Οι

THIS is an ancient form of the "tool of matrimony," from one found at Horsley. down, and exhibited in 1800 to the Society of Antiquaries. Mr. Robert Smith, the possessor of this curious ring, transmitted with it some remarks and descriptions of a nature very interesting to the lovers of archæology, and the "happy estate ;" and from thence is derived the following account of this particular ring, with illustrations of the form and use of the gimmalring generally.

This ring is constructed, as the name imports, of twin or double hoops, which play one within another, like the links of a chain. Each hoop has one of its sides flat, the other convex; each is twisted once round, and each surmounted by a hand, issuing from an embossed fancy-work wrist or sleeve; the hand rising somewhat above the circle, and extending in the same direction. The course of the twist, in each hoop, is made to correspond with that of its counterpart, so that on bringing toge ther the flat surfaces of the hoops, the latter immediately unite in one ring. On the lower hand, or that of which the palm is uppermost, is represented a heart; and, as the hoops close, the hands slide into contact, forming, with their ornamented wrists, a head to the whole. The device thus presents a triple emblem of love, fidelity, and union. Upon the flat side of the hoops are engraven *"Usé de Vertu," in Roman capitals; and, on the inside of the lower wrist, the figures "990." The whole is of fine gold, and weighs two pennyweights four grains.

It is of foreign workmanship, probably French, and appears to be of no great antiquity; perhaps about the reign of our queen Elizabeth: for though the time of the introduction into Europe of the Arabic numerals be referred by some to an æra VOL. II.-28.

nearly corresponding with the figures on the ring, the better opinion seems to be, that the Arabian method of notation was unknown to the Europeans until about the middle of the 13th century. It is conjecture, therefore, that the figures were meant to express, not a date, but the artist's number; such as we see still engraven on watches. The workmanship is not incurious; and the ring furnishes a genuine specimen of the gimmal, (a term now almost forgotten.)

Rings, it is well known, are of great antiquity; and, in the early ages of the world, denoted authority and government. These were communicated, symbolically, by the delivery of a ring to the person on whom they were meant to be conferred. Thus Pharaoh, when he committed the govern ment of Egypt to Joseph, took the ring from his finger and gave it to Joseph, as a token of the authority with which he invested him. So also did Ahasuerus to his favourite Haman, and to Mordecai, who succeeded him in his dignity.

In conformity to this ancient usage, recorded in the Bible, the Christian church afterwards adopted the ceremony of the ring in marriage, as a symbol of the authority which the husband gave the wife over his household, and over the "earthly goods" with which he endowed her.

But the gimmal ring is comparatively of modern date. It should seem, that we are indebted for the design to the ingenious fancies of our Gallic neighbours, whose skill in diversifying the symbols of the tender passion has continued unrivalled, and in the language of whose country the mottoes employed on almost all the amorous trifles are still to be found. It must be allowed, that the double hoop, each apparently free yet inseparable, both formed for uniting, and complete only in their union, affords a

state.

Among the numerous love-tokens" which lovers have presented to their mistresses, in all ages, the ring bears a conspicuous part; nor is any more likely than the gimmal to "steal the impression of a mistress's fantasy," as none so clearly expresses its errand. In the "MidsummerNight's Dream of Shakspeare, where Egeus accuses Lysander, before the duke, of having inveigled his daughter's affections, or, as the old man expresses it, "witch'd the bosom " of his child, he exclaims,

"Thou hast given her rhimes,
And interchang'd love-tokens with my child:
Thou hast, by moon-light, at her window sung,
With feigning voice, verses of feigning love;
And stol'n the impression of her fantasie,
With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits."

inclines to think the name gradually corrupted from geometry or geometrical, because, says he, "any thing done by occult means is vulgarly said to be done by geometry."

The word is not in Chaucer, nor in Spenser; yet both Blount in his "Glossography," and Philips in his "World of Words," have geminals; which they interpret twins.

Shakspeare has gimmal in two or three places; though none of the commentators seem thoroughly to understand the term.

Gimmal occurs in "King Henry the Fifth," Act IV. Scene II., where the French lords are proudly scoffing at the condition of the English army. Grandpree says,

"The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks,

With torch-staves in their hands; and their poor jades Lob down their heads, dropping the hide and hips: The gum down-roping from their pale dead eyes;

Lies foul with chaw'd grass, still and motionless."

ance.

The lover putting his finger through one of the hoops, and his mistress hers through the other, were thus, symbolically, yoked together; a yoke which neither could be said wholly to wear, one half being allotted to the other. In this use of the gimmal may be seen typified, "a community of interests, mutual forbearance, and a participation of authority."

