Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/562

548 wafted from the parliament to the public. Out of doors the members of parliament, and especially the bishops, were pursued with the fiercest rancour and insult. Members of the commons were threatened by their constituents with the loss of their seats for voting in favour of this bill; and one of them, Mr. Sydenham, of Exeter, defended himself by declaring that he was no Jew, but travelled on Sundays like a Christian. The common people pursued the members and the bishops in the streets, crying, "No Jews! No Jews! No wooden shoes!"—as if Jews and Frenchmen were synonymous. It was declared in newspapers and pamphlets that the present bishops were the only ones since the time of Christ who would have sanctioned so anti-Christian a measure—an assertion with a great deal too much truth in it. The bishop of Norwich, on going through his diocese for the purpose of confirmation, was insulted by boys crying after him to stop and circumcise them, and by finding a paper on one of the church doors, announcing that he would confirm the Jews one day and the Christians the next! In short, such was the popular fury, that the duke of Newcastle was glad to bring in a bill for the repeal of his act of naturalisation on the very first day of the next session, which passed rapidly through both houses.

It was high time that some measures were taken for preventing clandestine marriages. Nothing could be so loose as the marriage laws, or so scandalous as the practice regarding marriages to this time. No previous public notice or publication of banns was hitherto required, nor was any license requisite. Any clergyman, though of the most infamous character, could perform the ceremony at any time or place, without consent of parents or guardians. The consequence was, that the strangest and most scandalous unions took place, for which there was no remedy, and the result of which were lives of misery and disgrace. The merest children were inveigled into such connections, and the heirs of noble estates were thus entrapped into the most repulsive alliances, and made the victims of the most rapacious and unprincipled of mankind. The Fleet prison, where were many ruined parsons—ruined by their crimes and low habits—was a grand mart for these marriages. There these abandoned men, stupefied with beer and tobacco, were on the look-out for any simple or enamoured juveniles, and, without any questions, would marry them in three minutes for a couple of shillings, or less. Pennant, in his "Account of London," says, "In walking along the street in my youth on the side next to this prison, I have often been tempted by this question, 'Sir, will you please to walk in and be married?' Along this most lawless space was hung up the frequent sign of a male and female hand conjoined, with 'Marriages performed within!' written beneath. A dirty fellow invited you in. The parson was seen walking before his shop, a squalid, profligate figure, clad in a tattered plaid nightgown, with a fiery face, and ready to couple you for a dram of gin or roll of tobacco." A fellow of the name of Keith had acquired great pre-eminence in this line. He used to marry, on an average, six thousand couples every year; and on the news of this bill, which would stop his trade, he vowed vengeance on the bishops, declaring that he would buy a piece of ground and out-bury them all!

The bill was prepared by the judges, and afterwards remodelled and conducted through the lords by lord chancellor Hardwicke. It provided that banns should be published for every marriage in the parish church for three successive Sundays; that no license to waive these banns should be granted to any minor without consent of the parent or guardian; and that special licenses, empowering the marriage to be celebrated at any time or place, should only be granted by the archbishop, and for a heavy sum. The bill was strongly opposed in the lords by the duke of Bedford, and in the commons by Sir. Fox, Mr. Nugent, Mr. Charles Townshend, and others. It was declared to be a scheme for keeping together the wealth of the country in the hands of a few grasping and ambitious families. Townshend denounced it as intended to shut younger sons out of all chance of raising themselves by marriage. Fox had benefited especially by the looseness of the old marriage law, for he had run away with lady Caroline Lennox, the eldest daughter of the duke of Richmond. He was especially severe on lord Hardwicke, accusing him of seeking by the bill to throw more power into the hands of the lord chancellor, and Hardwicke retorted with still greater acrimony. The bill passed, and there was a strong inclination to extend its operation to Scotland, but the Scotch lawyers and representative peers defeated this attempt, and thus left Gretna Green open to our own day. In the next session the duke of Bedford brought in a bill to postpone the operation of the marriage bill till it could be reconsidered and amended, but his bill was rejected by fifty-six votes to ten.

Amongst the other measures of this session, a bill introduced by Mr. Potter, son of the archbishop of Canterbury, for establishing a general registry of the population, was rejected, on the plea that a census of the people was dangerous to the liberties of free-born Englishmen!

Another measure of great importance was more successful, namely, a bill to prevent the plunder of wrecked vessels, and the cruelties to the unfortunately-wrecked seamen, which had grown to such a monstrous height on our shores, and especially on those of Cornwall.

Another measure in this session marks an epoch in the history of literature and science in this country. Parliament empowered the crown to raise money by lottery for the purchase of the fine library, consisting of fifty thousand volumes, and the collection of articles of vertu and antiquity, amounting to sixty-nine thousand, three, hundred and fifty-two in number, bequeathed by Sir Hans Sloane to the nation, on the condition that twenty thousand pounds should be paid to his daughters for what had cost himself fifty thousand pounds. The same bill also empowered government to purchase of the Duchess of Portland, for ten thousand pounds, the collection of MSS. and books, &c., made by her grandfather, Harley, the lord treasurer Oxford, and also for the purchase of Montagu House, which was offered for sale in consequence of the death of the duke of Montagu without heirs, in which to deposit these valuable collections. The antiquarian and literary collection of Sir Robert Cotton, purchased in the reign of queen Anne, was also removed to Montagu House; and thus was founded the now magnificent institution, the British Museum. It is remarkable that whilst Horace Walpole, professing himself