[TO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR:']
your issue of November 4th, in his letter to you touching the claims of great actors to be buried in the great Abbey, Canon Duckworth asks : " What did Garrick leave behind him P Only a great reputation." But to his lasting honour it should be remembered that he gave the death-blow to those scandalous weddings (familiarly known as " Fleet marriages ") which the famous Hardwicke Act of 1753 had scotched, but not killed. For a clergyman called Wilkinson, claiming that the Savoy was exempt from the operation of the Act, married, it is said, fourteen hundred couples after it had become law. Garrick, ever anxious to main- tain a high standard of marriage, was horrified to learn that one of his company had been thus irregularly wedded in 1756. He obtained possession of the so-called " Savoy license," sent it to the Government, who secured the con- viction and transportation of Wilkinson, and thus put an end for ever to such clandestine marriages. Surely this is a good reputation to have left behind.—I am, Sir, &c., St. Dude's Vicarage, Whitechapel, E. E. C. CARTEL
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