2O
THE GREEN BAG
writer speaks as to some dear friend or favorite cousin : "And so I have quite finished this small Treatise. May the Reader find as much profit and delight in the reading of it, as the Author had in Composing of it, such is the urgent desire of Your affectionate friend, JOHN MARCH." Although March is frequently referred to as an authority in the leading works on slander and libel, it is not easy to find any thing in regard to his life in the encyclo pedias, most of them not mentioning his name. However, after a persistent search a sketch of some length was found in the Dictionary of National Biography, from which it appears that he was called to the bar in 1641. In August, 1649, the Coun cil of State nominated him as one of four Commissioners to "order affairs" in Guern sey, and in 1652 he was sent to Scotland by the Council, with three others, to admin ister justice in the courts there. " In 1656," says the Dictionary, "he seems to have been acting as secretary or treasurer to the Trus
tees for the sale of crown lands at Worcester House, and died early in 1657." His widow, Alice, on the sth of February, 1657, peti tioned the Protector as follows: "My truly Christian and pious husband was delivered from a long and expensive sickness by a pious death, and has left me with two small children, weak and unable to bury him decently without help. I beg relief from your compassion, on account of his integrity in his employment in Scotland, and his readiness to go thither again had not Providence prevented." The Council immediately ordered that twenty pounds be paid to the widow. It would not seem probable that Alice March was able to provide a monument to the memory and virtues of her husband. Perhaps his grave is unmarked, but he lives in every sentence of this curious, kindly and lucid book. Through its pages shines a gracious, just and charitable soul, and the reader feels that he has really made the acquaintance of "his affectionate friend, John March." L. C. HOWARD. CHICAGO, ILL., Dec., 1904.
