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On the subject of oaths, solemn though it. be, our author has some caustic remarks to make. There is the story of a man who held up his left hand, and, on being corrected by the judge, replied, " It is all the same, Mon sieur; I swear equally well with either." A smattering of learning follows, to the effect that the ancient Flamens were not required to swear, and that priests had been for a long time exempt. "Even in our day," it is added, " the clergy do not swear on the Gospels, and have an oath different from the common form; for they place the hand ad pestus, which was called in old French an py. The reason of all this is and was," he con tinues very sensibly, " that it is absurd to doubt the faith of those to whose hands we have confided all divine things." The great value of an oath is shown by the fact that by its means Henry of England cleared himself of the murder of the Archbishop of Canter bury, Charles VII. of the death of the Duke of Burgundy, Pope Marcellius of the accusa tion of idolatry, etc. It is only natural that in the course of the discussion, if we can dignify this old-world gossip by the name, that the freaks and sub tleties of the law itself should come under notice, as well as the foibles of its professors. Accordingly, a number of instances are given of insoluble problems suddenly presenting themselves where all seemed plain and easy, of some of those inextricable complications which, when they occur, recall the lines of Charleval on the conduct of life : — "Avant qu'en savoir les lois La clarte' nous est ravie; II faudroit vivre deux fois Pour bien conduire sa vie." There was a law in a certain country, ac cording to Bodin, which decreed that he who provoked a sedition should be punished with death, and he who appeased a tumult of that kind should receive five hundred crowns. No doubt was entertained as to the wisdom or sufficiency of these provisions until it oc curred that a certain citizen, after having

stirred up a seditious tumult, became himself the peacemaker, and restored order. Here was a difficulty! On the one side it was argued that the five hundred crowns were clearly due, as more weight should be given to his good action in calming the revolt than to his misdemeanor in raising it. The magis trates, however, entertained no such moral distinctions, but proceeded on the stern lines of fact. He had raised a sedition first, and appeased it afterwards. Let him be hanged, then, first; and when that is done, the reward will be paid on his applying for it. Another difficulty cited is that in which Augustus was placed, he having published a reward of twenty-five thousand crowns to the person who should bring him the head of Crocatus, the Spanish robber. Crocatus brought it himself, and was presented with the reward, and pardoned. But the reader may think that he has had enough of the Sieur Brocourt and his pleas antries, which, like the " motti " and " burle" of the Italians of the preceding age, are apt to pall on the modern taste. But the glimpse which he gives us of his place and time is not without its value. He brings to our view the old town of Poitiers, with its quaint and not uncultivated society; we hear mur murs of the law's delay mingled with praises of the prompt justice done by the Consuls des Marchands; we see the motley crowd of peasants and citizens moving through a maze of daily circumstance which has found no other place in the memory of the world. Through all this turmoil there move the figures of judge and advocate, the one dig nifying his natural shrewdness by a some what florid learning; the other, if these tales be true, sometimes endangering the reputa tion of his calling. But we should be glad to believe that this latter catastrophe had not so much existence in fact as in the grotesque im agination and quaint humors with which Guillaume Bouche enlivened the select so ciety of Poitiers some three hundred years ago. — Journal of Jurisprudence.