uses of the term.

The emeralds of Shakespeare's age had been brought from Peru by the Spaniards and had originally come from Colombian mines, such as those at Muzo, which are still worked in our day. The location of some of the early deposits here appears to have been lost sight of since the Spanish Conquest. The emeralds of Greek and Roman times, and of the Middle Ages, came from Mount Zabara (Gebel Zabara), near the Red Sea coast, east of Assuan, where traces of the old workings were found in 1817; these mines were reopened by order of Mehemet Ali, and were worked for a brief period by Mons. F. Cailliaud.

There can be no doubt that Shakespeare must have seen many fine jewels and glittering gems in pageants and processions during his residence in London. On certain special occasions the players were summoned to assist at royal functions, provision being made by the royal treasury for rich materials to be used in making special doublets and mantles for wear on these occasions. It has been suggested that the rich jewelling of many of the court portraits by Holbein and others must have impressed the poet by their wealth of color spread before his eyes; but it is nowise sure that he ever had special opportunity to closely examine such portraits, the smaller details of which may not have interested him greatly.

While it is not unlikely that some of the royal or noble ladies who attended the performances of Shakespeare's plays, while he was connected with the Globe Theatre, wore brilliant jewels, it is improbable that they were bedecked with the most valuable of their gems. The danger of being waylaid and robbed was much greater in those days than it is to-day, and it was probably only within palace or castle doors, or at some great State function, that the costliest jewels were worn. Hence nothing distantly approaching the rather excessive splendor of a New York or London opera night could ever have dazzled the poet-actor's eyes.

In the case of plays acted before the court, however, the royal and noble ladies, undoubtedly, wore many of their finest jewels, as did also the sovereign and courtiers. Still, preoccupied as Shakespeare must have been with the presentation, or representation of the dramatic performance, he probably had little time or inclination to devote especial attention to these jewels.

No museum collections, properly so called, existed in Shakespeare's day, from which he could have acquired any closer knowledge of precious stones or gems, although the conception of a great modern museum of art and science found expression in the "New Atlantis" of his great contemporary, Lord Bacon. The modest beginnings of the Royal Society of London, founded in 1662, cannot be traced back beyond 1645. The French Academy of Sciences, founded in 1666, was preceded by earlier informal meetings of French scientists, to which allusion is even made by Lord Bacon, who died in 1626. The Berlin Academy came much later, in 1700, and the St. Petersburg Academy was first established in 1725 by Catherine I, widow of Peter the Great. One society, the Academia Secretorum Naturæ of Naples, goes back to 1560, and the Accademia dei Lincei of Prince Federico Cesi was founded at Rome in 1603. But of these Shakespeare could have known little or nothing.

That the poet knew, more or less vaguely, of America as a source of precious stones, as were the Indies, comes out in the farcical lines from The Comedy of Errors (Act iii, sc. 2), when one of the Dromios, in locating the various lands of the world on parts of his mistress's body, to the query of Antipholus: "Where America, the Indies?" replies: "Oh, sir, upon her nose, all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires". This is the only mention of America in the plays.

A coincidence having its own significance is that April 23, the day of Shakespeare's death and also his birthday, was the day dedicated to St. George, the patron saint of Merry England. The war-cry of England is given several times by Shakespeare, as, for example:

Cry, God for Harry, England and Saint George! Henry V, Act iii, sc. 1.
First Folio, "Histories", p. 77, col. B, line 51.

God and Saint George! Richmond and Victory! Richard III, Act v, sc. 3.
First Folio, "Histories", p. 203, col. A, line 31.

And in I Henry VI (Act i, sc. 1) we read:

Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make, To keep our great Saint George's feast withal. First Folio, "Histories", p. 97, col. B, line 97.

We find no trace in Shakespeare's works of any belief in the many quaint and curious superstitions current in his day regarding the talismanic or curative virtues of precious stones. This is quite in keeping with the thoroughly sane outlook upon life that constituted the strong foundation of his incomparable mind. Not but that, like every true poet, the sense of mystery, and even the vague impression of the existence of occult powers, of the "Unknowable" in Nature, was strongly developed, but this is always in a broad and earnest spirit, far removed from all petty superstition.

Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI, sacrificed her heart and diamond jewel, as a symbol of her sorrow and her love, when a tempest beat back the ship that was bearing her from the continent to the English coast. Her act, as described in the following verses, seems almost an attempt to propitiate the storm (II Henry VI, Act iii, sc. 2):

When from thy shore the tempest beat us back, I stood upon the hatches in the storm, And when the dusky sky began to rob My earnest-gaping sight of thy land's view, I took a costly jewel from my neck, A heart it was, bound in with diamonds, And threw it towards thy land: the sea received it, And so I wish'd thy body might my heart. First Folio, "Histories", p. 134, col. A, lines 41-48.

The idea of the sacredness of a ring as a love-token is voiced by Portia in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice where she says (Act v, sc. 1):

I gave my love a ring and made him swear Never to part with it; and here he stands; I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth That the world masters. First Folio, "Comedies", p. 183, col. B, lines 12-16.

The nearest approach to a sentimental characterization of precious stones is to be found in "A Lover's Complaint", lines 204-217. Although we have