a
facultie, or power restrictive, and will in an instant, or moment of
time, staunch blood." " Such a kind of Stone (as it is reported) Galen
wore on his finger."
As
far back as in the year 1320, Nostradamus (quoting Pierre de Boniface,
a noted Alchemist) wrote "the Diamond renders a man invisible ; the
Agate of India, or Crete, eloquent, prudent, amiable, and agreeable ;
the Amethyst resists intoxication; the Carnelian appeases anger ; the
Hyacinth provokes sleep, etc." More recently, in the time of our
lion-hearted Queen Elizabeth, it was said by Bishop Vaughan, in
reference to her assumed power of healing scrofulous patients by the
Royal touch, that she did it by virtue of some precious stone then in
the possession of the English Crown, which Stone was endowed with this
marvellous gift. " But," as Harrington drily observes, " had Queen
Elizabeth been told that the Bishop ascribed more virtue to her Jewels
(though she loved them dearly) than to her person, she would never have
made him Bishop of Chester ! "
According to Dr. Rowland's Compleat Chymical Dispensatory, as
translated from the Latin of Dr. John Schroder (1669), the " Precious
Stones, or Gemms, as classified in those days, were the Amethist,
Carneolus, Sarda or Sardonyx, Chrysolite, Granate, Hyacinth, Rubin
Oriental, Saphyre, Sniaragde, Pearl, and Bezar Stone, East and West.
"
Of which Gemms five were chiefly called Precious : the Granate,
Hyacinth, Saphyre, Sardonix, Sniaragde." " The Less Precious Stones
were the Eaglestone, Alabaster, Amiantus, or Alum Plumous, Armenian
Stone, Calaminaris, Crystal, Blood-stone, Jew-stone, Lyncurius, Lapis
Lyncis, Load-stone, Marble, Nephritick-
