III. When Puritan young ladies and gentlemen had reached a fitting age, and began to think of a union for life-after courtship had been commenced in earnest, and the lovers' knot had been tied-there came what was called the handfasting, which was a sort of solemn espousal, and upon this event a day was spent in praying and hearing a sermon, and in forming a contract, which bound the parties to wed each other. When the Presbyterian minister had received a certificate of the banns having been published, he might solemnize the marriage on any day excepting one of public humiliation; although the Directory advised that "John, think it not strange that you have not received your clothes before. The reason you may well know, which was the vexation you put me and your father to at your departing, which lets us understand that your heart is not reformed, notwithstanding all your good education. I have sent you your clothes-a pair of stockings, a pair of gloves. I would have you wear your fres jump (freize jacket) every day and your waistcoat a'nights, and have a care of your clothes, that you keep them in your trunk, and above all look to your heart in all the duties that you perform, and improve the day of grace, which God yet affords you, and improve your time, that you spend it not in play, and neglect your learning, and labour to be a comfort to your parents and not a grief. I have sent you some plums, of your brother's christening. Had I sent them as you did your father's nuts they would come short to you. You sent your father a pint of nuts which cost him eightpence. Had you regarded your father, you would have tied and sealed them up. Your brother Samuel and sister is well and remember them to you, and remember me to your master Herring, and Mrs. Herring, and your old Mistress and Mr. Chadley. Thus I rest praying to God, for I rest your careful mother, "ANNA WILLINGHAM. "Your brother's name is Ebenezer. (Addressed) "To John Willingham, living at Mr. Herring's, at Duddinghurst, deliver these." it should not be on a Lord's Day. After an address had been delivered, and the usual charge had been given, as to whether the parties were aware of any impediment to their union, the man and woman, taking each other by the hand, promised to be loving and faithful to each other until God should separate them by death. Then, without any further ceremony, the minister pronounced them to be husband and wife, and "concluded the action with prayer." When several persons were present, it was not an uncommon thing for a sermon to be preached.2 Old English wedding customs had been rather wild and rude. Amidst plenty of music and dancing, with perhaps a masque and other sports, the bride had appeared adorned with garlands, when her head was touched with the sole of a shoe, in token of subjection to her future lord. Stockings were flung at the fair one; and on the sideboard, in addition to the bride-cake, bays and rosemary (the latter dipped in scented water) played an important part in the marriage feast. Sheffield knives were presented, to be worn, one each in the girdle of bride and bridegroom; gloves, scarfs, points, and laces, were also fashionable offerings on the happy occasion. But Puritans, shocked at the superstition which animated some ancient usages, and at the indelicacy and grossness of others, became sparing in As to Lancashire, Dr. Hibbert observes, in his History of the Collegiate Church of Manchester, i. 272: "The greatest discontent was excited at the mode of solemnizing marriages, which was no longer before the altar, or accompanied with the pledge of the ring, which had been hitherto considered essential to the contract. This meanness of ceremony was so ill relished, that many clandestine marriages were 2 Many Independents, it should be remembered, treated marriage as a civil contract, and had no religious service. the use of symbols, and contracted the entertainments of the most joyous day of human life so as to bring them within very narrow dimensions. It might indeed be said, in the words of an old play, "We see no ensigns of a wedding here—no character of a bridal; where be our scarfs and gloves?"1 John Howe speaks of "Emanuel, God with us," as the motto of a married pair, and as "the posy on their wedding ring;" but with some persons, even the use of that simple and beautiful sign now stood in jeopardy, from the supposed paganism of its remote origin. Whatever might be the speeches made at wedding feasts, no healths would be drunk, for such a practice was distinctly forbidden. Yet innocent mirth, according to the taste of the persons assembled, would not be wanting; nor did they need any commiseration for the absence of what they did not relish, and what it would have been really a sacrifice for them to adopt. Presents of substantial worth sometimes graced these festivals; and a silver bowl, given at Oliver Heywood's nuptials, continued for many years an heirloom in the family. IV. The ideal of the Puritan woman is one of the fairest types of womanhood-face full of the beautifulness of modesty; eyes lustrous with the calm light of devotion; countenance expressive of firmness and gentleness, meekness and love; dress of subdued colour-of silk, or stuff, according to the wearer's rank; kerchief white as snow; no "plaiting of hair," but locks tucked back, smooth and glossy as a raven's wing. The bashful maiden sat in her garden bower, with lute and psalmbook; the matron, with her waiting women, in the fair oak parlour after morning prayer, her character formed 'These particulars are gleaned from Brand's Popular Antiquities. on King Lemuel's model, "seeking wool and flax, and working willingly with her hands; " laying her hands to the spindle, and her hands holding the distaff; stretching forth her hand to the poor, reaching forth her hands to the needy; opening her mouth with wisdom, while on her tongue is the law of kindness; looking well to the ways of her household, and not eating the bread of idleness. This is a lovelier type of female humanity than can be found in any of Lily's pictures of Charles II.'s beauties, with luscious lips and dainty lovelocks-with their outward adorning, and wearing of gold, and putting on of apparel. Modern painters, with the instinctive insight of genius, see and appreciate the fact, and hence depict, not the Puritan in love with the Cavalier's daughter, but the Cavalier in love with the Puritan girl. Puritan houses exhibited Scripture texts upon the doors and over the fire-places; also upon the baby's cot, and even upon a wooden skillet or a copper kettle. Godly verses hung on the walls, forming decorations destitute of all beauty, save such as might exist in the meaning of the words printed in rude type and upon coarse paper. The ladies, in fair white stomachers and silken skirts, plied their needles or read their books. A few conned the Greek Testament or spelt out the Hebrew Bible. Lips and the lute yielded fair music; but in some cases a large induction from the study of natural history seems. to have been considered necessary to vindicate the recreation, for it was sagely observed: "Of all beasts, saith Ælian, there is not that delighteth not in harmony only the ass; strange would it be for man to love it not." It ought in this connection, however, to be remembered that the songs of the seventeenth century were not generally of a kind to commend themselves to minds distinguished by purity; and therefore, amongst religious and virtuous persons, a prejudice extensively obtained against all music except such as was sacred. V. Family worship was maintained with conscientious regularity, but was sometimes carried to a most wearisome length. In earlier days, Presbyterians had been cautious in their prolonged devotions, lest they should be interrupted by their neighbours, and had even adopted the very strange expedient of posting a boy by the gate, to sing and shout, for the purpose of deadening the voice of the individual who might be engaged in domestic supplication. When alarming events occurred, persons of this description would spend whole nights in the exercises of devotion; and Oliver Heywood, referring to one of these seasons, remarks: "Such a night of prayers, tears, and groans, I was never present at in all my life."1 Whilst in the days of the Civil Wars and the Protectorate the Puritans had full liberty of worship, their Episcopalian neighbours were obliged to take the place of those whom they had previously persecuted; and the reader of "Woodstock" will, perhaps, call to mind Sir Henry Lee, in his wicker chair, listening to an old man, in a dilapidated clerical habit, reading prayers, as Alice knelt at her father's feet, uttering "responses with a voice that might have suited a choir of angels." The picture is no doubt over-coloured, and may express a deceptive kind of sentimentalism; yet the circumstances of domestic worship in the dwelling of a High Church family would not be unlike the graphic sketch supplied by the great novelist. Puritanical servants were ill at ease in houses where young gentlewomen learned to play, and dance, and sing; but they breathed a congenial atmosphere in places where the means of grace were amply enjoyed, and a rigid |