By WILLIAM JONES, F.S.A.

There is a magic charm in the pearl that seems to have fascinated the world in various countries. The modest splendor and purity of the jewel made it the favorite of all others among the Orientals.[J] Chares, of Mitylene, alludes to the MargaritÆ necklaces as far more highly valued by the Asiatics than those made of gold. The Romans went wild over them, and of all the articles of luxury and ostentation known to them, pearls appear to have been most esteemed. Pompey, as the richest spoils of his victories in Asia, displayed in his procession into Rome, after his triumph over the third continent, among his treasures, thirty-three crowns made of pearls, a temple of the Muses with a dial on the top, and a figure of himself, formed of the same materials. This roused the ire of the stoic Pliny, but contributed to the popular passion for obtaining these jewels. He remarks of Lollia Paulina (wife of the Emperor Caligula) that she was covered with emeralds and pearls, strung alternately, glittering all over her head, hair, bandeau, necklaces, and fingers, valued at forty millions of sesterces (£400,000).

Servilia, the mother of the famous Brutus, received from Julius CÆsar a pearl as a present which cost the donor £50,000. The celebrated pearls of Cleopatra, worn as earrings, were valued at £161,457.

Some consider bdellium, which is mentioned in the Scriptures (Genesis and Numbers), as a precious stone, and the Jewish rabbins, together with some modern commentators, translate it by pearl, but it is more than probable that the pearl was unknown in the time of Moses. Most probably, the Hebrew bedolach is the aromatic gum bdellium, which issues from a tree growing in Arabia, Media, and the Indies.

According to the poetic Orientals, every year, on the sixteenth day of the month of Nisan, the pearl-oysters rise to the sea and open their shells, in order to receive the rain which falls at that time, and the drops thus caught become pearls. On this belief the poet Sadi, in his “Bostau,” has the following fable: “A drop of water fell one day from a cloud into the sea. Ashamed and confused at finding itself in such an immensity of water, it exclaimed, ‘What am I in comparison of this vast ocean? My existence is less than nothing in this boundless abyss!’ While it thus discoursed of itself, a pearl-shell received it in its bosom, and fortune so favored it that it became a magnificent and precious pearl, worthy of adorning the diadem of kings. Thus was its humility the cause of its elevation, and by annihilating itself, it merited exaltation.”

Moore alludes to this pretty fiction in one of his sweetest melodies:

Sir Walter Scott, in the “Bridal of Triermain,” says:

Lilly, in “Gallathea:”

Shakspere (“Richard III.”):

In Lee’s “Mithridates” we have:

Elena Piscopia (1684), of the Corraro family of Venice, had a medal struck in her honor, on the reverse of which is an open shell, receiving the drops of dew from heaven, which form into pearls: the motto was Rore divino—by the divine dew.

Pearls have for ages been significant for tears. It is related that Queen Margaret Tudor, consort of James IV. of Scotland, previous to the battle of Flodden Field, had strong presentiments of the disastrous issue of that conflict. One night she had fearful dreams, in which she thought she saw her husband hurled down a great precipice and crushed and mangled at the bottom. In another vision she thought, as she was looking at her jewels, chains, and sparkling coronets of diamonds, they suddenly turned into pearls, “which are the emblems of widowhood and tears.”

A few nights before the assassination of Henry IV. of France, his queen dreamed that all the jewels in her crown were changed into pearls, and she was told that they were significant of tears.

Milton, in his “Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester,” says:

Similes of pearls and tears are frequent in our old writers. Thus Shakspere in “Midsummer Night’s Dream:”

In “King John:”

The metaphor is a favorite one with Lovelace:

And—

In Chalkhill’s “Thealma and Clearchus,” we find of the former:

Robert Southwell, in “St. Mary Magdalen’s Tears,” says: “The angels must bathe themselves in the pure stream of thine eyes, and thy face shall be set with this pearly liquid, that, as out of thy tears were stroken the first sparks of thy Lord’s love, so thy tears may be the oil to feed his flames.”