Richard Boyle, who, by personal merit, obtained a high position and is known as the “great Earl of Cork,” did not forget his early life. When he was in the height of his prosperity, he committed the most memorable circumstances of his life to writing, under the title of “True Remembrances;” and we find the mention of a ring which his mother had given him: “When first I arrived in Ireland, the 23d of June, 1588, all my wealth then was twenty-seven pounds three shillings in money and two tokens which my mother had given me, viz. a diamond ring, which I have ever since and still do wear, and a bracelet of gold worth about ten pounds; a taffety doublet cut with and upon taffety; a pair of black silk breeches laced; a new Milan fustian suit laced and cut upon taffety, two cloaks, competent linen and necessaries, with my rapier and dagger; and, since, the blessing of God, whose heavenly providence guided me hither, hath enriched my weak estate in the beginning with such a fortune as I need not envy any of my neighbors, and added no care or burthen to my conscience thereunto.”[265] We have mentioned Shakspeare’s signet-ring. It is of gold and was found on the sixteenth day of March in the year one thousand eight hundred and ten, by a laborer’s wife upon the surface of the mill-close, adjoining Stratford churchyard. The weight is twelve penny-weights; it bears the initials W. S.; and was purchased by Mr. R. B. Wheeler (who has published a Guide to Stratford-upon-Avon[266]) for thirty-six shillings, the current value of the gold. It is evidently a gentleman’s ring of the time of Elizabeth; and the crossing of the central lines of the W. with the oblique direction of the lines of the S. exactly agree with the character of that day. There is a connection or union of the letters by an ornamental string and tassels, known commonly as a “true lover’s knot”--the upper bow or flourish of which forms the resemblance of a heart. On the porch of Charlcote House near Stratford, erected in the early part of Elizabeth’s reign by the very Sir Thomas Lucy said to have persecuted Shakspeare for deer stealing, the letters T. L. are surrounded in a manner precisely similar. Allowing that this was Shakspeare’s ring, it is the only existing article which originally belonged to him.