Professor Tennant says, "One of the common marks of opulence and taste in all countries is the selection, preservation, and ornamental use of gems and precious stones." Diamonds, from the time Alexander ordered pieces of flesh to be thrown into the inaccessible valley of Zulmeah, that the vultures might bring up with them the precious stones which attached themselves, have everywhere ranked among the luxuries of a refined cultivation. It is the most brilliant of stones, and the hardest known body. Pliny says it is so hard a substance, that, if one should be laid on an anvil and struck with a hammer, look out for the hammer! [_Mem_. If the reader have a particularly fine diamond, never mind Pliny's story: the risk is something, and Pliny cannot be reached for an explanation, should his experiment fail.] By its own dust only can the diamond be cut and polished; and its great lustre challenges the admiration of the world. Ordinary individuals, with nothing to distinguish them from the common herd, have "got diamonds," and straightway became ever afterwards famous. An uncommon-sized brilliant, stuck into the front linen of a foolish fellow, will set him up as a marked man, and point him out as something worth looking at. The announcement in the papers of the day, that "Mademoiselle Mars would wear all her diamonds," never failed to stimulate the sale of tickets on all such occasions. As it may interest our readers to know what treasures an actress of 1828 possessed, we copy from the catalogue of her effects a few items. "Two rows of brilliants set _en chatons_, one row composed of forty-six brilliants, the other of forty-four; eight sprigs of wheat in brilliants, composed of about five hundred brilliants, weighing fifty-seven carats; a garland of brilliants that may be taken to pieces and worn as three distinct ornaments, three large brilliants forming the centre of the principal flowers, the whole comprising seven hundred and nine brilliants, weighing eighty-five carats three-quarters; a Sévigné mounted in colored gold, in the centre of which is a burnt topaz surrounded by diamonds weighing about three grains each, the drops consisting of three opals similarly surrounded by diamonds; one of the three opals is of very large size, in shape oblong, with rounded corners; the whole set in gold studded with rubies and pearls. "A _parure_ of opals, consisting of a necklace and Sévigné, two bracelets, ear-rings the studs of which are emeralds, comb, belt-plate set with an opal in the shape of a triangle; the whole mounted in wrought gold, studded with small emeralds. "A Gothic bracelet of enamelled gold, in the centre a burnt topaz surrounded by three large brilliants; in each link composing the bracelet is a square emerald; at each extremity of the topaz forming the centre ornament are two balls of burnished gold, and two of wrought gold.