In her interview with the Queen, the Countess might be supposed to have presented to her the token she had so fatally withheld; or it might have remained in her family, or have been destroyed; but the most improbable circumstance would have been its restoration to the widow or daughter of the much-injured Essex by the offending Earl of Nottingham. The Duchess of Somerset left a long, curious, and minute will, and in it there is no mention of any such ring. If there is good evidence for believing that the curious ring at Hawnes was ever in the possession of the Earl of Essex, one might be tempted to suppose that it was the likeness of the Queen, to which he alludes in his letters as his “fair angel,” written from Portland Road, and the time of his disgrace after the proceedings in the Star Chamber, and when still under restraint at Essex House. Had Essex at this time possessed any ring, a token, by presenting which he would have been entitled to favour, it seems most improbable that he should have kept it back, and yet regarded this likeness of the Queen, whose gracious eyes encouraged him to be a petitioner for himself. The whole tone of this letter is in fact almost conclusive against the possibility of his having in his possession any gift of hers endowed with such rights as that of the ring which the Countess of Nottingham is supposed to have withheld.’ CHAPTER IX. CUSTOMS AND INCIDENTS IN CONNECTION WITH RINGS. _Wedding of the Adriatic._ P. 419. In Richard Lassel’s ‘Voyage of Italy’ is an account of the performance of this ceremony at Venice, about the year 1650. ‘I happened to be at Venice thrice at the great sea Triumph, or feast of the Ascension, which was performed thus: About our eight in the morning the Senators, in their scarlet robes, meet at the Doge’s Pallace, and there, taking him up, they walk with him processionally unto the shoar, where the Bucentoro lyes waiting them; the Pope’s Nuncio being on his right hand, and the Patriarch of Venice on his left hand. Then, ascending into the Bucentoro by a handsome bridge thrown out to the shoar, the Doge takes his place, and the Senators sit round about the galley as they can, to the number of two or three hundred. The Senate being placed, the anchor is weighed, and the slaves being warned by the Captain’s whistle, and the sound of trumpets, begin to strike all at once with their oars, and to make the Bucentoro march as gravely upon the water as if she also went upon cioppini (high shoes then worn by the Venetian ladies). Thus they steer for two miles upon the Laguna, while the music plays and sings Epithalamiums all the way long, and makes Neptune jealous to hear Hymen called upon in his Dominions. Round about the Bucentoro flock a world of Piottas and Gondolas, richly covered overhead with sumptuous Canopies of silks and rich stuffs, and rowed by watermen in rich liveries as well as the Trumpeters. Thus forrain Embassadors, divers noblemen of the country and