A family ring may become an important piece of evidence in the establishment of a pedigree; and the law admits it for that purpose: upon the presumption, as Lord Erskine has it, “that a person would not wear a ring with an error upon it.”[88] In ancient times dying persons gave their rings to some one, declaring thereby who was their heir.[89] § 16. We do not find in any work on orders of knighthood, any association having direct reference to a ring; but in a volume of the Imperial Magazine there is a reference to the Order of the Ring, said to have been copied from a beautifully illuminated MS., on vellum.[90] The sovereign of the order was to wear upon the fifth finger a blue enamelled ring, set round with diamonds, with the motto, _Sans changer_. The matter looks fictitious, for it embraces the seeming signatures of Leonora, Belvidera, Torrismond and Cæsario. Lorenzo the Magnificent, of the Medici family, bore a diamond ring with three feathers and the motto, _Semper_; and when the Medici returned to Florence, Giuliano de Medici instituted an order of merit, denominated the Order of the Diamond, alluding to the _impresa_, an emblem of his father. This was done to secure influence by recalling the memory of the parent. The members of it had precedence on public occasions, and it was their province to preside over festivals, triumphs and exhibitions.[91] § 17. Rings have been found in strange places, and under interesting circumstances. We find them upon and below the earth; within the Pyramids; beneath the ashes of Pompeii and Herculaneum; and strewed over battle-fields.[92] They have been discovered on the field of Cressy. § 18. In Persia, at the present day, letters are seldom written and never signed by the person who sends them; and it will thus appear that the authenticity of all orders and communications, and even of a merchant’s bills, depends wholly on an impression from his seal-ring.[93] This makes the occupation of a seal-cutter one of as much trust and danger as it seems to have been in Egypt. Such a person is obliged to keep a register of every ring-seal he makes; and if one be lost or stolen from the party for whom it was cut, his life would answer for making another exactly like it. The loss of a signet-ring is considered a serious calamity; and the alarm which an Oriental exhibits when his signet is missing, can only be understood by a reference to these circumstances, as the seal-cutter is always obliged to alter the real date at which the seal was cut. The only resource of a person who has lost his seal is to have another made with a new date, and to write to his correspondents to inform them that all accounts, contracts and communications to which his former signet is affixed are null from the day on which it was lost.