The French term for it is foi, or alliance; which latter word, in the "Dictionnaire de Trévoux," is defined, "bague ou jonc que l'accordé donne à son accordée, où il y a un fil d'or, et un fil d'argent." This definition not only shows the occasion of its use, but supposes the two hoops to be composed, one of gold, the other of silver; a distinction evidently meant to characterise the bridegroom and bride. Thus Columella calls those vines which produce two different sorts of grapes, "gemellæ vites."

Our English glossaries afford but little information on the subject. Minshew refers the reader from gimmal to gemow; the former he derives from "gemellus," the latter from the French "jumeau:" and he explains the gemow ring to signify "double or twinnes, because they be rings with two or more links." Neither of the words is in Junius. Skinner and Ainsworth deduce gimmal from the same Latin origin, and suppose it to be used only of something consisting of correspondent parts, or double. Dr. Johnson gives it a more extensive signification; he explains gimmal to mean, 66 some little quaint devices, or pieces of

We may understand the gimmal bit, therefore, to mean either a double bit, in the ordinary sense of the word (duplex,) or, which is more appropriate, a bit composed of links, playing one within another, (gemellus.)

In the "First Part of King Henry the Sixth," after the French had been beaten back with great loss, Charles and his lords are concerting together the farther measures to be pursued, and the king says,

"Let's leave this town, for they are hare-brain'd slaves, And hunger will enforce them to be more eager :

Of old I know them; rather with their teeth
The walls they'll tear down, than forsake the siege."
To which Reignier subjoins,

Their arms are set, like clocks, still to strike on ;

"I think, by some odd gimmals or device,

By my consent we'll e'en let them alone.”

Else they could ne'er hold out so, as they do,

Some of the commentators have the fol

lowing note upon this passage: "A gimmat is a piece of jointed work, where one piece moves within another; whence it is taken at large for an engine. It is now vulgarly called 'gimcrack."

Mr. Archdeacon Nares instances a stage direction in " Lingua," an old play"Enter Anamnestes (a page to Memory) in a grave sattin sute, purple buskins, &c. a gimmal ring with one link hanging." He adds, that gimmal rings, though originally double, were by a further refinement made

triple, or even more complicated; yet the name remained unchanged. Herrick, in his "Hesperides,” has the following verses. The Jimmal Ring, or True-love-knot.

Thou sent'st to me a true-love-knot; but I
Return'd a ring of jimmals, to imply

Thy love had one knot, mine a triple-tye.

According to Randle Holme, who, under the term "annulet," figures the gimmal = ring,* Morgan, in his " Sphere of Gentry," speaks of "three triple gimbal rings borne by the name of Hawberke:" which Mr. Nares says was 66 evidently because I the hawberk was formed of rings linked into each other."

A further illustration of the gimmal ring may be gathered from the following passage. "It is related in Davis's Rites of the Cathedral of Durham, (8vo. 1672, p. 51,) that over our lady of Bolton's altar there was a marvellous, lively, and beautiful image of the picture of our lady, called the lady of Bolton, which picture was I made to open with gimmes (or linked fastenings) from the breast downward; and within the said image was wrought and pictured the image of our Saviour marvellously finely gilt."+

I find that the brass rings within which the seaman's compass swings, are by the seamen called gimbals. This is the only instance I can discover of the term being = still used.

*

The gimmal ring appears in common language to have been called a joint-ring. There is a passage relating to it in Dryden's "Don Sebastian."

"A curious artist wrought 'em, With joynts so close as not to be perceiv'd; Yet are they both each other's counterpart. (Her part had Juan inscrib'd, and his had Zayda. You know those names were theirs :) and, in the midst, A heart divided in two halves was plac'd. Now if the rivets of those rings, inclos'd, Fit not each other, I have forg'd this lye: But if they join, you must for ever part."

According to other passages in this play one of these rings was worn by Sebastian's father: the other by Almeyda's mother, as pledges of love. Sebastian pulls off his, which had been put on his finger by his dying father: Almeyda does the same with

Academy of Armory, b, iii. c. 2. p. 20. + Hone on Ancient Mysteries, p. 222.

hers, which had been given her by her mother at parting and Alvarez unscrews both the rings, and fits one half to the other.

