In referring to Irish rings, it may be well to mention one which was found in the county of Westmeath, with some very ancient remains.[72] It is remarkable, from being set with many diamonds in beautifully squared work. On account of the place where it was discovered, a suggestion has been made that it may have belonged to Rose Failge, Prince of Ireland, eldest son of Calhoir the Great, who reigned A. D. 122, he being called the _Hero of Rings_. However, diamonds do not appear to have been named among precious stones at that early period. The author is not aware that diamonds are often set loosely or upon swivel in a ring. We have mention of one in the reign of James I. of England. Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, (nicknamed by a cotemporary “Robert the Devil,” and by James called his “little Beagle,”) was dangerously ill at Bath; but on a report of his recovery, the King sent purposely the Lord Hay to him, with a token, “which was a fair diamond, set or rather hung square in a gold ring without a foil”--and this message, “That the favor and affection he bore him was and should be ever, as the form and matter of that, endless, pure and most perfect.”[73] A writer, given to detraction, says that this great statesman died of the disease of Herod, upon the top of a mole-hill; and that his body burst the lead it was wrapped in. On his tomb lies the skeleton of the Earl curiously carved. He seemed well to weigh the glory of a courtier, for in writing to Sir John Harrington,[74] he said: “Good Knight, rest content and give heed to one that hath sorrowed in the bright lustre of a Court, and gone heavily even on the best seeming fair ground. ’Tis a great task to prove one’s honesty and yet not spoil one’s fortune. You have tasted a little hereof in our blessed Queen’s time, who was more than a man, and, in truth, sometimes less than a woman. I wish I waited now in your presence chamber, with ease at my food and rest in my bed. I am pushed from the shore of comfort, and know not where the winds and waves of a Court will bear me. I know it bringeth little comfort on earth; and he is, I reckon, no wise man that looketh this way to heaven.” [Illustration: (Frank Pierce Ring)] In the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two, some citizens of California presented President Pierce with a gigantic ring. We here give an outline, and add a description of it from Gleason’s Pictorial Newspaper for the 25th of December, 1852. [Illustration: (President Franklin Pierce Ring)]