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A Chaplet of Pearls: Herrick

Herrick sings:- "Some ask'd how pearls did growe, and where, Then spake I to my girle, To part her lips, and show me there The quarelets of pearl." And Lovelace, in his "Lucasta:"- "Her lips, like coral gates, kept in The perfume and the pearl within."

Shakspeare, in "King Lear," says:- "Those happy smilets That play'd on her ripe lip, seemed not to know What guests were in her eyes, which parted thence As pearls from diamonds dropp'd."

The author of the "Honeymoon" writes:- "No deeper rubies than compose thy lips, Nor pearls more precious than inhabit them."

In Lawrence's "Arnalte and Lucenda" we have:- "Her lips like rubies, which by art are join'd, Doe sweetly close and friendly are combin'd; And for their colour they by far exceede The rosiate blood which purple grapes do bleed; Who, when they move, they presently doe shew Of orient pearles, a well-ranged row."

Herrick's "Hymn to Venus":- "Goddess, I do love a girl, Ruby-lip'd, and tooth'd with pearl." Thomas Carew, in the "Compliment," alludes to- "Teeth of pearl, the double guard To speech, whence music still is heard." William Cartwright (1650):- "Whether those orders of thy teeth now sown In several pearls, enrich each channel one."

The occult virtues of the pearl were highly esteemed in the early ages. They were supposed to be brought forth by being boiled in meat, when they healed the quartan ague; bruised, and taken with milk, they were good for ulcers, and cleared the voice. They also comforted the heart, and rendered their possessor chaste. Powdered pearls were considered as an invaluable medicine in several complaints. The Greeks and Romans wore pearls made into crowns as amulets. Pope Adrian, wishing to secure all virtues in his favour, wore amulets composed of a number of things, including a sun-baked toad and pearls. Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century, writing of the island of Chipanga, says: "The inhabitants have pearls in abundance, which are of a rose colour. When a dead body is burnt, they put one of these pearls in the mouth." In old India the red pearls were highly esteemed, and formed one of the seven precious objects which it was incumbent to use in the adornment of Buddhistic reliquaries, and to distribute at the building of a Dagopa. The famous Venetian traveller, Polo, also mentions a famous "rosary" of pearls and rubies belonging to the King of Malabar, "who wears round his neck a necklace entirely of precious stones, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and the like, insomuch that this collar is of great value. He wears also, hanging in front of his chest, from the neck downwards, a fine silk thread, strung with one hundred and four large pearls and rubies of great price. The reason why he wears this cord with the one hundred and four great pearls and rubies is (according to what they tell), that every day, morning and evening, he has to say one hundred and four prayers to his idols. Such is their religion and their custom. And thus did all the kings, his ancestors, before him, and they bequeathed the string of pearls to him who should do the like. The prayer that they say daily consists of these words, 'Pacauta, Pacauta, Pacauta,' and this they repeat one hundred and four times. "The king aforesaid also wears on his arms three golden bracelets, thickly set with pearls of great value, and anklets also of like kind he wears on his legs, and rings on his toes likewise. So let me tell you, what this king wears, between gold, and gems, and pearls, is worth more than a city's ransom. And 'tis no wonder, for he hath great store of such gear; and besides, they are found in his kingdom. Moreover, nobody is permitted to take out of the kingdom a pearl weighing more than half a saggio, unless he manages to do it secretly. This order has been given because the king desires to reserve all such to himself; and so, in fact, the quantity he has is almost incredible. Moreover, several times every year he sends his proclamation through the realm, that if any one who possesses a pearl or stone of great value will bring it to him, he will pay for it twice as much as it cost. Everybody is glad to do this, and thus the king gets all into his own hands, giving every man his price." "In all the portraits of the Sassanian monarch" (observes the Rev. Mr. King), "the eye is immediately struck by the huge pearl hanging from the right ear, the artist evidently considering it an essential point in his image of the sovereign. This reminds us of the romantic tale, related by Procopius, of that pearl of unrivalled magnitude, obtained at the urgent entreaty of King Perozes, by the daring diver, from the guardianship of the enamoured shark, but with the sacrifice of his own life. How vividly does he bring before us the final catastrophe, when disappeared for ever from the world this inestimable miracle of nature: when the great king, resplendent in all his jewels, at the head of his mail-clad chivalry, charged the flying hordes of the Ephthalite Huns, and in the very moment of falling into the vast pitfall, into which he had been entrapped by their feigned retreat (which engulfed him, his son, and his bravest nobles), tore from his right ear this glory of his reign, and cast it before himself into the abyss, there to be eternally lost, amidst the hideous chaos of crushed man and horse-comforted in death with the assurance of thus cheating the foe of the most glorious trophy of the victory. Nor could the Huns, although stimulated to the search by the enormous offers of his Byzantian rival in similar ostentation, the Emperor Anastasius (who promised five hundred weight of gold pieces to the finder), ever succeed in recovering from the pit of death the so highly coveted jewel." This species of idolatry for a "precious" pearl in ancient times has its counterpart in modern history. "Some time before I went to Moscow," observes Kohl, in his "Russia," "there died in a convent, whither he had retreated, after the custom of the pious wealthy ones of his nation, a rich merchant, whose house had large establishments in Moscow, Constantinople, and Alexandria, and extensive connections throughout the East. Feeling the approach of age, he had by degrees given up the toils of business to his sons. His wife was dead, and the only beloved object, which even in the cloister was not divided from him, was one large, beautiful oriental pearl. This precious object had been purchased for him by some Persian or Arabian friend at a high price, and enchanted by its water, magnificent size and colour, its perfect shape and lustre, he would never part with it, however enormous the sum offered for it. Perhaps, in the contemplation of its peerless beauty, as it lay before him in his leisure hours, he recalled the events of his early life, and the glories of the East, as he had formerly beheld them with his own eyes. He fairly worshipped the costly globule. He himself inhabited an ordinary cell in the convent; but this object of his love was bedded on silk in a golden casket. It was shown to few; many favourable circumstances and powerful recommendations were necessary to obtain such a favour. One of my Moscow friends who had succeeded in introducing himself, and had received a promise that he should behold the pearl of pearls, informed me of the style and manner of the ceremony. On the appointed day, he went with his friends to the convent, and found the old man awaiting his guests at a splendidly-covered breakfast table, in his holiday clothes. Their reception had something of solemnity about it. The old man afterwards went into his cell, and brought out the casket in its rich covering. He first spread a piece of white satin on the table, and then, unlocking the casket, let the precious pearl roll out before the enchanted eyes of the spectators. No one dared to touch it, but all burst into acclamations, and the old man's eyes gleamed like his pearl. It was, after a short time, carried back to its hiding-place. "During his last illness, the old humourist never let his pearl out of his hand, and after his death it was with difficulty taken from his stiffened fingers. It found its way afterwards to the imperial treasury." Giovanni of Austria, wife of Francesco de Medici, took, as her device, the sun shining upon a pearl just emerged from the ocean, with the motto, "Tu splendorum, tu vigorem" ("Thou [givest] brightness, thou strength")-that is, as the pearl derives all its whiteness, brilliancy, and firmness, from the sun, so from heaven alone she looked for strength, virtue, and grace. Margaret of Austria (1530), among other devices, had a pearl shining from its cell, with the motto, "Deus Matura Coronce" ("About to bring glory to the crown").

