Stephen Marshall. By E. Vaughan. (A. Fairbairns and Co. 2s.
6d.)—This "forgotten Essex Puritan" was a notable man in his day. He was a graduate of Cambridge, from that great Puritan stronghold, Emmanuel. Taking Orders, he became vicar of Wethersfield, in Essex. We have some interesting notes of clerical life in the seventeenth century. It is strange, for instance, to see this Puritan vicar signing a permit for two women in his parish to eat flesh during Lent. Do the controversialists who abuse the Puritans so freely know how "primitive" they often were ? Marshall came into collision with Laud, but not with any serious result. He was a man of wealth and position. Anyhow, he remained undisturbed till his side got the upper hand. A bigot he never was; in fact, the extremists of his party highly disapproved of his moderate counsels. And when things came to the worst, Marshall was among the protesters. He went back from London to Wethersfield, but moderation was out of favour there, as elsewhere. He left the place before long, and worked for a while in Ipswich. In November, 1655, he died, and, so much honoured was he by those who knew his worth, he was buried in Westminster Abbey. His remains were contumeliously "extirpated" when the extremists at the other end came into power. But the fate that lie shared with Cromwell and Blake at the bands of the basest of the Stuarts was not a dishonour.
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