MARRTACK CEREMOXlKS. 
280 
place, Angusl 1785, I saw at the doors of Ids own and neighbour’s 
houses, throughout the street where he lived, large boughs and* posts 
of trees, that had been cut down and fixed there, filled with white 
paper, cut in the shape of women’s gloves and of white ribbons.”! 
The following is in Parkinson’s Garden of Flowers : “ The bay*- 
leaves are necessary both for civil uses and for physic, yea, both for 
the sick and for the sound, both for the living and the dead. It 
serveth to adorn the house of God as well as man — to crown or 
encircle, as with a garland, the heads of the living, and to sticke and 
decke forth the bodies of the dead : so that from the cradle to the 
grave we have still use of it, we'have still need of it.” Ibid. — Rose- 
mary is almost of as great use as bayes, as well for civil as physical 
purposes : for civil uses, as all doe know, at weddings, funerals, 
to bestow among friends.” 
It should seem, by the following passage in Clavell’s Recantation 
of an Ill-led Life, that anciently this present was made by such prisoners 
as received pardon after condemnation. It occurs in his Dedication 
“ To the impartial Judges of his Majesties Bench, my Lord Chief Jus- 
tice and his other three honourable Assistants.’' 
“Those pardon’d men, who taste their prince’s loves 
(As married to new life) do give you gloves f Arc. 
Clavell was a highwayman, who had just received the king’s par- 
don. He dates from the King’s Bench Prison, October, 1627. — Fuller 
in his “ Mixt Contemplations on these Times,” says, “ It passeth for 
a general reportof what was customary in former times, that the sheriff 
of the county used to present the judge with a pair of white gloves^ at 
those which we call mayden assizes, viz. when no malefactor is put to 
death therein.” 
Can the custom of dropping or sending the glove, as the signal of a 
challenge, have been derived from the circumstance of its being the 
cover of the hand, and therefore put/or the hand itself? — The giving 
of the hand, is well known to intimate that the person who does so will 
not deceive, but stand to his agreement. — To shake hands upon it)* 
would not, it should seem, be very delicate in an agreement to light, 
and therefore may, possibly, have been deputed as substitutes 
— We may, perhaps, trace the same idea in wedding gloves. 
Wedding Ring. — Among the customs used at marriages, those of 
the ring and bride-cake seem of the most remote antiquity. Con- 
farreation and the ring were used anciently as binding ceremonies by 
the heathen, in making agreements, grants, &c., whence they have 
doubtless been derived to the most solemn of our engagements. The 
supposed heathen origin of our marriage ring had well nigh caused 
the abolition of it during the time of the commonwealth. 
The wedding ring is worn on the fourth finger of the left hand, 
because it was anciently believed, though the opinion has been justly 
exploded by the anatomists of modern times, that a small artery ran 
I In the north of England, a custom still prevails, at maiden assizes, 
i. e . when ho prisoner is capitally convicted, to present the judges^, 
&c. with white gloves. 
