The first engraved gem that Pliny mentions is an agate that belonged to Pyrrhus, King of Epirus. This was in the first half of the third century before Christ. The same monarch is said to have had in his possession an agate on which were figured the nine Muses, and Apollo holding a lyre; the work not of an engraver, but of Nature herself! The veins in the stone were said to be arranged so naturally that each of the Muses had her particular attribute.
At a late period, and even in the Middle Ages, it was a popular belief that the engraved gems found in digging the ground of ancient sites were natural objects, and that the representations on them were a mere natural indication of the special power or quality each possessed.
Busts and heads in full and bass relief were executed by the Romans on chalcedony in the grandest style; the finest specimens of these that we possess are the Marlborough "Medusa," and the bust of "Matidia," supported on a peacock, and three inches high. The chalcedony was supposed to cure lunatics, and make them "amiable and merry."
The agate was an object of the most fanciful delusions to the ancients. Orpheus says, "If thou wearest a piece of the tree-agate on thy hand, the immortal gods shall be pleased with thee; if the same be tied to the horns of thy oxen when ploughing, or round the ploughman's sturdy arm, wheat-crowned Ceres shall descend from heaven with full lap upon thy furrows." He adds that every kind is an antidote to the asp's bite, if taken in wine.
By burning the agate it was believed that storms would be averted, the proof of their efficacy being that if thrown into a caldron of boiling water they immediately cooled it; but in order to do good, they must be strung on the hair of a lion's mane. The stone, colored like a hyena's skin, was believed to be the cause of domestic strife, and was viewed with horror.
What do you think of the wardrobe of Queen Elizabeth, girls? It must have been about the most varied and extensive ever recorded in royal annals, to judge from a list of her wearing apparel recently gathered from the State papers. When the Maiden Queen was sixty-eight, and might therefore have been supposed to have outlived some of her youthful vanity, she possessed 99 complete official costumes, 102 French gowns, 100 robes with trains and 67 without, 126 antique dresses, 136 bodices, and 125 tunics, not to mention such trifles as 96 mantles, 85 dressing-gowns, and 27 fans. With all these dresses, however, it is curious to note that Queen Bess owned only nine pairs of shoes. When she died, in 1603, three thousand articles of apparel were found in her wardrobes, duly catalogued.
"A Germantown Girl."—Thanks for your cordial indorsement of the article on cigarette smoking in No. 117. We hope you will ask the boys of your acquaintance to read it, and we are sure that you and your girl friends will do much to put an end to the bad habit in your set if your young gentlemen friends know that you disapprove of it.