I noticed the same peculiarity in Ghirlandais's fresco of the "Espousals" in the church of the Santa Croce at Florence. This I remarked to the custode, an intelligent old man, who informed
me that the connexion said to exist between the heart and the third finger refers to that finger of the right hand, and not, as we suppose, to the third finger of the left hand. He added, that the English are the only nation who place the ring on the left hand. I do not find that this latter statement is borne out by what I have seen of the ladies of continental Europe; and I suppose it was an hallucination in my worthy informant.
I must leave to better scholars in the Italian language than I am, to say whether "Lo Sposalizio" means "Betrothal" or "Marriage:" certainly this latter is the ordinary signification.
I have a sort of floating idea that I once heard that at the ceremony of "Betrothal," now, I believe, rarely if ever practised, it was customary to place the ring on the right hand. I am by no means clear where I gleaned this notion.
G. Brindley Acworth.
Brompton.
"To the Lords of Convention."—Where can I find the whole of the ballad beginning—
"To the Lords of Convention 'twas Claverh'se that spoke;"
and also the name of the author?
L. Evans.