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THE EMERALD. 1.33
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good
for the sight : and was therefore worn in a seal ring. It was further
taken for various diseases, when ground down into a powder,—the dose of
which was six grains.
The
Roman Emperor Claudius—(done to death A.r>. 64—at first by drugged
mushrooms, and then by a poisoned feather),—being fully persuaded as to
the virtues exercised on him physically by the practice, was
accustomed to " clothe himself in Emeralds, and Sardonyx.''
A story is given to the following effect, in the Oriental Memoirs of
Forbes : On a certain moonlight night an observer was watching a swarm
of fire-flies within an Indian grove. After hovering for a while,
illuminated by the moonbeams, one special fly, more brilliant than the
rest, alighted on the grass, and remained there. The observe*, thinking
its permanency in that spot remarkable, went up to it so as to learn
the probable cause, and he found there, not a fire-fly, but a shining
Emerald ; of which he possessed himself, and afterwards wore it in a
ring.
The famous " San Graal," of King Arthur's time,
{and respecting which Tennyson has discoursed in
noble, grand verse, Idylls of the King, (" Flos Regum
Arthurus," 1862), was represented as a miraculous
Chalice, made of a single precious Emerald, which was
endowed from heaven with the power of preserving
chastity, prolonging life, and performing other pious
wonders. This Chalice was believed to have been
brought directly from the hands of God by angels ;
and to have been the actual Cup from which Christ
■drank at the Last Supper :—
" The Cup, the Cup itself, from which our Lord Drank at the last sad supper with His own.
This.........the good Saint
Arimathean Joseph, journeying, brought
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