Ancient and Modem Finger-rings. 57 



great value to the researches of Mr. Gosse. I should add, that 

 the very striking rings in the foot of that gentleman's central 

 figure, have not been exhibited by any specimens under my 

 notice. My taking this creature for a young Limnias cerato- 

 phylli arose from a general similarity of structure, and from a 

 remark in Pritchard that the rotary disk of that animal was 

 circular in a juvenile specimen. I have usually found floscules 

 (ornata, cornuta, and campanulata) on the same weed with the 

 new rotifer, and likewise Stephanoceros Eichornii. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN FINGER-RINGS. 



BY H. NOEL HUMPHEEYS. 



Oue modern finger-rings have lost all characteristic meaning in 

 their general form or details. The delicate allusion, the poetic 

 sentiment, the playful conceit conveyed by the graceful forms of 

 interwoven flowers, or other objects, have disappeared. The 

 effect and meaning of the conjunction of various metals in the 

 device is a lost art ; and the poetic meaning once attached to 

 gems is a forgotten branch of elegant symbolry. In short, the 

 race of ingenious and artistic artificers, who devised the exqui- 

 site jewels of the 15th and 16th centuries, have no modern 

 representatives . 



So completely is the art of ring-jewelry forgotten, that it is 

 now sought to give a poetic sentiment to the very defects which 

 mark the degradation of the art ; even in the unwrought and 

 unmeaning wedding-ring of our day, a beauty is sought in its 

 absolute want of any characteristic features whatever, by calling 

 it, with a sentimental unction, the plain gold ring. 



Before, however, I attempt to show what a wedding-ring 

 might be made, and has been made, let us take a brief review 

 of the origin of finger-rings in general. 



The earliest kind of rings known appear to have been 

 merely portable seals. In the first great empires of Central 

 Asia of which we have any record, Babylonia and Assyria, the 

 act of sealing was a most important one, and, as an act confer- 

 ring authenticity upon any important document, stood in the 

 place of the present practice of attaching to it the names of the 

 principal parties concerned. Royal edicts were promulgated en- 

 tirely through the medium of a seal ; the decrees of the Assyrian 



