_Reverend Richard Midgley, Vicar of Rochdale_ (Vol. vii., p. 380).--The collection of the lives of pious persons to which Dr. Whitaker refers, as containing a very interesting account of Midgley, will undoubtedly be Samuel Clarke's _Lives of Thirty-two English Divines_. The passage, which will scarcely be new to your correspondent, is at p. 68. of the life of "Master Richard Rothwell" (Clarkes's _Lives_, edit. 1677, fol.), and a very pleasing passage it is, and one that I might almost {439} be justified in extracting. Dr. Whitaker and Brook (_Lives of the Puritans_, vol. ii. p. 163.) seem to be at variance with regard to the Midgleys, the former mentioning only one, and the latter two, vicars of the family. JAS. CROSSLEY. _Nose of Wax_ (Vol. vii., p. 158.).--Allow me to refer to a passage in "Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks," by Lodowick Barry (which is reprinted in the fifth volume of Dodsley's _Old Plays_), illustrative of this term. In Act I. Sc. 1., _Dash_ describes the law as "The kingdom's eye, by which she sees The acts and thoughts of men." Whereupon _Throate_ observes: "The kingdom's eye! I tell thee, fool, it is the kingdom's nose, By which she smells out all these rich transgressors; Nor is't of flesh, but merely made of _wax_, And 'tis within the power of us lawyers, To wrest this _nose of wax_ which way we please." This illustration was overlooked by Nares, to whose _Glossary_ you refer. C. H. COOPER. Cambridge. _Canongate Marriages_ (Vol. v., p. 320.; Vol. vii., p. 67.).--The correspondent who expressed his surprise some time ago at his Query on this subject not having called forth any remark from your Scotch friends, will perhaps find the explanation of this result in the fact, that in Scotland we are guided by the civil or Roman law on the subject of marriage; and consequently, with us marriage is altogether a civil contract; and we need the intervention neither of clergyman, Gretna blacksmith, or the equally disreputable Canongate coupler. The services of the last two individuals are only sought for by you deluded southerns. All we require here is the agreement or consent of the parties ("_consensus non_ concubitus facit matrimonium"); and the legal questions which arise have reference chiefly to the evidence of this consent. The agreement may be made verbally, or in writing, before witnesses or not, as the parties choose. Or a marriage may be constituted and proved merely by habit and repute, _i. e._ by the parties living together as man and wife, and the man allowing the woman to be addressed as his wife. A promise of marriage, followed by _copula_, also constitutes a marriage. But it would be out of place here to enter into all the arcana of the Scotch law of marriage: suffice it to say, that it prevails equally at John o' Groat's House and Aberdeen, as in the Canongate or at Gretna Green. A _regular_ marriage requires certain formalities, such as the publication of banns, &c.