_Raffaelle's Sposalizio._--Will DIGITALIS, or any of your numerous correspondents or readers, do me the favour to say why, in Raffaelle's celebrated painting "Lo Sposalizio," in the gallery of the Brera at Milan, Joseph is represented as placing the ring on the third finger of _right_ hand of the Virgin? 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 {596} 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. _Richard Candishe, M.P._--Pennant (_Tour in Wales_, vol. ii. p. 48.) prints the epitaph of "Richard Candishe, Esq., of a good family in Suffolk," who was M.P. for Denbigh in 1572, as it appears on his monument in Hornsey Church. Who was this Richard Candishe? The epitaph says he was "derived from noble parentage;" but the arms on the monument are not those of the noble House of Cavendish, which sprung from the parish of that name in Suffolk. The arms of Richard Candishe are given as "three piles wavy gules in a field argent; the crest, a fox's head erased azure." BURIENSIS. _Alphabetical Arrangement._--Can any one favour me with a reference to any work treating of the date of the collection and arrangement in the present form of the alphabet, either English, Latin, Greek, or Hebrew? or what is the earliest instance of their being used to represent numerals? A. H. C. _Saying of Pascal._--In which of his works is Pascal's saying, "I have not time to write more briefly," to be found; and what are the words in the original? W. FRASER. Tor-Mohun. _Irish Characters on the Stage._--Would any of the contributors to "N. & Q." oblige me with this information? Who, or how many, of the old English dramatists introduced Irishmen into their _dramatis personae_? Did Ben Jonson? Shadwell did. What others? PHILOBIBLION.