About my neck he put this ring;

Whosoever doth me take,

Let me go for Cæsar’s sake.”

In The Midwife, or Old Woman’s Magazine (vol. i. p. 250), Mrs. Midnight, in a let­ter “To the ven­er­able society of anti­quar­ians,” containing a description of Cæsar’s camp on Wind­sor forest, has the following passage: “There have been many extra­or­di­nary things dis­covered about this camp. One thing, I par­tic­u­lar­ly re­mem­ber, was a deer of about sixteen hundred years old. . . . . . This deer it seems was a favourite of Cæsar’s, and on that account he bedecked her neck with a golden collar and an inscription, which I shall by and by take notice of; she had been frequently taken, but when the hunters, the peasants, and poor people saw the golden collar on her neck, they readily let her go again. However, as she continually increased in strength and in bulk, as well as in age, after the course of about fifteen or sixteen centuries, the flesh and skin were entirely grown over this collar, so that it could not be discover’d till after she was kill’d, and then to the surprise of the virtuosi it appear’d with this inscription:

When Julius Cæsar reigned here,

Then was I a little deer;

If any man should me take,

Let me go for Cæsar’s sake.

“This collar, which is of pure gold, I am told weighs thirty ounces, and as the blood of the creature still appears fresh upon it, I believe it may be as valuable as any of your gimcracks; however, there will be no harm in my sending of it to you; and if I can procure it, you may depend on my taking the utmost care of it.” As no notice is announced of this wonderful piece of antiquity in the voluminous and important lucubrations of the above learned body, it most probably never came into their possession; which is very much to be lamented, as it would have been an admirable companion for Hardecnute’s chamber-pot, King Edward the first’s finger, and other similar curiosities.

Juvenal des Ursins gravely relates that in the year 1380 a hart was taken at Senlis with a chain about his neck inscribed “Cæsar hoc me donavit.”*