RANSOMS.

(_To the Editor._)


In a late number, you gave among the "County Collections," with which a
correspondent had furnished you, the old Cornish proverb--

"Hinckston Down well wrought,
Is worth London dearly bought."


Possibly your correspondent was not aware that the true reading of this
proverb is the following:--

"Hinckston Down well wrought,
Is worth a monarch's ransom dearly bought."


The lines are thus quoted by Mr. Barrington, in his elaborate work on
the middle ages, and refer to the prevailing belief, that Hinckston Down
is a mass of copper, and in value, therefore, an equivalent for the price
set on the head of a captive sovereign. Perhaps, as some elucidation of
so intricate a subject as that of the ransoming prisoners during the
middle ages, the following remarks may not be deemed altogether unworthy
of insertion in your pages.

Originally, the supposed right of condemning captives to death rendered