them are thine."

In "Cymbeline" (i. 1) Imogen gives Posthumus a ring when they part, and
he presents her with a bracelet in exchange:

"Look here, love;
This diamond was my mother's; take it, heart;
But keep it till you woo another wife,
When Imogen is dead.

_Posthumus._ How! how! another?--
You gentle gods, give me but this I have,
And sear up my embracements from a next
With bonds of death! Remain, remain thou here,
(_Putting on the ring_)
While sense can keep it on."

Yet he afterwards gives it up to Iachimo (ii. 4)--upon a false
representation--to test his wife's honor:

"Here, take this too;
It is a basilisk unto mine eye,
Kills me to look on't."

The exchange of rings, a solemn mode of private contract between lovers,
we have already referred to in the chapter on Marriage, a practice
alluded to in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" (ii. 2), where Julia gives
Proteus a ring, saying:

"Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake;"

and he replies:

"Why, then we'll make exchange: here, take you this."

_Death's-head rings._ Rings engraved with skulls and skeletons were not
necessarily mourning rings, but were also worn by persons who affected
gravity; and, curious to say, by the procuresses of Elizabeth's time.
Biron, in "Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 2), refers to "a death's face in a
ring;" and we may quote Falstaff's words in "2 Henry IV." (ii. 4):
"Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death's head; do not bid me
remember mine end." We may compare the following from "The Chances" (i.
5), by Beaumont and Fletcher:

"As they keep deaths' heads in rings,
To cry 'memento' to me."

According to Mr. Fairholt, "the skull and skeleton decorations for rings
first came into favor and fashion at the obsequious court of France,
when Diana of Poictiers became the mistress of Henry II. At that time
she was a widow, and in mourning, so black and white became fashionable
colors; jewels were formed like funeral memorials; golden ornaments,
shaped like coffins, holding enamelled skeletons, hung from the neck;
watches, made to fit in little silver skulls, were attached to the
waists of the denizens of a court that alternately indulged in profanity
or piety, but who mourned for show."[755]

[755] See Jones's "Finger-Ring Lore," 1877, p. 372.

_Posy-rings_ were formerly much used, it havin