terrible profanity we have been delivered by comparatively recent Acts of the Legislature, which have operated in two directions. One, that of diminishing the length and complexity of the oaths still administered, and the other that of greatly diminishing their number. The long and elaborate oaths of allegiance, supremacy and abjuration, have shrunk, after many lengthenings and shortenings, into the brief and simple form-" I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria, her heirs and successors, according to law-so help me God;" while oaths have been abolished and declarations substituted in a large number of cases, including of course a still larger number of occasions.* And yet, when we examine those which remain, we are quite unable to discover on what principle some of these have been retained, while others have been abolished. Why, for instance, declarations should be substituted for oaths in the case of gentlemen-at-arms, yeomen of the guard, members of the household, members of municipal corporations, guilds, societies, and companies, and not in the case of archbishops and bishops, clergymen, peers, baronets, and knights on their creation. Perhaps the most curious illustration of the capriciousness of these distinctions is the case of clerical subscription. A clergyman, at his institution to a benefice, takes two oaths and makes one declaration-the oaths being those of allegiance and canonical obedience, the declaration being that against simony. Most persons will probably be of opinion that if there is to be any swearing on this occasion, the above order should be exactly reversed. Surely it is time to consider whether most, if not all, of these oaths might not with advantage go the way the others have gone before them, and simple declarations, where even these are deemed still necessary, be substituted for them. Am I asked then what oaths would you yourself retain? I reply, those and those only which answer to the conditions which I have laid down in this article as essential to all oath-taking-namely, that they shall be necessary for a sufficiently important object. And if again I am asked which do you include under this head? I reply, first, certainly not the Parliamentary Oath, for it serves no important object-no religious object certainly, and no political one which cannot at least be equally well served by a simple declaration required alike from all Members of Parliament. I say, alike from all, for assuredly I would propose no special Atheists' Relief Bill. I would have no special provision made in their favour by allowing them to profane a solemn affirmation, any more than to profane an oath. Their presence in the Legislature is hardly a blessing so priceless as that we need break out an entrance there for their special and * One Act alone (5 & 6 Will. IV.) for "the abolition of unnecessary oaths," repeals over one hundred Acts, or portions of Acts requiring oaths. separate use. I would place all members of the Legislature on the same level of plain and simple declaration or promise. More than this the case does not seem to me to require, if it even require so much as this.* وو In like manner I would abolish all oaths of office, or "promissory oaths. The only value of these, as it seems to me, lies in their setting forth the nature and the duties of the office undertaken, and thus impressing these on the mind of the person undertaking it. But this end would equally be attained by a declaration, while the failure to discharge these duties is now guarded against by ample powers of dismissal. There is, in short, but one class of oaths which I would retain—namely, those taken in courts of justice, or in those legal processes which are connected with such courts-affidavits, sworn interrogatories, and the like. And I would do so because a court of justice is the one and only place I know of where a power beyond all legal restraint, or at least all immediate legal restraint or prevention, still remains and therefore still needs all the checks upon its exercise that we can devise. No barbarian warrior with his foe at his feet, no baron of the Middle Ages, with dungeon keep and right of pit and The history of the Parliamentary Oath can hardly be compressed within the limits of a note; but the following brief summary of it may be interesting, and perhaps instructive. The oath of allegiance, Blackstone tells us, sprang from the feudal system under which the vassal, in return for his lord's protection, bound himself by an oath of fealty "to be faithful to him, and defend him against all enemies," reserving only the rights of the superior lord. The oath to the superior lord, the king, as it could not be an oath of fealty, he having no superior, was termed the Oath of Allegiance, and was couched almost in the same terms with that of fealty, and contained the promise" to be true and faithful to the king and his heirs," and to defend him from "all ill or damage intended him." As "ill or damage" to the king and his heirs were threatened from time to time by various persons, and notably by the Pope and the Pretender, these were specially denounced and abjured in sundry declarations and oaths of abjuration and supremacy, devised from time to time. For instance--the AntiRoman Catholic declaration of Car. II., which forswears transubstantiation, invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of the mass. The Oath of Supremacy, 1 Geo. I. c. 2, s. 13, which denounces "the damnable doctrine that princes may be deprived by the Pope, and declares that no foreign prince, person, prelate, &c., hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, supremacy, pre-eminence, or authority, spiritual or ecclesiastical, within this realm." The Oath of Abjuration of the same date, which denounces and renounces all "descendants of the person who pretended to be the Prince of Wales," and vows allegiance to those of the Princess Sophia, with a fulness and at a length which makes it less like an oath than a legal and theological treatise. The Roman Catholic oath of 1829, which also abjures and renounces sundry dangerous opinions with great vigour and at great length. And then, happily for men's consciences and almost for their wits, a series of abbreviations of these oaths begins. The Act 21 & 22 Victoria substitutes for the Oaths of Allegiance, Abjuration, and Supremacy, "one uniform oath," a tolerably long one, and relieves Jewish Members of Parliament from the use of the words, on the "faith of a Christian." Then came the Act 29 & 30 Vict., c. 19, considerably abridging the one uniform oath of 21 & 22 Victoria, and repealing sundry remaining fragments of former Acts relating to oaths. And lastly came the Act 31 & 32 Vict., c. 72, which gives us the still more abbreviated and simpler form now in use, "I will be faithful, and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria, her heirs and