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THE SAPPHIRE.
107
and consumed, and nature failing to nourish her, she died, commanding the same piece of gold to be carefully sent to her Majesty ; alleging further, that as long as she might wear it on her body she could not die. The Queen, in full confidence, took the said gold, and hung it about her neck." Finally, on January 14th, 1602, the Queen, having sickened two days before of a cold, and being forewarned of Dee, who retained his mysterious influence over her mind to the last, to " beware of Whitehall," removed to Richmond, " which," she said, " was the warm winter-box to shelter her old age."
In a letter from Lord Chancellor Hutton (September 11th, 1586), concerning an epidemic then prevailing in England, was enclosed a ring, for Queen Elizabeth, to wear between her breasts, which would have the virtue to " expell infectious airs."
Whilst discoursing about these historical rings we may hark back to a date long prior to the times of English kings, and queens, so as to learn how originated the noted " Ring of Gyges," which has remained proverbial since early classical days, 718 B.C. It would seem, according to Plato, that Gyges, a Lydian, thinking to avenge the Queen, who had been grossly insulted by King Candaulus, her husband, descended into a deep chasm of the earth, where he found a brazen horse, the sides of which he opened ; and within the horse's body he discovered the carcase of a gigantic man, from whose finger he took the brass ring, which has become tradi­tionally famous. This ring, when put on his own finger, but with its stone turned inwards, rendered
ges invisible, (and has become a byword for any such faculty ever since). By means of the said strange endowment Gyges introduced himself, as the myth