Side by side with the strange vigour and extraordinary joy in life that marked the period, there existed a great contempt for the value of life and a gross familiarity with death. It was Death himself, according to the imagination of the sixteenth century, who, always at hand, clutched men of every age and condition by the sleeve and hurried them all unwillingly away. The emblems of death were always presented in close touch with the living. The forms they took--the skeleton, or simply the skull, or Death's head, with cross-bones--were rendered in the sixteenth century by both painter and sculptor; but it was reserved for the goldsmith--the sculptor and painter in one--to represent them on jewellery through the medium of the precious metals enriched with gems and coloured enamels. They figured on every kind of ornament. Brooches with enamelled skulls were fastened as enseignes upon the hat; golden jewels like funereal objects in shape of coffins holding enamelled skeletons hung from the neck; rosary beads, pomanders and watches in the form of human skulls were attached to the waist; and rings bearing Death's heads and other emblems were worn upon the fingers. A great impetus was given to the use of such articles of adornment by Diana of Poitiers when she became mistress of Henry II of France. She was then a widow in mourning; and the complaisant Court not only adopted her black and white as the fashionable colour, but covered their personal ornaments with emblems of death. Jewels of this description, it is clear, were not necessarily carried in remembrance of any special individual. With their legend "Memento Mori" they were simply reminders of Death in the abstract. As such they characterised exactly the temper of the time, and were quite commonly worn by the upper and middle classes, especially by those who affected a respectable gravity. At the time of which we now speak the personal badge or _devise_, an obscure expression of some particular conceit of its wearer, was at the height of fashion. In its elaboration the various emblems of death were largely put under contribution, their choice for the purpose being the outcome of the special disposition of those who adopted them. Perhaps the most notable instance of the representation of a badge of this kind is in Holbein's famous "Ambassadors," in the National Gallery. Here Jean de Dinteville, who stands on the left of the picture, wears a circular jewel formed of a white enamelled skull in a gold mount, pinned as an enseigne to the lower rim of his small black bonnet. Amongst sundry ornaments bearing mortuary devices, there is a good example at South Kensington--a _Memento Mori_ charm of enamelled gold in the form of a coffin containing a minutely articulated skeleton. It is English work of the Elizabethan period, and was found at Tor Abbey, Devonshire (Pl. XLIV, 16).