The Argosy — page 78: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Pearls. 65 ment was likely to be deceived by them, though as ornaments they no doubt had their claims. In 1680, Jacquin, a rosary maker of Paris, filled hollow glass beads with the scales of a small river-fish (the bleak), putting them through some process of condensation, and since then the world has been at no loss to procure what superficially passes for beads and pearl-necklaces. No city in the world, we read, was ever richer in precious pearls than Rome in the time of the Czsars. Special mention is made of Lollia Pollena, wife of Caius Caligula. ‘‘I have seen her,” says Pliny, ‘‘so bedecked with emeralds and pearls disposed in rows, ranks and courses, one by another, round about the attire of her head, her cowl, her peruke of hair, her band grace and chaplet, hanging at her ears, round her neck as an ornament in a carcanet, upon her wrists as bracelets, and on her fingers in rings, that she glittered and shone like the sun as she went.” The habit was so. common. of using pearls as a base to throw up the brilliance of other gems, that we may, perhaps, believe even in Caligula’s slippers of pearls, with rubies and emeralds set upon them like flowers. The Roman ladies had a special favour for pearls as ear-rings, and: it was one of their consuming ambitions to possess exceptionally fine specimens for this purpose. ‘They preferred the pear-shaped pearls, and often wore two or three of them strung together. They jingled gently as they moved about, fitting accompaniment, it may be- said, to their graceful movements, and from this jingling they got their name, which was crofa/za, or “ rattles.” And the taste of the Roman ladies for pearls has perpetuated itself, though other of the ancient luxurious habits, which in their case: accompanied it, have long died out. The women of Florence even now are not contented if they do not possess a necklet of pearls, and this generally forms the marriage portion of the middle-class women. It is thought, just as it was in ancient Rome, that this gives an air of respectability, and forms a sure protection from insult in the streets or elsewhere. Pearls are only twice mentioned in the authorised version of the Old Testament, and both times it is used as a symbol of wisdom. Some critics have held that the Hebrew word did not exactly mean. pearl, but since there can be no doubt that our Saviour referred to: the true pearl when he spoke of the “pearl of great: price,” we may the more implicitly accept it, and gather from the use of the pearl as. a figure by the Jewish writers that a perfect pearl has been rare in alk ages, and considered of the greatest value. As may be presumed, from what we have just said, the Romans classed first among pearls those which were pear-shaped, and gave to them the name of wzzo, or unique, a name now in our scientific terminology attached with fitness, as we have seen, to the species of mollusc from which some of the most perfect pearls are obtained. VOL, XLVI, F conniclooolkks (C(O)