There is a beautiful allusion to the emblematical properties of the wedding ring in the following poem:

TO SD, WITH A RING.
Emblem of happiness, not bought, nor sold,
Accept this modest ring of virgin gold.
Love in the small, but perfect, circle, trace,
And duty, in its soft, though strict embrace.
Plain, precious, pure, as best becomes the wife;
Yet firm to bear the frequent rubs of life.
Connubial love disdains a fragile toy,
Which rust can tarnish, or a touch destroy;
Nor much admires what courts the gen'ral gaze,
The dazzling diamond's meretricious blaze,
That hides, with glare, the anguish of a heart
By nature hard, tho' polish'd bright by art.
More to thy taste the ornament that shows
Domestic bliss, and, without glaring, glows.
Whose gentle pressure serves to keep the mind
To all correct, to one discreetly kind.
Of simple elegance th' unconscious charm,
The holy amulet to keep from harm;

To guard at once and consecrate the shrine,
Take this dear pledge-It makes and keeps thee
mine.*

Garrick Plays.

No. XXIV.

[From "Chabot, Admiral of France," a Tragedy, by G. Chapman and J. Shirley, 1639.]

No Advice to Self Advice.

another's knowledge,

Applied to my instruction, cannot equal

My own soul's knowledge how to inform acts.
The sun's rich radiance shot thro' waves most fair,

Is but a shadow to his beams i' th' air;
His beams that in the air we so admire,
Is but a darkness to his flame in fire;
In fire his fervour but in vapour flies,
To what his own pure bosom rarifies :
And the Almighty Wisdom having given
Each man within himself an apter light
To guide his acts than any light without him,
(Creating nothing, not in all things equal),
It seems a fault in any that depend
On others' knowledge, and exile their own.
Virtue under Calumny,

as in cloudy days we see the Sun Glide over turrets, temples, richest fields,

* Collection of Poems, Dublin, 1801, 8vo.

(All those left dark and slighted in his way);
And on the wretched plight of some poor shed
Pours all the glories of his golden head:
So heavenly Virtue on this envied Lord
Points all his graces.

And bestial, seize the body of a man, Then there is no proportion in his parts,

had exprest fears on his account.

Away, Statilius; how long shall thy love
Exceed thy knowledge of me, and the Gods,

Whose rights thou wrong'st for my right? have not I
Their powers to guard me in a cause of theirs,
Their justice and integrity to guard me

In what I stand for? he that fears the Gods,
For guard of any goodness, all things fears;

Earth, seas, and air; heav'n; darkness; broad daylight;

Rumour, and silence, and his very shade:
And what an aspen soul has such a creature!
How dangerous to his soul is such a fear!-
In whose cold fits, is all Heavn's justice shaken
To his faint thoughts; and all the goodness there,
Due to all good men by the Gods' own vows;
Nay, by the firmness of their endless being;
All which shall fail as soon as any one
Good to a good man in them: for his goodness
Proceeds from them, and is a beam of theirs.
O never more, Statilius, may this fear
Faint thy bold bosom, for thyself or friend,
More than the Gods are fearful to defend.

His thoughts of Death.

Poor Slaves, how terrible this Death is to them!-
If men would sleep, they would be wrath with all
That interrupt them; physic take, to take
The golden rest it brings; both pay and pray
For good and soundest naps: all friends consenting
In those invocations; praying all

"Good rest the Gods vouchsafe you." But when Death,

Sleep's natural brother, comes; that's nothing worse,
But better (being more rich-and keeps the store-
Sleep ever fickle, wayward still, and poor);
O how men grudge, and shake, and fear, and fly
His stern approaches! all their comforts, taken
In faith, and knowledge of the bliss and beauties
That watch their wakings in an endless life,
Drown'd in the pains and horrors of their sense
Sustain'd but for an hour.

His Discourse with Athenodorus on an After Life.

Cato. As Nature works in all things to an end,
So, in the appropriate honour of that end,
All things precedent have their natural frame;
And therefore is there a proportion

Betwixt the ends of those things and their primes:
Tor else there could not be in their creation

Retain divine proportion. For, as sleep
No disproportion holds with human souls,
But aptly quickens the proportion

Twixt them and bodies, making bodies fitter
To give up forms to souls, which is their end:
So death, twin-born of sleep, resolving all
Man's body's heavy parts, in lighter nature
Makes a re-union with the sprightly soul;
When in a second life their Beings given

Hold their proportions firm in highest heaven. Athenodorus. Hold you, our bodies shall revive; resuming

Our souls again to heaven?

