These were the he

Petersham and Miss Ashe."* roines of the minced chickens at Vauxhall; and we presume they did not visit the condemned cell to metamorphose the thief into a saint, as is the "whim " of our own times. The real robbers were as fashionable in 1750 as their trumpery histories were in 1840. "You can't conceive the ridiculous rage there is of going to Newgate; and the prints that are published of the malefactors, and the memoirs of their lives and deaths set forth with as much parade as-as-Marshal Turenne's-we have no generals worth making a parallel." The visitors had abundant opportunities for the display of their sympathy:-"It is shocking to think what a shambles this country is grown! Seventeen were executed this morning." Amidst such excitements, who can wonder that a man of talent and taste, as Walpole was, should often prefer pasting prints into a portfolio, or correcting proofs, at "poor little Strawberry."

The reckless and improvident spirit of the period when Horace Walpole was an active member of the world of fashion is strikingly shown in the rash, and we may say indecent, manner in which persons of rank rushed into marriage. The happiness of a life was the stake which the great too often trusted to something as uncertain as the cast of a die or the turn-up of a trump. It seems almost impossible

Horace Walpole to Mann, August 2, 1750.

Id. October 18, 1750.

Id. March 23, 1752.

that in London, eighty or ninety years ago only, such a being as a Fleet parson could have existed, who performed the marriage ceremonial at any hour of the day or night, in a public-house or a low lodging, without public notice or public witnesses, requiring no consent of parents, and asking only the names of the parties who sought to be united. We might imagine, at any rate, that such irreverend proceedings were confined to the lowest of the people. The Fleet parsons had not a monopoly of their trade. In the fashionable locality of May Fair was a chapel in which one Keith presided, who advertised in the newspapers, and made, according to Walpole, "a very bishopric of revenue." This worthy was at last excommunicated for "contempt of the Holy and Mother Church;" but the impudent varlet retaliated, and excommunicated at his own chapel Bishop Gibson, the Judge of the Ecclesiastical Court, and two reverend doctors. Keith was sent to prison, where he remained many years; but his shop flourished under the management of his shopmen, called Curates; and the public were duly apprised of its situation and prices" To prevent mistakes, the little new chapel in May Fair, near Hyde Park Corner, is in the corner-house opposite to the City side of the great chapel, and within ten yards of it, and the minister and clerk live in the same corner-house where the little chapel is; and the license on a crown stamp, minister and clerk's fees, together with the certificate, amount to one guinea, as here

tofore, at any hour till four in the afternoon. And that it may be the better known, there is a porch at the door like a country church porch."* Keith issued from his prison a manifesto against the Act to prevent clandestine marriages, to which we shall presently advert, in which he gravely puts forth the following recommendation of his summary process with reference to the lower classes :-" Another inconveniency which will arise from this Act will be, that the expense of being married will be so great that few of the lower class of people can afford; for I have often heard a Fleet parson say that many have come to be married when they have had but half-a-crown in their pockets, and sixpence to buy a pot of beer, and for which they have pawned some of their clothes."t

But exclusive fashion did not care to be exclusive in these practices. Sometimes a petticoat without a hoop was to be led by a bag-wig and sword to the May Fair altar, after other solicitations had been tried in vain. The virtue of the community was wonderfully supported by these easy arrangements, as Walpole tells us, in his best style: "You must know, then-but did you know a young fellow that was called Handsome Tracy? He was walking in the Park with some of his acquaintance, and overtook three girls; one was very pretty they followed them; but the girls ran away, and the company grew tired of pursuing

on

*Daily Post, July 20, 1744; quoted in Mr. Burn's valuable work The Fleet Registers.'

† Id.

He

them, all but Tracy. He followed to Whitehall Gate, where he gave a porter a crown to dog them: the porter hunted them-he the porter. The girls ran all round Westminster, and back to the Haymarket, where the porter came up with them. He told the pretty one she must go with him, and kept her talking till Tracy arrived, quite out of breath, and exceedingly in love. He insisted on knowing where she lived, which she refused to tell him; and, after much disputing, went to the house of one of her companions, and Tracy with them. there made her discover her family, a butterwoman in Craven Street, and engaged her to meet him the next morning in the Park; but before night he wrote her four love-letters, and in the last offered two hundred pounds a-year to her, and a hundred a-year to Signora la Madre. Griselda made a confidence to a staymaker's wife, who told her that the swain was certainly in love enough to marry her, if she could determine to be virtuous and refuse his offers. Ay,' says she, but if I should, and should lose him by it.' However, the measures of the cabinet council were decided for virtue; and when she met Tracy the next morning in the Park, she was convoyed by her sister and brother-in-law, and stuck close to the letter of her reputation. She would do nothing; she would go nowhere. At last, as an instance of prodigious compliance, she told him, that if he would accept such a dinner as a butterwoman's daughter could give him, he should be welcome. Away they walked to Craven Street:

6

the mother borrowed some silver to buy a leg of mutton, and kept the eager lover drinking till twelve at night, when a chosen committee waited on the faithful pair to the minister of May Fair. The doctor was in bed, and swore he would not get up to marry the king; but that he had a brother over the way who perhaps would, and who did."*

But "the butterwoman's daughter" had no lack of high example to teach her how to make a short step into the matrimonial "ship of fools." The Fleet Registers, and those of May Fair, are rich in the names of Honourables and even of Peers. For example: "February 14, 1752, James Duke of Hamilton and Elizabeth Gunning." Walpole has a pleasant comment upon this entry. "The event that has made most noise since my last, is the extempore wedding of the youngest of the two Gunnings, who have made so vehement a noise... About a fortnight since, at an immense assembly at my Lord Chesterfield's, made to show the house, which is really most magnificent, Duke Hamilton made violent love at one end of the room, while he was playing at faro at the other end; that is, he saw neither the bank nor his own cards, which were of three hundred pounds each; he soon lost a thousand. . . . . Two nights afterwards, he found himself so impatient, that he sent for a parson. The doctor refused to perform the ceremony without license or ring the Duke swore he would send for the Archbishop. At last they were married with. Horace Walpole to Montagu, Sept. 3, 1748.

VOL. II.

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