Byron observes that the story of Cupid and Psyche is one uniform piece of loveliness. [Illustration: (Cupid and Psyche Ring)] § 15. The meeting of St. Anne and St. Joachim at the Golden Gate is a favorite subject.[356] The Nuns of St. Anne at Rome show a rude silver ring as the wedding-ring of Anne and Joachim. § 16. A wicked trick upon weak and confiding women used to be played by forcing upon their finger a rush ring: as thereby they fancied themselves married.[357] Richard, Bishop of Salisbury, in his Constitutions, Anno 1217, forbids the putting of rush rings or any of like matter on women’s fingers. De Breveil says,[358] it was an ancient custom to use a rush ring where the necessity for marriage was apparent. § 17. Rings occur in the fifteenth century, with the orpine plant (_Telephium_) as a device. It was used because the bending of the leaves was presumed to prognosticate whether love was true or false. The common name for orpine plants was that of _midsummer men_. In a tract said to be written by Hannah More, among other superstitions of one of the heroines, “she would never go to bed on Midsummer Eve without sticking up in her room the well-known plant called midsummer men, as the bending of the leaves to the right or to the left would never fail to tell her whether her lover was true or false.” The orpine plant occurs among the love divinations on Midsummer Eve in the Connoisseur:[359] “I likewise stuck up two midsummer men, one for myself and one for him. Now if this had died away, we should never have come together; but, I assure you, his blowed and turned to mine.” § 18. Marriage-rings, in the olden time, were not, as now, plain in form and without words.[360] Some had a seal part for impression.[361] A ring of this kind was ploughed up in the year 1783 on Flodden Field. It was of gold and an inscription upon it ran thus: “Where are the constant lovers who can keep themselves from evil speakers?” This would have been a relic for Abbotsford; but Dryburgh Abbey has the wizard; and a stranger is in his halls. A Roman bronze ring has been discovered of singular shape and fine workmanship, which appears to have been intended as a token of love or affection.[362] [Illustration: (Token Ring of Love Two Views)] The parts nearest the collet are flat and resemble a triangle from which the summit has been cut. Its greatest singularity is an intaglio ploughed out of the material itself, representing the head of a young person. The two triangular portions which start from the table of the ring are filled with ornaments, also engraved hollow. Upon it is the word VIVAS or _Mayest thou live_. [Illustration: (Ring Found at Sessa)]