The abuse of pre-contracts had occasioned the demand of a remedy--the physician immediately prescribed medicines for every ailment to which the ceremony of marriage was or could be supposed liable! Publication of banns was already an established ordinance, but totally in disuse except amongst the inferior people, who did not blush to obey the law. Persons of Quality, who proclaimed every other step of their conjugation by the most public parade, were ashamed to have the intention of it notified, and were constantly married by special licence. Unsuitable matches in a country where the passions are not impetuous, and where it is neither easy nor customary to tyrannize the inclinations of children, were by no means frequent: the most disproportioned alliances, those contracted by age, by dowagers, were without the scope of this Bill. Yet the new Act set out with a falsehood, declaiming against clandestine marriages, as if they had been a frequent evil. The greatest abuse were the temporary weddings clapped up in the Fleet, and by one Keith,[229] who had constructed a very Bishopric for revenue in Mayfair, by performing that charitable function for a trifling sum, which the _poor_ successors of the Apostles are seldom humble enough to perform out of duty. The new Bill enjoined indispensable publication of banns, yet took away their validity, if parents, nay, if even guardians, signified their dissent, where the parties should be under age--a very novel power!--but guardians are a limb of Chancery! The Archbishop’s licence was indeed reserved to him. A more arbitrary spirit was still behind: persons solemnizing marriages, without these previous steps, were sentenced to transportation, and the marriage was to be effectually null--so close did congenial law clip the wings of the prostrate priesthood! And as if such rigour did not sufficiently describe its fountain and its destination, it was expressly specified, that where a mother or a guardian should be _non compos_, resort might be had to the Chancellor himself for licence. Contracts and pre-contracts, other flowers of ecclesiastic prerogative, were to be totally invalid, and their obligations abolished: and the gentle institution was wound up with the penalty of death for all forgeries in breach of this statute of modern Draco. Quakers, Jews, and the Royal Family had the only toleration. May 14th.--The Bill came down to the Commons. Nugent took it to pieces severely and sensibly, pointed out the impropriety of it in a commercial nation, and the ill-nature and partiality of the restrictions. He showed himself a great master of political disquisitions, and it seemed that a desire of displaying that learning was the sole cause of any opposition to the Bill. This was all that passed material the first day, and the Bill was read on a majority of 116 to 55.