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Carbunculus, Ruby

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148
CARBUNCULUS.
True Eubies, and of good colour, uncut but with their natural surface rudely polished, occur both inserted into pieces of antique jewelry, and set in rings dating from the earliest times. In the Herz Collection was a necklace formed out of native Rubies and Emeralds of fine colour and as large as horse-beans, drilled through and elegantly linked together with strong twisted gold-wire, in a similar manner (though much more substantially) to the Sapphire necklace from Rutupise noticed under Hyacinth. Such a mode of employing these very hard gems was long main­tained. De Laet, writing in 1G47, states that Rubies were then very generally set unpolished both in rings and in ladies' orna­ments ; for, " unlike the Diamond that hath no beauty save when shaped and polished, the Ruby charms without any aid from art."
The Ruby, though of the same chemical composition as the Sapphire, slightly yields to it in hardness; the Spinel, again, into which a small proportion of magnesia enters, is still softer : nevertheless, antique works in either are even more uncommon than on the Sapphire itself. As now, so in ancient times, the Ruby was far the rarer of the two, and therefore to violate its beauty by an engraving was regarded as the extreme of imperial extravagance. In fact, the experienced Lessing (A. Br. lxxix.), and later the Count de Clarac (Cat. des Artistes Gr. et Rom.), altogether deny the existence of any really antique intagli in these harder gems; but the instances to be adduced under " Emerald " and " Hyacinthus " sufficiently prove that this rule, though generally true, yet admits of some, though rare, excep­tions. Here is the place to remark that engravings on any of the " Precious Stones " are always to be examined with the greatest suspicion ; modern artists, working for wealthy patrons, having found it their interest to employ such materials as could recom­mend themselves to their purse-proud employers by the mere value of the substances (a thing which, at least, they could appreciate), as well as by the art thereupon displayed, which, in
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