While I am upon this subject, allow me to point out another singular direction given in a rubric in this same "Ordo ad faciendum Sponsalia." When the woman is, as we term it, given away, if she be a spinster, she is to have her hand _uncovered_; if a widow, _covered_: the words are--
"Deinde detur femina a patre suo, vel ab amicis ejus: quod si _puella_ sit, _discoopertam_ habeat _manum_, si _vidua_, _tectam_."
There is no reason given for this distinction, nor do I ever remember to have seen it noticed.
The _Sposalizio_, or "espousals," or betrothing, is certainly a different ceremony from the marriage. Is not the fact of young ladies popularly considering and calling the third finger of the _right_ hand the engaged finger, and wearing a ring on that finger when engaged, a confirmation of your correspondent's idea, that at this "betrothal" or "espousals" (compare the phrase "his espoused wife" of Mary before her _marriage_ with Joseph) the ring was placed in the _right_ hand; at the marriage ceremony on the left?
W. W. is desirous of interpreting _windfall_, as necessarily from its origin denoting a gain. He is, perhaps, expecting a handsome bequest; I wish he may get it; but he may rely on it that the _windfall_ of the bequest will be accompanied by the _windfall_ of the "Succession Act." Let us hear what our great Doctor says; his first explanation is, "Fruit blown down from the tree."
W. W.'s little boys and girls would deem a _windfall_ of unripe apples, at this time of the year, a good; they will make a pie for dinner. W. W. himself would call it an evil; the ripe crop is ruined.
But let us see how Johnson illustrates his explanation:
"Their _boughs_ were too great for their stem, they became a _windfall_ upon the sudden."--_Bacon_, Essay 29.
Webster copies this for his first explanation, as he does also our Dr's. second for his second; but as it is not his plan to illustrate by examples, he is saved from the _eccentricity_ of his original.
If we refer to Bacon we shall be reminded of Johnson's warning, that by "hasty detruncation the general tendency of a sentence may be changed." The sentence here so hastily detruncated, stands thus in the Essay:
"The Spartans were a nice people in point of naturalisation, whereby while they kept their compasse, they stood firme. But when _they_ did spread, and _their boughes_ were becommen too great for their stemme, they became a _windfall_ upon the suddaine. 'Potentia eorum subito corruit.'"