Time would fail to trace the unholy succession of Fleet Parsons. There was Edward Ashwell (1734-1743), “a most notorious rogue and impostor.” There was Peter Symson (1731-1754), who officiated at the “Old Red Hand and Mitre,” headed his certificates G.R., and bounced after this fashion:--“Marriages performed by authority by the Reverend Mr. Symson, educated at the University of Cambridge, and late Chaplain to the Earl of Rothes. N.B.--Without imposition.” Then there was James Landow (1737-1743), late Chaplain to His Majesty’s ship _Falkland_, who advertised “Marriage with a licence, certificate, and a crown stamp at a guinea, at the New Chapel, next door to the China Shop, near Fleet Bridge, London.” Of an earlier race was Mr. Robert Elborrow (1698-1702): “a very ancient man and is master of ye chapple” (he seems to have been really “the Parson of the Fleet”). His chief offence was leaving everything to his none too scrupulous clerk, Bassett. There is some mention also of the Reverend Mr. Nehemiah Rogers, a prisoner, “but goes at large to his living in Essex and all places else.” Probably they were glad to get rid of him for “he has struck and boxed ye bridegroom in ye Chapple and damned like any com’on souldier.” _Mulli praeterea, quos fama obscura recondit._ How to fix the identity of the “tall black clergyman” who, hard by “The Cock” in Fleet Market, pressed his services on loving couples? Was he one with the “tall Clergyman who plies about the Fleet Gate for Weddings,” and who in 1734 was convicted “of swearing forty-two Oaths and ordered to pay £4 2_s._”? In 1753 Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act (26 Geo. II. cap. 3) put a sudden stop to the doings of those worthies. Save in the case of Jews and Quakers, all marriages were void unless preceded by banns or licence and celebrated according to the rites of the Church of England in a church or chapel of that communion. The Priest who assisted at an irregular or clandestine marriage was guilty of a felony punishable by fourteen years’ transportation. The Bill was violently opposed; and, according to Horace Walpole, was crammed down the throats of both Houses; but its policy, its effects, as well as later modifications of the marriage law, are not for discussion here.