_Macaulay's Young Levite._--I met, the other day with a rather curious
confirmation of a passage in Macaulay's _History of England_, which
has been more assailed perhaps than any other.
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!"