successors according to law, so help me God." The above does not pretend to be an exhaustive history of our Parliamentary Oath; but it is sufficiently so, I hope, to illustrate the principle underlying it all--namely, that the oath has been always that of a vassal promising to be loyal to and defend his lord against all enemies; never that of a legislator promising rightly and justly to discharge the duties of his high office. And thus it has been lengthened or shortened according as enemies to the throne appeared upon, or vanished from, the political arena. gallows, ever possessed more tremendous power than that which is nowadays possessed by the witness or the juryman in a court of law. A word from his mouth may consign an innocent man to the gibbet, or to a lifelong imprisonment; may strip him in a moment of all his possessions, or blast him with a social outlawry as terrible as the terrors of the excommunication of old. Against such a power as this we do well still to take all the security that an oath can give us. For this reason and for this alone would I, while abolishing all, or nearly all, other oaths, retain this only. It is the only one which seems to me to completely fulfil the conditions which make oath-taking expedient or even morally right. It is the only one of which a man can say in the words of St. Augustine, "Juro magnâ necessitate compulsus." I would retain it until either—which God forbid-it had lost for all men all its meaning, and therefore all its deterrent power; or until, on the other hand, the entire English people had grown so truthful, so deeply conscious that all words spoken are spoken in the presence of a Divine Witness and Judge, that their word should be to them as sacred as an oath. And if this consummation, devoutly as we may wish for it, seem, as alas! it does, too wildly improbable ever to be realized, I would fain that we should do all that we may or can to draw towards it by deepening in the hearts of men a love of truth and a hatred of falsehood; and to this end I am fully persuaded it would largely help us were our administration of oaths made as solemn, as reverent, as cautious, and as manifestly reluctant as we can properly or safely make it. If we may not hope ever to attain to a state of things when it shall be possible literally to obey our Lord's command, "Swear not at all," we may at least aim at and strive for a state of things when men shall realize, far more deeply and generally than they yet do, that whatsoever is more than the yea and nay of simple truth and honesty comes of the deep-seated evil of untruthfulness in the hearts and lives of men. It is to the correcting of this great root-evil, to the growth of a spirit of truthfulness amongst us, rather than to the dishonest wranglings of party politicians, or the honest but angry and misleading utterances of religious passion, prejudice, or panic, that we must look for the true solution of the question, "Ought we to abolish oaths?" W. C. PETERborough. VOL. XLIX. с PARNELL AND GRATTAN: A DIALOGUE. PARNELL. Mr. Grattan's spirit, I believe? P. At my service? Nay, pray don't say that, or I shall be more abused than ever. My enemies complain that I show no signs of it in my conduct. G. Sir, it is not for me to P. No; but they had better suppose that you decline to inspire me than that I reject the inspiration. that you do not disown us. G. Disown you! God forbid ! whole soul. P. You have heard, then? As for our party, it is enough I congratulate you with my G. I have. I have followed your course but intermittently of late, having been, I will confess to you, but little attracted towards your followers. But I have heard thus much, that your triumph is assured. P. It is. I hold both English parties in the hollow of my hand. G. There are some who would cry out to you to close and clench it. They would be wrong, however. P. They would, indeed. Where should we have been to-day but for the existence and rivalry of English parties? Nay, where should we be to-morrow if those parties or their rivalry were to disappear? G. Rest you easy, sir. No such miracle will happen. P. I have no fear of it; although, no doubt, we may crush their system in the act of profiting by it. Competing with each other, as they will compete, for the privilege of selling what they call "the integrity of their Empire," both parties may be swept away. A good riddance of them, and of the detestable Government that has flourished by them. G. You distress me, Mr. Parnell, by the manner in which you speak of England. We cherished no such bitterness against her in my day. If we strove with her for our independence, it was as one who claims a brother's share in an inheritance, not as one who seeks to wrest a weapon from a foe. P. H'm! Your manner of setting about it was not strikingly fraternal. Your brotherly salute from a hundred thousand pikes, Mr. Grattan G. Was addressed, not to the brother, but the unjust guardian. We always distinguished between the English Government and the English people. P. So do we. The one oppresses us, the other only looks on and applauds. G. In the hottest of our struggles with Ministers and Parliaments we always believed that the English people wished us well. P. No doubt. Irishmen are a credulous race. Still, they are open to conviction, especially after something like a century of experience. The simplest of us now understand the sense in which the English wish Ireland well. They wish her well because her sickness is a danger to them, and her moanings break their sleep. They wish her well as an unnatural mother wishes the child well whom she scarcely dares to murder, and has vainly endeavoured to kill by neglect. G. Nay, but surely, surely, Mr. Parnell, the English people have often shown their good-will towards Ireland in good deeds? P. When? and where? I should like to know of the English good deed that proceeded from a good-will; or, for that matter, from any will at all. Was England a benevolent, was she even a spontaneous, agent in the two most famous deliverances of our country during the last hundred years? Will you tell me that English policy in those transactions was the willing handmaid of affection and not the lagging slave of fear? Did England yield our independence to anything but the pikes of our Volunteers? You know, sir, that she did not. Did she emancipate our Catholics except from fear of insurrection and distrust of the half-Catholic army which would have to be summoned to suppress it? Ask O'Connell. And if now she is about to make her last concessionor her last but one-what generous instinct, what friendly impulse, in the English mind shall we have to thank for it? We have tied her hands, and she will restore us our liberties with all the good-will of the pinioned highwayman directing a plundered traveller to his coat pocket. G. Your metaphor is misleading. England is under no physical |