-goods, and at Rome, Cicero’s mother was accustomed to enhance to consumers the merits of some poor thin wine, vile Sabinum, by affixing to each amphora her official signet.
It appears that the women of Greece did not use the ring as frequently as the men, and that theirs were less costly.
[10] Amber rings were worn in our own country to a late date; thus Swift, writing to Pope respecting Curll and the ‘Dunciad,’ says:—‘Sir, you remind me of my Lord Bolingbroke’s ring; you have embalmed a gnat in amber.’
[11] At the exhibition of antiquities and works of art at the Archæological meeting of January 5, 1849, Major Ker Macdonald produced a ring supposed to be a recent imitation of the ring of Ethelwulf.
[12] I am much indebted to Mr. R. H. Soden Smith, F.S.A.—a gentleman so distinguished in art circles, and the possessor of a remarkably fine and rare collection of rings—for information on some points connected with this work.
[13] There is the well-known anecdote of Francis the First, who, in order to let the Duchess d’Estampes know that he was jealous, wrote with a diamond these lines on a pane of glass, ‘which,’ says Le Vieil, in his ‘Peinture sur Verre,’ ‘may be still seen in the Château Chambord’:—
Souvent femme varie,
Mal habil qui s’y fie.