[Illustration:  HEBREW RING]

In an old will of 1529, a ring was left as a bequest to a relative, described as “a table diamond set with black aniell, meate for my little finger.”

The accompanying illustration represents a Hebrew ring, surmounted by a little mosque, and having the inscription “Mazul Toub” (God be with you, or Good luck to you).

It was the custom in Elizabethan times to wear “posie rings” (or poesie rings) in which inscriptions were cut, such as, “Let likinge Laste,” “Remember the ? that is in pain,” or, “God saw fit this knot to knit,” and the like.  These posie rings are so called because of the little poetical sentiments associated with them.  They were often used as engagement rings, and sometimes as wedding rings.  In an old Saxon ring is the inscription, “Eanred made me and Ethred owns me.”  One of the mottoes in an old ring is pathetic; evidently it was worn by an invalid, who was trying to be patient, “Quant Dieu Plera melior sera.” (When it shall please God, I shall be better.) And in a small ring set with a tiny diamond, “This sparke shall grow.”  An agreeable and favourite “posie” was

   “The love is true
    That I O U.”

A motto in a ring owned by Lady Cathcart was inscribed on the occasion of her fourth marriage; with laudable ambition, she observes,

   “If I survive,
    I will have five.”

It is to these “posie rings” that Shakespeare has reference when he makes Jaques say to Orlando:  “You are full of pretty answers:  have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them out of rings?”

In the Isle of Man there was once a law that any girl who had been wronged by a man had the right to redress herself in one of three ways:  she was given a sword, a rope and a ring, and she could decide whether she would behead him, hang him, or marry him.  Tradition states that the ring was almost invariably the weapon chosen by the lady.

Superstition has ordained that certain stones should cure certain evils:  the blood-stone was of very general efficacy, it was claimed, and the opal, when folded in a bay leaf, had the power of rendering the owner invisible.  Some stones, especially the turquoise, turned pale or became deeper in hue according to the state of the owner’s health; the owner of a diamond was invincible; the possession of an agate made a man amiable, and eloquent.  Whoever wore an amethyst was proof against intoxication, while a jacynth superinduced sleep in cases of insomnia.  Bed linen was often embroidered, and set with bits of jacynth, and there is even a record of diamonds having been used in the decoration of sheets!  Another entertaining instance of credulity was the use of “cramp rings.”  These were rings blessed by the queen, and supposed to cure all manner of cramps, just as the king’s touch was supposed to cure scrofula.  When a queen died, the demand for these rings became a panic:  no more could be produced, until a new queen was crowned.  After the beheading of Anne Boleyn, Husee writes to his patroness:  “Your ladyship shall receive of this bearer nine cramp rings of silver.  John Williams says he never had so few of gold as this year!”