176 
LECTURE Xr. 
pair of her ear-rings : the fellow to it is said to 
have been sent to Rome, and after being properly 
cut in two, formed a pair of pendants for the ears 
of a celebrated statue of Venus in that city. It 
may not be improper to observe, that the ele- 
gant manufacture of what are called false or arti- 
ficial pearls, which sometimes so nearly equal true 
ones in beauty as to be very difficultly distin- 
guished from them, is originally a French inven- 
tion, and is still carried on in its greatest perfec- 
tion at Paris. The thin glass bubbles used for 
this purpose have their inside lined by a pearl- 
coloured substance thrown into them through a 
small tube ; the pearl-coloured substance is pre- 
pared by well beating the silvery scales of fishes, 
and particularly of bleaks, in water, which being 
poured awa}", the silvery sediment undergoes seve- 
ral other ablutions, and being then mixed with pro- 
per agglutinating ingredients, is used in the manner 
just described. The inventor is said to have been 
a Bead-maker of the name of Jacquin, and to have 
lived about the time of Henry the Fourth. This 
man observed, that on washing the scales of the 
Bleak, a most beautiful silver-coloured powder was 
obtained j and it occurred to him that by intro- 
