Of these three so-called Poison Rings, the South Kensington specimen, and Nº 533 at Oxford, belong to a period at least a hundred years after the demise of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare (detto Borgia). Only Nº 479 in the Fortnum Collection, by any exercise of imagination, can be planted in the Borgian Era. It is labelled “_Sixteenth Century_”; and the Lord Alexander P.P. VI reigned in Rome, as God’s Vicegerent, during the first two years, seven months, seventeen days, of that century. There is no earthly cause to connect His Holiness with that ring: but, for the purpose of the argument, let it be granted that Nº 479 with its cameo χερούβ belonged to the Borgia Pontiff, that the hollow bezel was used as a receptacle for venom, and not for perfume. What then? If the venom were a powder, the Pope’s Holiness would have to poke it in with a pin, and close the two tiny holes with wax. Then, when the time came for envenoming the usual cardinal, He assiduously would pick out the wax, and, by violent jerks and shaking, induce the venom to present itself for application. If the venom were a liquid, (M. Dumas’ bear-juice for example,) the same process of waxing up and pin-picking would be necessary. But there was no venom known to the Borgia, or to any other man or woman of that era, which would kill, with as small a dose as would go in that ring. The venoms of the Fifteenth Century were administered (when they were administered) by the drachm, or by the ounce—not by the grain. The recipes have been displayed here. To harbour a fatal dose of the known venoms, such as Messer Giambattista della Porta describes, a monstrous and vast ring would be needed, more gigantic than those bronze-gilt _anuli_ used as credentials by the pontifical couriers of the Lord Pius P.P. II (1458–1464), N^{os} 665 and 666 in the South Kensington Collection, two and three-eighths, and two inches, respectively, in diameter. The processes of brewing and stewing, so dear to the mages, without any doubt were a direct disposition of Providence for the security of human life; for they effectually withdrew the sting from venomous substances, and made it perfectly impossible for would-be murderers (and they were more than many) to kill, except accidentally, or with enormous doses and the disadvantages coincident thereto.