Later on the husband refers satirically to the meeting of "learned Dons and folks of fashion" at their resorts, where he says: All sorts of Fame sit cheek-by-jowl, Pearls in that string—the Table d'Hote. Few later writers have set the pearl in as wide a range of ideas or in language as beautiful as Edmund Spenser. The tears of Stella in "The Mourning Muse of Thestylis" are more precious and gem-like than those in any lines which have followed until now. In these lines they are priceless jewels royally set. And from those two bright starres to him sometime so deere, Her heart sent drops of pearle, which fell in foyson downe Twixt lilly and the rose. As a means to wake imagination to the physical charms of woman his use of the gem is equally happy and graceful, for there is always a soul in the flesh of his beauty as when he depicts the charms of a fair one in one of his "Sonnets." But fairest she, when so she doth display The gate with pearles and rubyes richly dight; Through which her words so wise do make their way To bear the message of her gentle spright. In another place he expresses the worship of his love in this fashion: For loe, my love doth in her selfe containe All this worlds riches that may farre be found; If Pearles, her teeth be Pearles, both pure and round. Several of his poems show the fashion of pearls in his day as for instance where he describes the Scarlet Lady in "The Faerie Queene" as— A goodly Lady clad in scarlet red, Purfled with gold and pearle of rich assay. and Hymen in "Epithalamion"— Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre, Sprinckled with perle. There is a passing breath of spice-laden gales and the wonder magic of ships in far-off seas, carrying to perils and adventure men seeking the treasures of strange lands, while he tells in Virgil's Gnat of the shepherd's content: Ne ought the whelky pearles esteemeth hee, Which are from Indian seas brought far away. Poets are reminded not only of the teeth and neck of beauty by the luster of the pearl but of the forehead also. Whittier like Tennyson gives to woman a brow of pearl. In "Memories" the girl has— Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl, and in "Stanzas," he places the beauty of flesh above that of the dainty jewel thus: O'er a forehead more pure than the Parian stone— Shaming the light of those Orient pearls Which bind o'er its whiteness thy soft wreathing curls. Similarly Heinrich Heine in Longfellow's translation of "The Sea hath its Pearls" says: And fairer than pearls and stars Flashes and beams my love. Probably in no poem is the pearl referred to so frequently or with so wide significance as in Whittier's "The Vaudois Teacher." The missionary in his guise of peddler having obtained an audience with the fair chatelaine, while extolling his wares, says: