MARRIAGE IN "MEDIOCRE" LIFE.
One of our fashionable contemporaries, of which there are now three (including the Morning Advertiser, which "goes in" upon the aristocratic dodge), contained the other day the account of a marriage of a Reverend Baronet with a young lady, whose name is not given, but who is said to be "related to the Earl of Rosse." This scientific nobleman may have numerous distant relations, who, on the strength of his title and his telescope, would like to be looked upon as near relations, and therefore the bride may or may not be a very close connection of the Earl. At all events, the persons inserting the advertisement in the fashionable paper, do not seem to have felt themselves justified in heading the paragraph with the usual words, "Marriage in High Life." It was most probably a sort of middle-class matrimonial connection; though in these days it is hard to say where high life ends and mediocrity begins. The couple seem to have been "carriage people," at all events; for as the vehicle—probably a "neat fly" with post horses—approached the bridge, the assembled multitude raised such "vociferations," says the penny-a-liner, "as to make the welkin ring." We should like to see the bell attached to the Welkin, and the Welkin itself in which the phenomenon of "ringing" was produced by the shouts of the multitude.
On reaching the village the vehicle "proceeded through a triumphal arch, ornamented with a lamp." We beg leave to say that we have the honour of passing under a triumphal arch—that which bears the Wellington Statue—twice a day, and we do so without any feeling of undue vanity, notwithstanding the fact that it is also "ornamented with a lamp,"—and indeed two—for there is one on each side of it. The penny-a-liner adds that "on reaching their residence the bride and bridegroom briefly, but feelingly, returned thanks to the inhabitants." What a pity that we have not had a full report of the speeches. Where was Gurney, the short-hand writer; where was Sherer, and what had become of Morton?
The next time that a marriage in "mediocre" life is celebrated we trust that a staff of stenographists will be in attendance to take down the "speeches" of the bride and bridegroom, as they pass from the neat fly, gig, or clarence to the inn or hotel they may have chosen for their mellilunar abode.