'Madam,' says he, 'I'll do your job for you presently!'--'Well, gentlemen,' says I, 'since you can't agree, and I can't be married quietly, I'll put it off 'till another time:' so drove away. Learned sirs, I wrote this in regard to the honour and safety of my own sex: and if for our sakes you will be so good as to publish it, correcting the errors of a woman's pen, you will oblige our whole sex, and none more than, sir, "Your constant reader and admirer, "VIRTUOUS." Such are but a few of the iniquities practised by the ministers of the Fleet. Similar transactions were carried on at the Chapel in May Fair, the Mint in the Borough, the Savoy, and other places about London; until the public scandal became so great, especially in consequence of the marriage at the Fleet of the Hon. Henry Fox with Georgiana Caroline, eldest daughter of the Duke of Richmond, that at length,--not, however, without much and zealous opposition,--a Marriage Bill was passed, enacting that any person solemnising matrimony in any other than a church or public chapel, without banns or license, should, on conviction, be adjudged _guilty of felony_, and be transported for fourteen years, and that all such marriages _should be void_. This act was to take effect from the 25th of March, 1754. Upon the passing of this law, Keith, the parson who has already been alluded to, published a pamphlet entitled, "Observations on the Act for Preventing Clandestine Marriages." To this he prefixed his portrait. The following passages are highly characteristic of the man:--