G.B.
Fleet Marriages.—The General Evening Post, June 27-29, 1745, contains the following singular Note of a Fleet Marriage:—
"Yesterday came on a cause at Doctors' Commons, wherein the plaintiff brought his action against the defendant for pretending to be his wife. She in her justification pleaded a marriage at the Fleet the 6th of February, 1737, and produced a Fleet certificate, which was not allowed as evidence: she likewise offered to produce the minister she pretended married them, but he being excommunicate for clandestine marriages, could not be received as a witness. The court thereupon pronounced against the marriage, and condemned her in 28l., the costs of the suit."
Y.S.
QUERIES.
HISTORIE DES SÉVARAMBES.
The authorship of Gaudentio di Lucca has recently been discussed by some of your correspondents, and it has been shown that this Voyage Imaginaire
was written by Simon Berington, a Catholic priest, and the member of a family resident for many years in Herefordshire. The following Query will relate to another work of the same class, but of an earlier date.
The Histoire des Sévarambes is a fictitious account of a nation in the Southern Ocean, visited by a supposed navigator named Siden. It's first appearance was as an English work, with this title: