PEARLS — THEIR VALUE. 51 



rings ; that she glittered and shon again like the sun as she 

 went. The value of these ornaments she esteemed and rated 

 at four hundred thousand sestertii, and offered openly to 

 prove it out of hand by her hookes of accounts and reckon- 

 ings. Yet were not these jewels the gifts and presents of 

 the prodigall prince her husband, but the goods and orna- 

 ments from her owne house, fallen to her by way of inherit- 

 ance from her grandfather, which he had gotten together 

 even by the robbing and spoiling of whole provinces. See 

 what the issue and end was of those extortions and outrage- 

 ous exactions of his : this was it, That M. Lollius, slandered 

 and defamed for receiving bribes and presents of the kings 

 in the east ; and being out of favour with C. Cassar, sonne of 

 Augustus, and having lost his amitie, dranke a cup of poison, 

 and prevented his judiciall triall : that forsooth his neece 

 Lollia, all to be hanged with jewels of four hundred thousand 

 sestertii, should be seene glittering, and looked at of every 

 man by candle-light all a supper time." — Still greater ex- 

 amples even than Lollia's of this " excessive riot and prodi- 

 galitie" can be instanced. Julius Caesar presented Servillia, 

 the mother of M. Brutus, with a pearl worth 48,417/. Cleo- 

 patra, "in the height of her pride and wanton brauverie," at 

 a supper with Antony, of which Pliny has given an interest- 

 ing account, took from her ear one of two pearls, of the value 

 of 80,729/. 3s. 4(/., " the singular and only jewels of the 

 world, and even nature's wonder," dissolved it in vinegar, 

 and swallowed the precious potion ; * and its fellow would 

 have gone to make another draught, had this celebrated queen 

 not been prevented in her folly, which we find was imitated 

 and exceeded by Cladius, son of iEsop the tragedian poet. 

 These were the freaks of pure wantonness with which the 

 satirist may amuse himself; but even against the moderated 

 luxury of following and of the present times, there never 

 have been wanting puling pseudo-moralists to declaim in the 

 same style, forgetting, in their cynical humour, that the pride 

 which leads us to adorn our persons is a passion of universal 

 prevalence among mankind, — an inherent part of our mental 

 constitution which contributes, when kept within certain 

 limits, not little to our moral good. Of these vilifiers of the 

 fair sex in particular, Father Bonanni is not less invective 

 than Pliny, though by much less eloquent. After indulging 

 in some details scarcely befitting a holy monk, he exclaims : 

 ■ — " Heu monstrosa vanitatis fceminea? deliramenta ! Quae 



* Sir Wm. Capcll, in proof of loyalty we presume, emulated this expen- 

 sive frolic when lie drank "a dissolved pearl (which cost him many hundreds) 

 in a health to the king," Henry VII. — Fuller's Worthies, iii. 190. 



e 2 



