the
touch, by reason of its great density. Epiphanius similarly records its
power of extinguishing fire, because of a natural antagonism to heat.
Even
the pious, sober-minded, grave St. Jerome wrote that the Sapphire
"conciliates to its wearer the condescension of princes, quells his
enemies, disperses sorcery, sets free the captive, and actually
assuages the wrath of God himself."
September
asserts its right to the Sapphire ; which was one of the Stones in the
Breast-Plate of Aaron, the High Priest of God. It has, therefore, been
ever associated with sacred things ; perhaps, also, because its pure
azure symbolizes heaven's blue serenity.
Of Sapphires (the jewel for September, as ruled by' Taurus), as to their colour—the true cornflower blue, bleu de roi, is the most valuable shade, and quite uncommon. They should be worn on Wednesday, the day for all blue stones.
It was Prometheus (the first to wear a ring, set with such a stone from the Caucasus) who stole fire from heaven for man.
A
Sapphire ring was intimately concerned, according to history, with the
death of our lion-hearted Queen Elizabeth. The circumstances have been
related by Miss Agnes Strickland (Lives of the Queens of England, 1851),
as follows : " The Queen, on March 24th, 1602, when mortally ill,
exhausted by her devotions, had, after the Archbishop left her, sunk
into a deep sleep, (from which she never woke), and, at about three in
the morning it was discovered she had ceased to breathe. Lady Scrope
gave the first intelligence of this fact by silently dropping a
Sapphire ring to her brother, who was lurking beneath the window of the
chamber of
