Have you a wedding ring?
To which the latter replies:
Ay, and a posie:
Annulus hic nobis, quod sic uterque, dabit.
This the parson quickly renders as follows:
This ring will give you what you both desire;
I’ll make the whole house shout it, and the parish.
On other pages a number of characteristic and striking ring-inscriptions are given, but in view of the wide range of these “posies” (poesies) and mottoes, a fairly full list of them, compiled from various sources, may be of interest here.[395] The French mottoes are nearly all in Old French, and the English spellings of those of the seventeenth century are delightfully irregular.
PORTRAIT OF YOUNG WOMAN. DUTCH SCHOOL