Cato. Past doubt; though others

Think heav'n a world too high for our low reaches:
Not knowing the sacred sense of Him that sings.
"Jove can let down a golden chain from heaven,
Which, tied to earth, shall fetch up earth and seas
And what's that golden chain but our pure souls
That, govern'd with his grace and drawn by him,
Can hoist the earthy body up to him?—
The sea, the air, and all the elements,
Comprest in it; not while 'tis thus concrete,
But 'fined by death, and then giv'n heav'nly heat.
We shall, past death,

Retain those forms of knowledge, learn'd in life:
Since if what here we learn we there shall lose,
Our immortality were not life, but time:
And that our souls in reason are immortal,
Their natural and proper objects prove;
Which Immortality and Knowledge are:
For to that object ever is referr'd
The nature of the soul, in which the acts
Of her high faculties are still employ'd;
And that true object must her powers obtain,
To which they are in nature's aim directed;
Since 'twere absurd to have her set an object
Which possibly she never can aspire.

His last words.

now I am safe;

Come, Cæsar, quickly now, or lose your vassal.
Now wing thee, dear Soul, and receive her heaven.
The earth, the air, and seas I know, and all
The joys and horrors of their peace and wars;
And now will see the Gods' state and the stars.

Greatness in Adversity.

Vulcan from heav'n fell, yet on 's feet did light, And stood no less a God than at his height,

At the Meeting.

Here's nought but whispering with us: like a calm
Before a tempest, when the silent air
Lays her soft ear close to the earth, to hearken
For that, she fears is coming to afflict her.

Invocation for a Spirit of Intelligence.
D'Ambois. I long to know

How my dear Mistress fares, and be inform'd
What hand she now holds on the troubled blood
Of her incensed Lord. Methought the Spirit
When he had utter'd his perplext presage,
Threw his chang'd countenance headlong into clouds;
His forehead bent, as he would hide his face:
He knock'd his chin against his darken'd breast,
And struck a churlish silence thro' his powers.-
Terror of Darkness: O thou King of Flames,
That with thy music-footed horse dost strike}
The clear light out, of chrystal, on dark earth;
And hurl'st instructive fire about the world:
Wake, wake the drowsy and enchanted night,
That sleeps with dead eyes in this heavy riddle. †
Or thou, Great Prince of Shades, where never sun
Sticks his far-darted beams; whose eyes are made
To see in darkness, and see ever best
Where sense is blindest: open now the heart

Of thy abashed oracle, that, for fear
Of some ill it includes, would fain lie hid;
And rise Thou with it in thy greater light.‡

The Friar dissuades the Husband of Tamyra from revenge.

Your wife's offence serves not, were it the worst
You can imagine, without greater proofs,
To sever your eternal bonds and hearts;
Much less to touch her with a bloody hand:

* D'Ambois : with whom she has an appointment. + He wants to know the fate of Tamyra, whose intrigue with him has been discovered by her Husband.

This calling upon Light and Darkness for information, but, above all, the description of the Spirit"Threw his chang'd countenance headlong into clouds" -is tremendous, to the curdling of the blood.-I_know nothing in Poetry like it.

To expiate any frailty in your

wife

With churlish strokes or beastly odds of strength.---
The stony birth of clouds will touch no laurel,
Nor any sleeper. Your wife is your laurel,
And sweetest sleeper; do not touch her then :
Be not more rude than the wild seed of vapour
To her that is more gentle than it rude.

MAID MARIAN.

To the Editor.

. C. L.

Sir,-A correspondent in your last Numbert rather hastily asserts, that there is no other authority than Davenport's Tragedy for the poisoning of Matilda by King John. It oddly enough happens, that in the same Number appears an Extract from a Play of Heywood's, of an older date, in two parts; in which Play, the fact of such poisoning, as well as her identity with Maid Marian, are equally established. Michael Drayton also hath a Legend, confirmatory (as far as poetical authority can go) of the violent manner of her death. But neither he, nor Davenport, confound her with Robin's Mistress. Besides the named authorities, old Fuller (I think) somewhere relates, as matter of Chronicle History, that old Fitzwalter (he is called Fitzwater both in Heywood and in Davenport) being banished after his daughter's murder,- -some years subsequently-King John at a Turnament in France being delighted with the valiant bearing of a combatant in the lists, and enquiring his name, was told that it was his old faithful servant, the banished Fitzwalter, who desired nothing more heartily than to be reconciled to his Liege, and an affecting reconciliation followed. In the common collection, called Robin Hood's Garland (I have not seen Ritson's), no mention is made, if I remember, of the nobility of Marian. she not the daughter of plain Squire Gamwell, of old Gamwell Hall?-Sorry that I cannot gratify the curiosity of your" disembodied spirit," (who, as such, is methinks sufficiently" veiled" from our notice) with more authentic testimonies, I rest,

Your humble Abstracter,

Is