ow on what authority" it is stated that "the
old and lamented warrior, Sir Charles Napier, wrote on the conquest of
Scinde, _Peccavi_!" is informed that the sole author of the despatch was
_Mr. Punch_.

CUTHBERT BEDE, B.A.

In a note touching these well-known words, MR. G. LLOYD says, "It is also
stated, I do not know on what authority, that the old and lamented warrior,
Sir Charles Napier, wrote on the conquest of Scinde, _Peccavi_!" The author
of _Democritus in London, with the Mad Pranks and Comical Conceits of
Motley and Robin Good-Fellow_, thus alludes to this saying in that work. I
presume he had good authority for so doing:

_Sir P_. "What exclaim'd the gallant Napier,
Proudly flourishing his rapier!
To the army and the navy,
When he conquer'd Scinde? '_Peccavi!_'"

A SUBSCRIBER.

_Raffaelle's Sposalizio_ (Vol. vii., p. 595.; Vol. viii., p. 61.).--The
reason why the ring is placed on {575} the third finger of the right hand
of the Blessed Virgin in Raffaelle's "Sposalizio" at Milan, and in
Ghirlandais's frescoe of the same subject in the Santa Croce at Florence,
is to be found in the fact that the right hand has always been considered
the hand of power or dignity, and the left hand of inferiority or
subjection. A married woman always wears her ring on the third finger of
the left hand to signify her subjection to her husband. But it has been
customary among artists to represent the Blessed Virgin with the ring on
the right hand, to signify her superiority to St. Joseph from her
surpassing dignity of Mother of God. Still she is not always represented
so, for in Beato Angelico's painting of the marriage of Mary and Joseph she
receives the ring on her left hand. See woodcut in Mrs. Jameson's _Legends
of Madonna_, p. 170. In the Marriage of the Blessed Virgin by Vanloo, in
the Louvre, she also receives the ring on the left hand. Giotto, Taddeo
Gaddi, Perugino, &c., have painted the "Sposalizio," but I have not copies
by me to refer to.

CEYREP.

_Early Use of Tin._--_Derivation of the Name of Britain_ (Vol. viii., pp.
290. 344. 445.).--Your correspondent G. W. having been unable to inform DR.
HINCKS who first suggested the derivation of _Britannia_ from _Baratanac_
or _Bratanac_, I have the pleasure to satisfy him on this point by
referring him to Bochart's _Geographia Sacra_, lib. I. c. xxxix. In that
great storehouse of historical information, the Memoirs of the Academy