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132 PRECIOUS STONES.
several
times in a glass things past, and to come." The Beryl as a Jewel was
mounted by the Romans for " cylindri," or ear-drops ; cut into
six-sided prisms. The Greeks employed Emeralds for " intaglio " work
more than two thousand years ago. The grandest intaglio extant of the
Roman period is carved upon an Aqua-marine of extraordinary magnitude,
more than two inches square ;—the Bust of Julia Titi—signed by the
artist, '• Euodus Epoiei;"—which Stone for nearly a thousand years had
formed the knosp of a Golden Reliquary, being set with its convex-back
uppermost, and regarded as an invaluable Emerald, in the Abbey of Saint
Denys.
There
are extant, in the British Museum, two Cameo-Portraits (Sixteenth
Century) of Queen Elizabeth; —of French workmanship,—one exceedingly
graceful, cut in a Turquoise ; and another, very handsome, cut ill
Nicolo. But of the Precious Stones used for such artistic ornamental
purposes the Emerald seems to have been the most esteemed. The Greeks
were the Cameo cutters " par excellence." Their taste for engraved Gems
arose perhaps from Pompey, in the first century, B.C. For the Emerald
an immense veneration is entertained by the Easterns to this day ; they
believing that it imparts courage to the wearer, and averts infectious
disease. Scriptural mention is made of the Emerald thus. (Ezekiel,
chapter xxvii.): " Syria was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of
wares of thy making : they occupied thy fairs with emeralds, purple,,
and broidered work, fine linen, agate, and coral."
The
origin of the word " Emerald " is said to be a Sanskrit term signifying
" green." By the ancients (who dedicated this stone to Mercury) it was
deemed
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