SCOTCH MARRIAGES.
Our English love-smitten lads and lasses are pretty generally aware of the facility with which the most awful and holy of all engagements may be contracted in North Britain. They sometimes make the experiment in their own persons; and, "by the simplicity of Venus' doves," old boys and old girls have been known to follow, as fast as post-chaises, horses, and lads could carry them, close upon the heels of their juniors, (bound on the same errand,) to the blissful land o' cakes and matrimony. An English gentleman, known to the writer, was making a few purchases in a shop, wherein stood three or four other customers. A man and woman entered, and the former, addressing the master of the shop and his aforesaid customers, used, as he took the woman's right hand, words to this effect:—"Witness, ye that are here present, that I (N. or M.) take this woman (N. or M.) for my wedded wife." In like manner the sposa desired all present to witness that she took the man for her wedded husband, with her own full acquiescence in, and approbation of, his determination. The English gentleman who had witnessed, in silent amazement, this (to him) novel engagement, was informed, after the departure of the happy couple, that the marriage was to all intents and purposes valid by Scotch law, having been solemnized as effectually as if by religious rites, in the presence of respectable housekeepers, who, as such, were efficient witnesses, and all that were requisite of ceremonial to make the marriage good!
I give this anecdote as related to me by the gentleman who saw the incident mentioned; should there be any discrepancies in his relation, I shall feel obliged by a correct account of the manner of contracting marriages in Scotland, from any of your correspondents capable of giving such.