THE
HISTORY AND POETRY
OF
FINGER-RINGS

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by
CHARLES EDWARDS,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District
of New-York.

The history of finger-rings is more abundant thanthe poetry, which is chiefly connected with the ceremoniesand observances in which they figure. Whatthis history is Mr. Edwards has indicated in the gossipypages which follow, and which contain a worldof curious information. Interesting in themselves,they are valuable for their references, which enablethe reader to verify the statements of Mr. Edwards,and to pursue his line of study farther than he haschosen to do. He will find many particulars in regardto rings of all sorts, among the different people by whomthey have been worn, in ancient and modern times,and of the important part they have played in the historyof the world. He will also find many allusionsto them in the poets, but not so many poems of whichthey were the inspiration as he might have expected,for the simple reason that such poems do not exist.

“The small orbit of the wedding-ring,”

as a nameless old poet satirically calls it, has seldomproved large enough for genius to revolve in. Mr. Edwardsquotes but one marriage poem,

“Thee, Mary, with this ring I wed,”

which he fails to trace to its author, the Rev. SamuelBishop, who has written nothing else that is worthremembering. I am happy to restore it to him, and[iv]to quote a second poem, which is rather more elegantand less familiar, and which is put down to the creditof William Pattison, of whom I know nothing. I takeit from Dr. Palmer’s “Poetry of Courtship and Compliment”(1868), an admirable collection of amorousverse.

TO HER RING.