94 NATURAL HISTORY OF PRECIOUS STONES, &c.
ships,
with their masts and yards, and similar devices, done with
extraordinary ingenuity; but now that Diamonds are so plentiful, the
workers do not pay that attention to economy, but shape the stone by
cutting."
So
far we have proceeded on sure ground : the origin and the date of the
other patterns is more a matter of conjecture. The regular Rose, a hemisphere covered with small facets, is supposed to
have been invented at Paris about the middle of that century under the
auspices oi Cardinal Mazarin, a great amateur of Diamonds. This opinion
was first started by Caire, but must be received with all the caution
necessitated by the national penchant for claiming every elegant discovery in art for France. It is much more probable that it was an Italian improvement upon a very old Indian fashion. We have seen Borghis, the Venetian, cutting Shah Jehan's monster Diamond into a true Rose before the date of 1665. The Orloff, undoubtedly an Indian-cut stone, is likewise a regular, though exaggerated, Rose ; and,
if there be any truth in the tale as to its original destination, must
have been shaped before the era of the Mogul conquest of Hindustan. The
greater part of Aurungzeb's Diamonds are also described by Tavernier as
rose-cut. Now, these all came to him from his father, as he was no
purchaser himself of such trifles. For the understanding of the
patterns known in this century nothing can be more instructive than
Taverniere plate (II. 374) of the twenty largest diamonds brought from
India by him, and sold to Louis XIV. in 1668 (who ennobled him for his
successful execution of his commission). Some are cut like the ancient
deep Table, and aptly termed in French cloux ; others are Tables wanting the under-plane ; one is cut precisely after the fashion of the Koh-i-noor; another, very deep, has the outline of a brilliant, but is surrounded with little
