56 Pearls. 



Buckert's Edelstein und Perle, a translation of which 

 appeared in the "Foreign Monthly Review" for 1839. 



" I was the angel, who of old bowed down 

 From heaven to earth and shed that tear, O Pearl, 

 From which thou wert first fashioned in thy shell. 



* * * % * it- 



To thee I gave that longing in thy shell, 

 Which guided thee and caused thee to escape, 

 O Pearl, from the bewitching siren's song." 



It is difficult to say when this dew-origin of 

 Pearls ceased to find supporters ; but as late as 

 1684, a member of a high Venetian family had a 

 medal struck, on the reverse of which is an open 

 oyster-shell receiving the drops of rain, with the 

 motto Rore Divine, " By the divine dew." 



The old English traveller, Mandeville, writing 

 in the fourteenth century, quaintly argues as 

 follows : — 



" For right as the fine Pearl congels and grows 

 great by the dew of Heaven, so doth the true 

 diamond. And right as the Pearl by its own 

 nature takes roundness, so the diamond by virtue 

 of God, takes squareness." 



The presence of the Tree-oyster or Dendrosirea, 

 before alluded to, may have given rise to the dew- 

 origin of Pearls, in those localities in which this 

 oyster occurs, It is, however, to India that we must 



