BRITISH PEARL-FISHERY. 55 



inference may at least be questioned, for truly British pearls 

 are in general dim of colour and of inferior size, so that we 

 possibly break no law of charity in suspecting that the votive 

 offering of the great soldier might have been withheld had it 

 been of higher value. Our earlier historians indeed, and the 

 Scottish especially, are very unwilling to admit this inferiority ; 

 which, nevertheless, is certain as regards the present produce, 

 and Pliny's authority is enough to satisfy us that it was so of 

 old.* Boetius says, " The perles that are so gotten in Scot- 

 land are not of small value; they are verie orient and bright, 

 light and round, and sometimes of the quantitie of the naile 

 of one's little finger, as I have had and scene by mine owne 

 experience, "f Similar is the language of Bishop Leslie ;J 

 and there can be no question that many good specimens were 

 occasionally gotten among the heap of inferior kinds, which 

 were good for nothing but to be ground down for the use of 

 the apothecary, pearl-powder being at that day reckoned a 

 sovereign remedy in many diseases. The learned Cardan 

 tells us that he had seen on the head of a girl in Edinburgh 

 a chaplet formed of about seventy Scottish pearls, all equal 

 in size and remarkable for their beauty. There is now, 

 according to the minister of the parish of Cargill, in Perth- 

 shire, in the custody of the Hon. Mrs. Drummond, of Perth, 

 a pearl necklace, which has been in the possession of the 

 ladies of that noble family for several generations, the pearls 

 of which were found in the Tay, and for size and shape are 

 not to be equalled by any thing of the kind in Britain. || A 



They came on shore, and slyly as they fell, 

 Convey'd each tear into an oyster-shell, 

 And by some power that did affect the girls, 

 Transform'd those liquid drops to orient pearls, 

 And strew'd them on the shore ; for whose rich prize 

 In winged pines the Roman colonies 

 Flung through the deep abyss to our white rocks 

 For gems to deck their ladies' golden locks." 



* Cuvier says that Elien is the first author who mentions the British 

 pearls, (Hist. des. Sc. Nat., i. 298,) but his annotator reminds us that 

 they had been mentioned by Pliny. The imperial diadem of the sovereigns 

 of the ancient Britons was sometimes encircled with an ornament of the 

 mussel-pearls, as appears from the coins which have come down to us. 

 Whitaker's Manchester, i. 22, 342. t Hist, of Scot., 15. 



I " At vero margaritarum et copia et pretium magnum est : splendescen- 

 tem ipsae candorem referunt, sed iis tamen quse ex oriente importantur paulo 

 obscuriores. Nascuntur non minus in conchis fluvialibus esui quidem illis 

 ineptis, quam marinis." De Orig. Scot. 15. Aldrov. Op. v. 424. 



|| Stat. Ac. of Sotland, xiii. 532. This is probably the necklace men- 

 tioned by Sir Robert Sibbald, " Ipse verb vidi corollam ex margaritis Sco- 

 ticis, quse bis mille coronatis sestimabatur : erant enim grandiores pisis, 

 exacte rotundas, nitidissimi candoris." Nat. Hist. Scot. iii. 27. 



