queen, was performed by Sir Thomas Gresham, an English
merchant, in the reign of Elizabeth. When the Spanish
ambassador, as the story goes, was extolling the riches of his
sovereign, in the presence of the queen, Sir Thomas replied
that her majesty had subjects who at one meal expended a sum
equal to the daily revenues of the King of Spain and all his
grandees put together. Soon after this interview, the
ambassador was invited to dine with the English knight, when
the latter drew from his pocket a pearl for which he had
refused seventy-five thousand dollars, then ground it to powder and drank it in a glass of wine to the health of the queen.
This incident does not, however, settle the question whether
the pearl can be dissolved by a harmless acid, since the
Englishman's gem was pulverized, and drunk as a powder.
There is no doubt of the great antiquity of the pearl used
as a gem, nor of the high estimation in which it was held, as
it is mentioned by early writers, both sacred and profane.
Homer, who is unaccountably reticent about precious stones, is
thought to refer to pearls in the term "triple-eyed," applied to
Juno's famous necklace, — an interpretation supported by the
fact that a triplet of pear-shaped pearls forms a distinctive
feature in the antique heads of this goddess. The Persians
cherished the greatest admiration for this ornament, as is
shown by the custom of the Sassanian kings, who are always
represented with an enormous pearl in the right ear. The
Greeks imitated the Persians in the use of this gem for personal
decoration, and the Romans surpassed both nations in their
extravagance, often paying exorbitant prices for it, regarding
the possession of a single costly pearl of more importance
than the conquest of a province. In one of his triumphal
processions into Rome, Pompey displayed thirty-three crowns,
many of them taken from the treasury of Mithridates, a por-
