In his character of the clergy, Macaulay says, they frequently married domestics and retainers of great houses—a statement which has grievously excited the wrath of Mr. Babington and other champions. In a little book, once very popular, first published in 1628, with the title Microcosmographie, or a Piece of the World discovered, and which is known to have been written by John Earle, after the Restoration Bishop of Worcester and then of Salisbury, is the following passage. It occurs in what the author calls a character of "a young raw preacher."
"You shall know him by his narrow velvet cape and serge facing, and his ruffe, next his hire, the shortest thing about him.... His friends, and much painefulnesse, may preferre him to thirtie pounds a yeere, and this meanes, to a chamber-maide: with whom we leave him now in the bonds of wedlocke. Next Sunday you shall have him againe."
The same little book contains many very curious and valuable illustrations of contemporary manners, especially in the universities.
That the usage Macaulay refers to was not uncommon, we find from a passage in the Woman-Hater, by Beaumont and Fletcher (1607), Act III. Sc. 3.
Lazarillo says,
"Farewell ye courtly chaplains that be there!
All good attend you! May you never more
Marry your patron's lady's waiting-woman!"
I.T.
Trin. Coll. Camb., March 16. 1850.