books, in which entries of the marriages were made. Besides these, there are registers of marriage performed in the King's Bench Prison, the Mint, and May Fair, where the same practice existed. The May Fair Chapel was built in 1730, and was a sort of opposition house to the Fleet for the purpose of matrimony. It seems, however, to have been suppressed, and in the 'Daily Post' of July, 1744, the following advertisement appears:

"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, and the minister and clerk's fees, together with the certificate, amount to one guinea as heretofore, 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." In 1752 the marriage of the Duke of Hamilton and Miss Gunning took place in a May Fair chapel. One of these chapels belonged to the Rev. Mr. Keith, who is said to have married in one day 173 couples. He thus advertises his place of business. in the 'Daily Advertiser,' in 1753:

"Mr. Keith's chapel, in May Fair, Park Corner,

where the marriages are performed, by virtue of a license on a crown stamp, and certificate for a guinea, is opposite to the great chapel, and within ten yards of it. The way is through Piccadilly, by the end of St. James's Street, down Clarges Street and turn on the left hand."

On many houses signs were hung out, and over the door were written the words, "Marriages done here;" while touters accosted passengers with the cry, "Do you want a parson? want a parson?" "Will you be married?" Sion Chapel, at Hampstead, which seems to have belonged to the keeper of an adjoining tavern, was a favorite place of resort, and was thus advertised in the 'Weekly Journal' of September 8, 1718:

"Sion Chapel, at Hampstead, being a private and pleasant place, many persons of the best fashion have lately been married there. Now, as a minister is obliged constantly to attend, this is to give notice, that all persons upon bringing a license, and who shall have their wedding-dinner in the gardens, may be married in the said chapel without giving any fee or reward whatsoever; and such as do not keep their wedding-dinner in the gardens, only five shillings will be demanded of them for all fees." Like most abuses, the facility of celebrating clandestine marriages was clung to as a great social privilege; and the Marriage

Act, 26 Geo. II. c. 33, which put an end to them, was strongly opposed. Horace Walpole says, in one of his letters, that the Act was so drawn by the judges "as to clog all matrimony in general." It was for some time evaded by persons going to the Channel Islands, which were not within its operation; and, in the 'Gentleman's Magazine' of 1760, we read that there were "at Southampton vessels always ready to carry on the trade of smuggling weddings, which, for the price of five guineas, transport contraband goods into the land of matrimony."

* When Dr. King, the public orator at Oxford, presented candidates for the degree of Doctor of Law at the Installation in 1754, he fiercely denounced the new law. "The times," he said, "were so horribly corrupt that we had agreed to sell our daughters by the late Marriage Act. Sweet creatures! it was ten thousand pities that such fine girls as then filled the theatre should be sold by their unnatural parents, and perhaps (dreadful thought!) even to Whig husbands. But he was sure that such beautiful and elegant ladies as were there assembled were on the right side, and he advised them to wear upon their rings, and embroider upon their garments, the maxim: 'The man who sells his country will sell his wife or his daughter,'—upon which there was loud applause."- Correspondence of Richardson,' vol. ii. p. 190.

CHAPTER IV.

THE OLD ROMANCES. THE FEMALE QUIXOTE.'-NOVELS OF THE LAST CENTURY.-THEIR COARSENESS AND ITS APOLOGISTS.'CHRYSAL, OR THE ADVENTURES OF A GUINEA.- POMPEY.THE FOOL OF QUALITY.-TWO CLASSES OF NOVELS.-SIMPLE STORY. THE COMIC NOVELS.

I COME now to speak more particularly of the novels. It would be easy for an author to make a parade of learning, if an acquaintance with novels and romances can be called learning, by quoting the names of old authors and their works, and leaving the reader to suppose that he was familiar with their contents. I might go back to remote antiquity and speak of the 'Books of Love' of Clearchus the Cilician-of Jamblichus, who wrote the Adventures of Rhodanes'of Heliodorus of Emesus, the author of Theogenus and Chariclea'—of Achilles Tatius, who wrote the 'Amours of Clitophon and Leucippe'—of Damascius, who composed four books of fiction-of the three Xenophons mentioned by Suidas-of the parables of the Indian Sandabar and the fables of Pilpay—of the lying legends of the Talmud-of the famous Milesian

tales, and Aristides the most famous of the authorsof Dionysius the Milesian who wrote fabulous histories of the romance of 'Dinias and Dercyllis,' of which Antonius Diogenes was the author, or the still older romances of Antiphanes-of Parthenius of Nice --of the True and Perfect Love' of Athenagorasof the 'Golden Ass' of Apuleius-of the 'Amours of Diocles and Rhodanthe,' by Theodorus Prodromus, and those of 'Ismenias and Ismene,' by Gustathius, Bishop of Thessalonica; and, coming lower down into the Middle Ages, of the novels of Boccaccio and the Romances of Garin de Loheran, 'Tristan,' 'Lancelot du Lac,' 'St. Greal,' 'Merlin,' 'Arthur,' 'Perceval,' 'Perceforêt,' 'Amadis de Gaul,' 'Palmerin of England,' and 'Don Beliaris of Greece;' and in more modern times, of the 'Astræa' of Monsieur d'Urfé, and the 'Illustrious Bassa '—the 'Grand Cyrus' and 'Clelia' of Mademoiselle de Scuderi, who is called by Monsieur Huet, the Bishop of Avranches, in his letters to Monsieur de Legrais 'On the Original of Romances,' a grave and virtuous virgin-the 'Roman Comique' of Scarron, and the 'Zaide' and 'Princesse de Cleves' of Madame de la Fayette-the 'Pharamond,''Cassandra,' and 'Cleopatra' of M. de la Calprenede; and, to come to our own country, of 'Euphues,' by John Lylie, who was born in 1553-of the