shape
the globose whorls of the brilliant shell of the Indian nautilus. These
hemispheres were used singly with a backing, or sometimes neatly
cemented together gave a complete round Pearl, of a circumference far
exceeding any of the genuine treasures of the shell. They possess the
true lustre and tone of the original, but are fragile in the extreme.
Cleopatra's
Pearl seems, like the equally celebrated Charles the Bold's Diamond, to
have had many prétendants to the honour of representing it in after
ages. Treb. Pollio, to exemplify the wealth of Calpumia, noblest of
patrician dames, and wife of Titus, one of the " Thirty Tyrants,"
mentions her possession of the two Pearls of Cleopatra, as well
as of a silver dish, a hundred pounds in weight, chased with all the
history of her own family, the Pisos.
