About 1830, when popular feeling was roused to the highest pitch by the agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws, many rings were set with the following stones, the initial letters forming the word “repeal”: Ruby Emerald Pearl Emerald Amethyst Lapis lazuli An Irishman, who owned such a ring, noted one day that the lapis lazuli had fallen out, and took the ring to a jeweller in Cork, to have the missing stone replaced. When the work was completed, the owner, seeing that the jeweller had set a topaz in place of a lapis lazuli, protested against the substitution; but the jeweller induced him to accept the ring as it was, by the witty explanation that it now read “repeat,” and that if the agitation were often enough repeated, the repeal would come of itself.[88] [Illustration: Crossed hands of the figure of a woman upon a mummy case in the British Museum Fairholt’s “Rambles of an Artist”] [Illustration: Hands from portrait of a woman. School of Cranach British Museum] [Illustration: Hindu ring jewel combining a ring for each finger and for the thumb, a large ornament for the back of the hand, and a bracelet Barth, “Das Geschmeide”] [Illustration: Hands from effigy of Sir Humphrey Stafford’s wife in Bromsgrove Church, Staffordshire, England. Rings on every finger except on little finger of right hand. Four of these rings are figured, the full size of the originals Fairholt’s “Rambles of an Artist”] [Illustration: Three rings strung on a necklace. Detail of portrait of John Constans of Saxony British Museum] [Illustration: Right hand from portrait of Benedict von Hertenstein by Holbein; seal on index finger Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] [Illustration: Hands from Botticini’s “St. Jerome with St. Damasius and other Saints” National Gallery, London] METHODS OF WEARING A striking illustration of the large number of rings that some of the noblewomen of ancient Egypt wore on their fingers is given by the crossed hands of the wooden image on a mummy case in the British Museum. The left hand is given a decided preference in this respect over the right, there being no less than nine rings on the former against but three on the latter. These left-hand rings comprise one thumb-ring (the signet), three for the index, two for the middle finger, two for the “ring-finger,” and one for the little finger. The thumb of the right hand bears a ring and two are on the middle finger. In the tomb of a king of the Chersonesus, discovered at Nicopolis in the Crimea, two rings were on the king’s hand and ten on that of the queen. The style of workmanship indicated that these rings were productions of the Greek art of the fourth century B.C.,[89] a period when in the Greek world rings were usually worn more sparingly, in contrast with the fashion that prevailed during the latter part of the first Christian century in Rome.