Baron Astor
of Hever (William Waldorf Astor).

There is a possibility that the Florentine diamond of 133-22/32 carats
(137.27 metric carats) was already owned by the grand-ducal house of
Tuscany before Shakespeare's death, but the earliest notice of it
appears to be that given by Fermental, a French traveller, who saw it
in Florence in 1630. The other great diamonds of former days are of
more recent date. The Regent of 136-7/8 carats (140.64 metric carats),
found in India about 1700, was acquired by the Duke of Orleans in
1717; the Orloff (194-3/4 old carats = 199.73 metric carats) was
bought by Prince Orloff for Catherine II, in 1775, for 1,400,000 Dutch
florins, or about $560,000. The famous Koh-i-nur, weighing 186-1/16
carats (191.1 metric carats) in its old cutting, came to Europe, as a
gift to Queen Victoria from the East India Company, only in 1850;
although, if it be the same as the great diamond taken by Humayun, son
of Baber, at the battle of Paniput, April 21, 1526, its history dates
back at least to 1304, when Sultan Ala-ed-Din took it from the Sultan
of Malva, whose family had already owned it for generations.

As fresh-colored lips are likened to rubies, so it is said of a bright
eye, that it "would emulate the diamond" (_Merry Wives of Windsor_,
Act iii, sc. 3).

Bright eyes are also compared to rock-crystal, and the setting of
other gems within a bordering of crystals is evidently alluded to in
the following lines from _Love's Labour's Lost_ (Act ii, sc. 1):

Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eyes
As jewels in crystal.
First Folio, "Comedies", p. 128, col. A, line 7.

We have in _Richard II_ (Act i, sc. 2) the terms "fair and crystal"
applied to a clear sky, and in _Romeo and Juliet_ (Act i, sc. 2) the
word is used to denote superlative excellence, where a lady's love is
to be weighed against her rival on "crystal scales".

Rock-crystal was much more highly valued in the England of Elizabeth
and of James I than it is to-day, and was freely used as an adjunct to
more precious material, and still was employed to some extent in the
adornment of book-covers, although this usage, so common in mediaeval
times, was fast passing away.

In Shakespeare's poems, "Venus and Adonis" (1593) and "Lucrece"
(1594), as well as in his "Sonnets" (1609), in the "Lover's Complaint"
and in the almost certainly spurious "Passionate Pilgrim", containing
two sonnets and three poems from