Here also was an occurrence against which one would have previously said the chances were as one to infinity. It was a circumstance which we see to be most unlikely, yet must acknowledge to be possible, and, when well authenticated, to be true.
In the year 1765, a codfish was sold, and in its stomach was a gold ring. It had remained there so long that the inscription was worn off, although the scrolls in which it had been written remained entire.[103] Codfish, like sharks, swallow any thing, whether fresh or salted, bits of wood, red cloth, and even a whole book has been found in one. We are not aware, however, that a cod has turned “State’s evidence,” as it is said a shark did. A shark had swallowed a log-book, thrown overboard to him by a pirate; and afterwards repenting, took the first hook that offered, and thus turned State’s evidence--so as to hang the villain by the revelation of the document.[104]
§ 23. Poetical riddles are but a low species of verse, and yet the best of poets have made them. We find a neat one on a ring, which, in riddle-phrase, has been said to “unite two people together and touch only one.” It runs thus:
“Though small of body, it contains The extremes of pleasure and of pains; Has no beginning, nor no end; More hollow than the falsest friend. If it entraps some headless zany, Or, in its magic circle, any Have entered, from its sorcery No power on earth can set them free. At least, all human force is vain, Or less than many hundred men. Though endless, yet not short, nor long; And what though it’s so wondrous strong, The veriest child, that’s pleased to try, Might carry fifty such as I.”
George Herbert--“Holy Mr. Herbert,” as Isaac Walton calls him--has an enigma in which a ring appears. We must confess our inability to solve it, and leave readers to do so. It is entitled--
“I gave to Hope a watch of mine; but he An anchor gave to me. Then an old prayer-book I did present, And he an optic sent. With that, I gave a phial full of tears; But he a few green ears. Ah, loiterer! I’ll no more, no more I’ll bring: I did expect a ring.”
§ 24. Rings are sometimes misapplied. In the church of Loretto is the house in which some Catholics say the Virgin mother of Jesus was born, it having occupied a lane in Nazareth where Christ resided, and which, after a long flight of years, was transported by angels to Loretto. It must, as it stood in Nazareth, have resembled a mud cabin. Within it is a miraculous statue of the Virgin and child, in cedar wood. “The Bambino,” says an authoress, “holds up his hand, as if to sport a superb diamond ring on his finger, presented to him by Cardinal Antonelli; it is a single diamond, and weighs thirty grains.”[105]