The ballad is an account of "love at first sight," inspired in the breast of a young lady, wealthy and beautiful of course, but who, disdaining such adventitious aids, achieves at the sword's point, and covered with a mask, her marriage with the object of her passion. It is much too long, and not of sufficient merit, for insertion in "N. & Q."
F. E. E.
Footnote 2:[(return)]
[See "N. & Q.," Vol. iii., p. 300.]
OATHS.
(Vol. viii., no. 364, 605.; Vol. ix., p. 45.)
I am extremely obliged to your several correspondents who have replied to my Query.
I now send you "a remarkable case," which occurred in 1657, and throws considerable light upon the subject.
Dr. Owen, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, being a witness for the plaintiff in a cause, refused to be sworn in the usual manner, by laying his right hand upon the book, and by kissing it afterwards; but he caused the book to be held open before him, and he raised his right hand; whereupon the jury prayed the direction of the Court whether they ought to weigh such evidence as strongly as the evidence of another witness. Glyn, Chief Justice, answered them, that in his opinion he had taken