ministering it. It must be taken corpor- follows: "You shall tell the truth, and ally, that is to say, by the witness laying his hand upon some part of the Scriptures, or, which is sufficient, upon the Common Prayer-Book containing the Epistles and Gospels. "Hear this, thou that call est thyself John by the name of baptism, whom I hold by the hand, the falsely upon me thou hast lied, and for this thou liest, that I, who call myself Harold by the name of baptism, did not feloniously murder thy father, William by name - So help me God." The appellant then kissed the book, and added: "And this will defend against thee by my body, as this court shall award." The appellant was then sworn in like manner, and the mode of battle having been decided on, the combatants fell to. Many curious cases are recorded in regard to witnesses sworn according to the formalities declared by them to be binding upon their consciences. One man, who declined to be sworn in the usual way, placed his hands to his buttons and declared that he was then under oath, and this was held to satisfy the law. The old form of a Scotch Covenanter's oath is specially solemn: "I, A. B., do swear by God himself, as I shall answer to him at the Great Day of Judg. ment, that the evidence I shall give to the court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth So help me God." By way of contrast may be men tioned the oath of a Chinaman, who, on entering the witness-box, kneels down and breaks a china saucer against the box. The oath is then interpreted to him as

the whole truth; the saucer is cracked, and if you do not tell the truth, your soul will be cracked like the saucer." The Mahomedan's oath-sworn on the Koran is more impressive. The witness first places his right hand flat upon the book, and his left hand to his forehead; he then lowers his head until it touches the book, and declares himself bound to speak the truth. This, at least, was the formality adopted in a "leading case." An instance of eccentricity in the way of "swearing" is recorded in Lord Campbell's "Lives of the Chancellors." The story was attrib uted to Lord Erskine. When he was counsel in an important cause, a witness was called, who, without describing hiniself as of any particular sect, stated that he objected to take the oath in the usual form, but said he would hold up his hand and swear, but without kissing the book. On being questioned as to his reason, he stated that it was because it was written in the Book of Revelation "that the angel, standing on the sea, held up his hand." Against the sufficiency of this objection Erskine urged that in the first place the witness was not an angel; and secondly it could not be known how the angel would have sworn if he had stood on dry ground as the witness did. The presiding judge (Lord Kenyon) sent into the Common Pleas to consult Lord Chief Justice Eyre, who thought the witness was entitled to be sworn in the manner he desired, and that was permitted accordingly.

DOUGLAS M. FORD.

THE PALACE OF URBINO. This famous | We recall the glittering pageants, concerts, palace still rears its airy turrets and balconies, and dances, the plays and pastorals, which like some enchanted castle, above the black- these deserted halls witnessed. Bibbiena's ness of the old town. Those marvellous collections of pictures, of tapestries, and MSS., of which Giovanni Santi and Bembo and Castiglione all wrote in turn, which so filled the vast halls that it seemed less a palace than a city, have all vanished. But still, as we wander through the desolate rooms, the medallions of Federigo and Guidobaldi, the eagle of Montefeltro, the garter of England, borne by two dukes in turn, meet us everywhere among the dancing Loves, the roses and carnations, carved in delicate relief on marble doorways and mantelpieces. At every step we are reminded of some page of the "Cortigiano."

Calandra, Castiglione's Tirsi, we think of them. We pause before a high-arched window to look on the purple mountains, and suddenly we remember that it was here the perfect gentleman watched Elizabeth singing Virgil to the sweet strains of her lute. We think, above all, of that summer night when Madonna Emelia led the conversation in the chambers of the duchess, and Bembo grew rapturous in praise of love; till the short hours of darkness had fled, and the dawn broke rosy over the snowy peaks of Monte Catria in the far east, and through the open casement came the morning songs of the waking birds.

Julia Cartwright, in the Magazine of Art.

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From Macmillan's Magazine.
GEORGE BORROW.

to seem impertinence. To anybody else (and unfortunately the anybody else is in a large majority) praise bestowed on Borrow is apt to look like that very dubious kind of praise which is bestowed on somebody of whom no one but the praiser has ever heard. I cannot think of any single writer (Peacock himself is not an exception) who is in quite parallel case. And, as usual, there is a certain excuse for the general public. Borrow kept himself during not the least exciting period of English history quite aloof from English politics, and from the life of great English cities. But he did more than this. He

IN this paper I do not undertake to throw any new light on the little known life of the author of "Lavengro." I believe that there is ground for hoping that, among the few people who knew Borrow intimately, some one will soon be found who will give to the world an account of his curious life, and perhaps some specimens of those "mountains of manuscript" which, as he regretfully declares, never could find a publisher - an impossibility which, if I may be permitted to offer an opinion, does not reflect any great credit on publishers. For our present purpose is the only really considerable writer of it is sufficient to sum up the generally his time in any modern European nation known facts that Borrow was born in who seems to have taken absolutely no 1803 at East Dereham in Norfolk, his interest in current events, literary and father being a captain in the army, who other. Putting a very few allusions aside, came of Cornish blood, his mother a lady he might have belonged to almost any of Norfolk birth and Huguenot extraction. His youth he has himself described in a fashion which nobody is likely to care to paraphrase. After the years of travel chronicled in "Lavengro," he seems to have found scope for his philological and adventurous tendencies in the rather un-rise, and, in some instances, the death, of likely service of the Bible Society; and he sojourned in Russia and Spain to the great advantage of English literature. This occupied him during the greater part of the years from 1830 to 1840. Then he came back to his native county- or, at any rate, his native district-married a widow of some property at Lowestoft, and spent the last forty years of his life at Oulton Hall, near the piece of water which is thronged in summer by all manner of sportsmen and others. He died but the other day; and even since his death he seems to have lacked the due meed of praise which the lord chief justice of the equal foot usually brings even to persons far less deserving than Borrow.

