The Shah of Persia, presented to the Emperor Nicholas by the Persian monarch, is a very beautiful stone, irregularly shaped.  Its weight is eighty-six carats, and its water and lustre are superb.

The various stories attached to the Sancy diamond, the next in point of value, would occupy many pages.  During four centuries it has been accumulating romantic circumstances, until it is now very difficult to give its true narrative.  If Charles the Bold, the last Duke of Burgundy, ever wore it suspended round his neck, he sported a magnificent jewel.  If the Curate of Montagny bought it for a crown of a soldier who picked it up after the defeat of Granson, not knowing its value, the soldier was unconsciously cheated by the Curate.  If a citizen of Berne got it out of the Curate’s fingers for three crowns, he was a shrewd knave.  De Barante says, that in 1492 (Columbus was then about making land in this hemisphere) this diamond was sold in Lucerne for five thousand ducats.  After that, all sorts of incidents are related to have befallen it.  Here is one of them.—­Henry IV. was once in a strait for money.  The Sieur de Sancy (who gave his name to the gem) wished to send the monarch his diamond, that he might raise funds upon it from the Jews of Metz.  A trusty servant sets off with it, to brave the perils of travel, by no means slight in those rough days, and is told, in case of danger from brigands, to swallow the precious trust.  The messenger is found dead on the road, and is buried by peasants.  De Sancy, impatient that his man does not arrive, seeks for his body, takes it from the ground where it is buried, opens it, and recovers his gem!  In some way not now known, Louis XV. got the diamond into his possession, and wore it at his coronation.  In 1789, it disappeared from the crown-treasures, and no trace of it was discovered till 1830, when it was offered for sale by a merchant in Paris.  Count Demidoff had a lawsuit over it in 1832; and as it is valued at a million of francs, it was worth quarrelling about.

The Nassuck Diamond, valued at thirty thousand pounds, is a magnificent jewel, nearly as large as a common walnut.  Pure as a drop of dew, it ranked among the richest treasures in the British conquest of India.

What has become of the great triangular Blue Diamond, weighing sixty-seven carats, stolen from the French Court at the time of the great robbery of the crown-jewels?  Alas! it has never been heard from.  Three millions of francs represented its value; and no one, to this day, knows its hiding-place.  What a pleasant morning’s work it would be to unearth this gem from its dark corner, where it has lain perdu so many years!  The bells of Notre Dame should proclaim such good-fortune to all Paris.

But enough of these individual magnificos.  Their beauty and rarity have attracted sufficient attention in their day.  Yet we should like to handle a few of those Spanish splendors which Queen Isabel II. wore at the reception of the ambassadors from Morocco.  That day she shone in diamonds alone to the amount of two million dollars!  We once saw a monarch’s sword, of which