THE HISTORY AND POETRY OF FINGER-RINGS BY CHARLES EDWARDS COUNSELLOR AT LAW, NEW YORK “----My ring I hold dear as my finger; ’tis part of it.” SHAKSPEARE _WITH A PREFACE BY R. H. STODDARD._ NEW YORK JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 150 WORTH STREET, CORNER MISSION PLACE Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by CHARLES EDWARDS, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York. PREFACE. The history of finger-rings is more abundant than the poetry, which is chiefly connected with the ceremonies and observances in which they figure. What this history is Mr. Edwards has indicated in the gossipy pages which follow, and which contain a world of curious information. Interesting in themselves, they are valuable for their references, which enable the reader to verify the statements of Mr. Edwards, and to pursue his line of study farther than he has chosen to do. He will find many particulars in regard to rings of all sorts, among the different people by whom they have been worn, in ancient and modern times, and of the important part they have played in the history of the world. He will also find many allusions to them in the poets, but not so many poems of which they were the inspiration as he might have expected, for the simple reason that such poems do not exist. “The small orbit of the wedding-ring,” as a nameless old poet satirically calls it, has seldom proved large enough for genius to revolve in. Mr. Edwards quotes but one marriage poem, “Thee, Mary, with this ring I wed,” which he fails to trace to its author, the Rev. Samuel Bishop, who has written nothing else that is worth remembering. I am happy to restore it to him, and to quote a second poem, which is rather more elegant and less familiar, and which is put down to the credit of William Pattison, of whom I know nothing. I take it from Dr. Palmer’s “Poetry of Courtship and Compliment” (1868), an admirable collection of amorous verse. TO HER RING. Blest ornament! how happy is thy snare, To bind the snowy finger of my fair! O, could I learn thy nice concise art, Now, as thou bind’st her fingers, bind her heart. Not Eastern diadems like thee can shine, Fed from her brighter eyes with beams divine; Nor can their mightiest monarch’s power command So large an empire as my charmer’s hand.