In one of Thomas Carew's most striking elegiac poems we find the following lines on "Lady S., wife to Sir W.S.":- "She was a cabinet Where all the choicest stones of price were set, Whose native colours and purest lustre lent Her eye, cheek, lip, a dazzling ornament: Whose rare and hidden virtues did express Her inward beauties, and mind's fairer dress: The constant diamond, the wise chrysolite, The devout sapphire, emerald apt to write Records of memory, cheerful agate, grave And serious onyx, topaz that doth save The brain's calm temper, witty amethyst. This precious quartie, or what else the list On Aaron's ephod planted had, she wore; One only pearl was wanting to her store, Which in her Saviour's book, she found exprest, To purchase that, she sold death all the rest." The work on "Filial Piety" so much esteemed in China, is said to have been written by Confucius, and that when he informed the gods of its completion, they showed their approval of it by causing a large rainbow to span the sky, and gradually to descend towards the earth in the shape of a huge pearl. One of the finest passages in that rich cluster of poetic gems, the "Lucasta" of Lovelace, is in the dedication of that work:- "And as at Loretto's shrine Caesar shovels in his mine, Th' Empress spreads her carcanets, The Lords submit their coronets: Knights their chased arms hang by, Maids, diamond-ruby fancies tie: Whilst from the Pilgrim she wears One poor false pearl, but ten true tears."

He thus admonishes Chloe:- "Its use and rate values the gem: Pearls, in their shells, have no esteem."

Dryden remarks:- "Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow: He who would search for pearls must dive below."

In conclusion, I may remind the reader of one of the happiest similes in connection with the subject of this chapter; they are the words of Touchstone, in "As You Like It":- "Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house, as your pearl in a foul oyster."