|
10
|
NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
|
||
|
|
|||
|
shades
of brown and white, is full of a dreamy repose, and of a feeling
strongly recalling Bewick's inimitable little cuts in the same line.
Camillo also mentions that the doorway of the " study " in Cesare
Borgia's palace at Pesaro was adorned with plaques sawn from a column
(antique) of a certain variegated stone, which exhibited so many
different objects, that no one could believe it who had not seen the
same.
The Chinese manufacture monster
Agates exhibiting the loveliest colours very fancifully disposed, by
staining thin slabs of alabaster by some process of their own : and
these fictitious lusus Naturae are often to bo seen in this country
treasured up as wonderful curiosities of mineralogy. But far more
wonderful was the invention of the Florentine anatomist (the secret
died with him) of petrifying human viscera into real Agates. In the
Hospital of S. Spirito may be inspected still by the incredulous a
table-top made up of hearts, lungs, livers, &c, thus agatised into
one large slab—meet board for a banquet of vampyros.
How
firm was the belief of our forefathers in the prophylactic virtues of
the Agate, is remarkably illustrated by a jewel presented by Archbishop
Parker to Queen Elizabeth (now in the possession of Mrs. Barwick
Baker). It is a large oval Agate engraved by a contemporary hand with
an intaglio of Vulcan in his forge, with Venus looking on, and is set
for a pendant. The parchment accompanying the gift contains a long
list of the properties of the stone, winding up with the dedicatory
couplet, which evidently was considered by the learned donor to contain
the happiest of conceits :—
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
|||