Dorchester.
[J. L. Anderson, Esq., author of The River Dove, &c., and editor of Bishop Ken's Approach to the Holy Altar.]
Wedding Rings.
—Can any of your informants give me the origin of the wedding ring, by whom it was introduced, and what it was meant to signify, and does now signify?
BOSQUECILLO.
[Wheatly, in his Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, ch. x. sect. 5., has ably discussed the origin of the marriage ring, accompanied with numerous references to early and later writers on this visible pledge of fidelity.]
Monasteries, &c. dissolved.
—Will any of your correspondents kindly inform me where I can find an authentic account of the hospitals, monasteries, and religious houses pillaged and destroyed, consequent on the commission of inquiry issued by Henry VIII.?
T. DYSON.
Gainsborough.