Letter 30.—­Here is Lord Lisle’s embassage discussed again!  We know that in the end it comes to nothing; Whitelocke going, but without Temple.  The statute commanding the marriage ceremony to be conducted before Justices of the Peace was passed in August 1653; it is to some extent by such references as these that the letters have been dated and grouped.  The Marriage Act of 1653, with the other statutes of this period, have been erased from the Statute Book; but a draft of it in Somers’ Tracts remains to us for reference.  It contained provisions for the names of those who intended being joined together in holy matrimony to be posted, with certain other particulars, upon the door of the common meeting-house, commonly called the parish church or chapel; and after the space of three weeks the parties, with two witnesses, might go before a magistrate, who, having satisfied himself, by means of examining witnesses on oath or otherwise, that all the preliminaries commanded by the Act had been properly fulfilled, further superintended the proceedings to perfect the said intended marriage as follows:—­The man taking the woman by the hand pronounced these words, “I, A.B., do hereby in the presence of God take thee C.D. to be my wedded wife, and do also in the presence of God, and before these witnesses, promise to be unto thee a loving and faithful husband.”  Then the woman in similar formula promises to be a “loving, faithful, and obedient wife,” and the magistrate pronounced the parties to be man and wife.  This ceremony, and this only, was to be a legal marriage.  It is probable that parties might and did add a voluntary religious rite to this compulsory civil ceremony, as is done at this day in many foreign countries.

SIR,—­You cannot imagine how I was surpris’d to find a letter that began “Dear brother;” I thought sure it could not belong at all to me, and was afraid I had lost one by it; that you intended me another, and in your haste had mistook this for that.  Therefore, till I found the permission you gave me, I had laid it by with a resolution not to read it, but to send it again.  If I had done so, I had missed a great deal of satisfaction which I received from it.  In earnest, I cannot tell you how kindly I take all the obliging things you say in it of me; nor how pleased I should be (for your sake) if I were able to make good the character you give me to your brother, and that I did not owe a great part of it wholly to your friendship for me.  I dare call nothing on’t my own but faithfulness; that I may boast of with truth and modesty, since ’tis but a simple virtue; and though some are without it, yet ’tis so absolutely necessary, that nobody wanting it can be worthy of any esteem.  I see you speak well of me to other people, though you complain always to me.  I know not how to believe I should misuse your heart as you pretend; I never had any quarrel to it, and since our friendship it has been dear to me as my own.  ’Tis