In the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, K. G., Hardwick Hall. The queen has jewels in her hair, a pearl eardrop, and two necklaces, one fitting close to the neck, the other falling over the breast. The stiff brocade skirt is embroidered with a wonderful array of aquatic birds and animals. On the left, the cushion of the chair of state is embroidered with the queen’s monogram. Surmounting the chair is a crystal ball. The original canvas measures 90 × 66 inches. ] The poets have sung the praises of the turquoise. In Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, when the “amorous Jessica” made off with her father’s jewels, Shylock particularly bewails the disappearance of his turquoise, crying out that he would not have lost it for “a wilderness of monkeys.” The poet Donne, also, writes of this stone and draws attention to its sympathetic quality in these words: As a compassionate turquoise that doth tell, By looking pale, the wearer is not well. That Queen Elizabeth clung fondly to life is well known, and it is said that she trusted much in the virtues of a talisman which she wore round her neck. This was a piece of gold engraved with certain mystic characters. The statement has also been made that at the bottom of a chair in which she often sat, was the queen of hearts from a pack of cards, having a nail driven through the forehead of the figure.[598] Could this have been a spell of witchcraft used against her hated rival, Mary of Scotland? The belief that turquoise changes its hue with the changing health of the wearer leads an early seventeenth century author to offer it as a symbol of wifely devotion, saying that “a true wife should be like a turquoise stone, clear in heart in her husband’s health, and cloudy in his sickness.” Although a more prosaic explanation than that of occult sympathy has been proposed for this asserted change of hue, we need not therefore reject the more poetic fancy.[599] Among the believers in the virtue of amulets must be counted the French religious philosopher, Pascal. After his death in 1662 there was found, sewed up in his pourpoint, a piece of paper bearing a long and very strange inscription. At the top was a cross with rays, a similar cross being drawn at the bottom of the text. This began with the following words: Monday, November 23, the day of St. Clement, pope and martyr, and of others in the martyrology. The Eve of St. Chrysogone, martyr, and of others. From about half-past ten in the evening until about a half-hour after midnight, FIRE Then follow a series of ejaculations and short religious sentences, and toward the end, after the name of Christ, thrice repeated, the words: I have separated myself from Him, I have fled from Him, denied Him.