There is this difficulty in writing about him, that the audience must necessarily consist of fervent devotees on the one hand, and of complete infidels, or at least complete know-nothings, on the other. To any one who, having the faculty to understand either, has read "Lavengro" or "The Bible in Spain," or even "Wild Wales," praise bestowed on Borrow is apt

period. His political idiosyncrasy will be noticed presently; but he who lived through the whole period from Waterloo to Maiwand has not, as far as I remem ber, mentioned a single English writer later than Scott and Byron. He saw the

Tennyson, Thackeray, Macaulay, Carlyle, Dickens. There is not a reference to any one of them in his works. He saw politi cal changes such as no man for two centuries had seen, and (except the Corn Laws, to which he has some half-ironical allusions, and the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, which stirred his one active sentiment), he has referred to never a one. He seems in some singular fashion to have stood outside of all these things. His Spanish travels are dated for us by refer ences to Doña Isabel, and Don Carlos, to Mr. Villiers, and Lord Palmerston. But cut these dates out and they might be trav els of the last century. His Welsh book proclaims itself as written in the full course of the Crimean War; but excise a few passages which bear directly on that event, and the most ingenious critic would be puzzled to "place" the composition. Shakespeare, we know, was for all time, not of one age only; but I think we may say of Borrow, without too severely or conceitedly marking the difference, that he was not of or for any particular age or

time at all. If the celebrated query in Longfellow's "Hyperion," "What is time?" had been addressed to him, his most appropriate answer, and one which he was quite capable of giving, would have been, "I really don't know."

Laws with a certain amount of regret, and his general attitude is quite Eldonian. But he combined with his general Toryism very curious Radicalisms of detail, such as are to be found in Cobbett (who, as appeared at last, and as all reasonable men should have always known, was really a Tory of a peculiar type), and in several other English persons. The Church, the monarchy, and the constitu

To this singular historical vagueness has to be added a critical vagueness even greater. I am sorry that I am unable to confirm or to gainsay at first hand Borrow's wonderfully high estimate of certain | tion generally were dear to Borrow, but he Welsh poets. But if the originals are hated all the aristocracy (except those anything like his translations of them, I whom he knew personally), and most of do not think that Ab Gwilym and Lewis the gentry. Also, he had the odd Radical Glyn Cothi, Gronwy Owen and Huw Mor- sympathy for anybody who, as the verris can have been quite such mighty bards nacular has it, was "kept out of his as he makes out. Fortunately, however, rights." I do not know, but I should a better test presents itself. In one book think, that Borrow was a strong Tichof his, "Wild Wales," there are two esti- bornite. In that curious book, "Wild mates of Scott's works. Borrow finds in Wales," where almost more of his real an inn a copy of "Woodstock "(which he character appears than in any other, he calls by its less known title of "The Cav- has to do with the Crimean War. It was alier"), and decides that it is "trashy;" going on during the whole time of his chiefly, it would appear, because the por- tour, and he once or twice reports conver. trait therein contained of Harrison, for sations in which, from his knowledge of whom Borrow seems on one of his in- Russia, he demonstrated beforehand to scrutable principles of prejudice to have Welsh inquirers how improbable, not to had a liking, is not wholly favorable. He say impossible, it was that the Russian afterwards informs us that Scott's "Nor- should be beaten. But the thing that man Horseshoe" (no very exquisite song seems really to have interested him most at the best, and among Scott's somewhat was the case of Lieutenant P— or Lieuless than exquisite) is "one of the most tenant Parry, whom he sometimes alludes stirring lyrics of modern times," and that to in the fuller and sometimes in the less he sang it for a whole evening; evidently explicit manner. My own memories of because it recounts a defeat of the Nor- 1854 are rather indistinct, and I confess mans, whom Borrow, as he elsewhere tells that I have not taken the trouble to look up us in sundry places, disliked for reasons this celebrated case. As far as I can remore or less similar to those which made member, and as far as Borrow's references him like Harrison, the butcher. In other here and elsewhere go, it was the doubtwords, he could not judge a work of liter- less lamentable but not uncommon case ature as literature at all. If it expressed of a man who is difficult to live with, and sentiments with which he agreed, or called who has to live with others. Such cases up associations which were pleasant to occur at intervals in every mess, college, him, good luck to it; if it expressed sen- and other similar aggregation of humantiments with which he did not agree, and ity. The person difficult to live with gets, called up no pleasant associations, bad as they say at Oxford, "drawn." If he is luck. reformable he takes the lesson, and very likely becomes excellent friends with those who "drew" him. If he is not, he loses his temper, and evil results of one kind or another follow. Borrow's Lieutenant P seems unluckily to have been of the latter kind, and was, if I mistake not, recommended by the authorities

In politics and religion this curious and very John Bullish unreason is still more apparent. I suppose Borrow may be called, though he does not call himself, a Tory. He certainly was an unfriend to Whiggery and a hater of Radicalism. He seems to have given up even the Corn