"The noble youth, the common rank above,
On their courveting coursers mounted fair,
One wore his mistress' garter, one her glove,
And he her colours whom he most did love;
There was not one but did some favour wear;
And each one took it on his happy speed,
To make it famous by some knightly deed."
The gift of a pair of gloves was at one time the ordinary perquisite of those who performed some small service; and in process of time, to make the reward of greater value, the glove was "lined" with money; hence the term "glove-money." Relics of the old custom still survive in the presentation of gloves to those who attend weddings and funerals. It is difficult, however, to discover the connection between gloves and a stolen kiss. Our readers, for example, may recollect how, in Sir Walter Scott's "Fair Maid of Perth," Catharine steals from her chamber on St. Valentine's morn, and catching Henry Smith asleep, gives him a kiss; then we have the following:—"Come into the booth with me, my son, and I will furnish thee with a fitting theme. Thou knowest the maiden who ventures to kiss a sleeping man, wins of him a pair of gloves." Gloves are still given to a judge at a maiden assize, a custom which, it has been suggested, originated in a Saxon law, which forbade the judges to wear gloves while sitting on the Bench. Hence, to give a pair of gloves to a judge was tantamount to saying that he need not trouble to come to the Bench, but might wear gloves. Again, in bygone times gloves were worn as a mark of distinction by sovereigns, ecclesiastical dignitaries, and others; their workmanship being excessively costly, richly embroidered as they were and decorated with jewels. "The association of gloves with ecclesiastical dignity survived," says Mr. Leadam in the Antiquary, "the Reformation in England; for although they ceased to be worn in the services of the Church, yet as late as the reign of Charles II. bishops upon their consecration were accustomed to present gloves to the archbishop, and to all who came to their consecration banquet. The lavender gloves with golden fringes which do often adorn their portraits, may still remind our modern prelates of the ancient glories of their predecessors." It was also customary to hang a pair of white gloves on the pews of unmarried villagers who had died in the flower of their youth, and at several towns in England it has been customary from time immemorial to announce a fair by hoisting a huge glove upon a pole—a practice which exists at Macclesfield, Portsmouth, Southampton, and Chester; the glove being taken down at the conclusion of the fair. Hone, in his description of Exeter Lammas Fair, says:—"The charter for this fair is perpetuated by a glove of immense size, stuffed and carried through the city on a very long pole, decorated with ribbons, flowers, &c., and attended with music, parish beadles, and the nobility. It is afterwards placed on the top of the Guildhall, and then the fair commences; on the taking down of the glove the fair terminates." Mr. Leadam also quotes a passage from the "Speculum Saxonicum" which throws light on the origin of this custom:—"No one is allowed to set up a market or a mint, without the consent of the ordinary or judge of that place; the king ought also to send a glove as a sign of his consent to the same." The glove, therefore, was the king's glove, the earliest form of royal charter, the original sign-manual. Among other items of folk-lore connected with this useful article of dress, we may mention that the term "right as my glove" is a phrase, according to Sir Walter Scott, derived from the practice of pledging the glove as the sign of irrefragable faith. Gloves, too, were in olden times fashionable new year's gifts, having been far more expensive than now-a-days. When Sir Thomas More was Lord Chancellor, he happened to determine a case in favour of a lady named Croaker, who, as a mark of her gratitude, sent him a new year's gift in the shape of a pair of gloves with forty angels in them. But Sir Thomas returned the money with the following letter:—"Mistress, since it were against good manners to refuse your new year's gift, I am content to take your gloves, but as for the lining I utterly refuse it." In the time of Queen Elizabeth, the rural bridegroom wore gloves in his hat as a sign of good husbandry; and on the "Border" to bite the glove was considered a pledge of deadly vengeance, in allusion to which Sir Walter Scott, in his "Lay of the Last Minstrel," says:—
"Stern Rutherford right little said,
But bit his glove and shook his head."
The ring, apart from its eventful history, has from the most remote period been surrounded, both in this and other countries, not only with a most extensive legendary lore, but with a vast array of superstitions, a detailed account of which would be impossible in a small volume like the present one; so we must confine ourselves to some of the most popular.
In the first place, then, certain mysterious virtues have been supposed to reside in rings, not so much on account of their shape as from the materials of which they have been composed. Thus, they have been much worn as talismans or charms, being thought to be infallible preservatives against unseen dangers of every kind. Referring to some of these, we find, for instance, that the turquoise ring was believed to possess special properties, a superstition to which Dr. Donne alludes:—
"A compassionate turquoise, that doth tell,
By looking pale, the wearer is not well."
Fenton, too, in his "Secret Wonders of Nature," describes the stone:—"The turkeys doth move when there is any peril prepared to him that weareth it." The turquoise ring of Shylock, which, we are told in the Merchant of Venice (Act iii., sc. 1), he would not part with for a "wilderness of monkeys," was, no doubt, valued for its secret virtues.
The carbuncle, again, amongst other properties, was said to give out a natural light, to which it has been supposed Shakespeare alludes in Titus Andronicus (Act ii., sc. 3), where, speaking of the ring on the finger of Bassianus, he says:—
"Upon his bloody finger he doth wear
A precious ring, that lightens all the hole,
Which, like a taper in some monument,
Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks,
And shows the ragged entrails of the pit."
A piece of popular superstition makes it unlucky to wear an opal ring, although this lovely stone has always been an object of peculiar admiration from the beautiful variety of colours which it displays, and in the Middle Ages was even thought to possess the united virtues of all the gems with whose distinctive colours it was emblazoned. The diamond was believed to counteract poison, a notion which prevailed to a comparatively late period; though, according to another belief, it was considered the most dangerous of poisons, and as such we find it enumerated among the poisons administered to Sir Thomas Overbury, when a prisoner in the Tower. An emerald ring was thought to insure purity of thought; and a toadstone ring was worn as an amulet to preserve new-born children and their mothers from fairies.