In Patrick’s ‘Devotions of the Roman Church’ is a curious account of the wedding-ring of the Virgin Mary and Joseph. It is there described as of onyx or amethyst, wherein was discerned a representation of the flowers that budded on his rod. ‘It was discovered in the year 996 in this way:--Judith, the wife of Hugo, Marquis of Etruria, being a great lover of jewels, employed one Ranerius, a skilful jeweller and lapidary of Clusium, to go to Rome to make purchases for her. There he formed an intimacy with a jeweller from Jerusalem, who, when Ranerius was about to return home, professed great affection, and offered him a ring as a pledge of friendship. Ranerius, looking upon it as of little value, declined it with a slight compliment; but the jeweller from the Holy Land bade him not contemn it, for it was the wedding-ring of Joseph and the Blessed Virgin, and made him take it, with a special charge that it should not fall into the hands of a wicked person. Ranerius, still careless of what he said, threw it into a little chest with articles of inferior value, where it remained until his forgetfulness cost him dear; for when his son was only ten years old (the number of years that his father disregarded the Virgin’s ring) the boy died, and was carried to his burial. But, behold, as the hearse went forward, on a sudden the dead child rose from the coffin, ordered the bearers to stop, and, calling to his father, told him that, by favour of the Blessed Virgin, he was come from Heaven to tell him that, as he had contemned religion by concealing her most holy ring in a common heap, he must immediately send for it, and publicly produce it, that it might be openly venerated. The chest being brought and delivered into the son’s hand, he presently found the ring, although he had never seen it before; then most reverently kissing it, and showing it to the spectators, they religiously adored it, during the joyful pealing of the bells, which rang of their own accord; whereupon, ordering himself to be carried to the place where he desired to be buried, he delivered the ring to the curate of the parish, and then, laying himself down in the coffin, he was interred.--This ring wrought many miracles; ivory ones touched with it, worn by women in difficult labour, relieved them; an impression of it in wax, applied to the hip, removed the sciatica; it cured diseases of the eyes, reconciled married people that quarrelled, and drove out devils. Five centuries afterwards, in 1473, the church of Musthiola, where it effected these wonders, becoming ruinous, the ring was deposited with a religious community of the Franciscans at Clusium. One of the brethren of the order, named Wintherus, a crafty German, and very wicked, having obtained from the magistrates an appointment to show the ring, on a certain occasion, after exhibiting it at the end of his sermon, stooped down, as if he were putting it into the place provided for it, but instead