INCREDIBLE LIARS
The French papers in the autumn of 1821 mention, that a man named Desjardins was tried, on his own confession, as an accomplice with Louvel, the assassin of the duke de Berri. But, on his defence, Desjardins contended that his confession ought not to be believed, because he was so notorious for falsehood, that nobody in the world would give credit to a word he said. In support of this, he produced a host of witnesses, his friends and relatives, who all swore that the excessive bad character he had given of himself was true, and he was declared “not guilty.”
This case parallels with a similar instance some years before in Ireland. A man was charged with highway robbery. In the course of the trial the prisoner roared out from the dock that he was guilty; but the jury pronounced him by their verdict “not guilty.” The astonished judge exclaimed, “Good God, gentlemen, did you not hear the man himself declare that he was guilty?” The foreman said, “We did, my lord, and that was the very reason we acquitted him, for we knew the fellow to be so notorious a liar that he never told a word of truth in his life.”
For the Table Book.
HEBREW MELODY,
A Portuguese Hymn.
How blest is the mortal who never reposes
In seat of the scorner, nor roams o’er the ground,
Where Pleasure is strewing her thorn-covered roses.
And waving her gay silken banners around.
Who worships his Maker when evening is throwing
Her somberest shadows o’er mountain and lea;
And kneels in devotion when daylight is glowing,
And gilding the waves of the dark rolling sea.
He shall be like a tree on the calm river waving,
That riseth all glorious all lovely to view,
Whose deeply fix’d root the pure waters are laving,
Whose boughs are enriched with the kindliest dew.
Not so the ungodly! his fate shall resemble
The chaff by autumnal winds wafted away;
And when life’s fading lamp in its socket shall tremble
Shall look to the judgment with fear and dismay!
T. Q. M.
Ivy Cottage, Grassington in Craven,
October 21, 1827.