passed over by the civil magistrate, and referred to the gods as avengers of their own dignity.

It must not, on the other hand, be forgotten, that expressions occur, which seem to militate against this conclusion; but I have not met with any, which do not admit of a satisfactory explanation. For example; when his accuser laid to the charge of Rubius, a Roman knight, that "he had violated the name of Augustus by perjury," (evidently making the gravamen of the offence to consist in the perjury having been incurred in the name of the deified emperor:) on this charge Tiberius observes,—“ The oath must be considered in no other light than it would have been had the accused called Jupiter to witness a falsehood; adding, that the injuries of the gods were for the gods to look to*."

Undoubtedly, then, in the earlier ages of Rome, perjury was punishable by the civil magistrate, as an offence against the statet. And the same system

*Tac. Annal., i. 73.

From a passage in Plautus (Rudens, Act v. sc. 3), it has been conjectured, that in ancient times, the duty of punishing for perjury was imposed on the Pontifex Maximus. Gronovius denies this, and interprets the passage as referring only to the custom of the two litigant parties placing a deposit in the hand of the Pontifex, who when the suit was ended, returned to the winning party his deposit, and confiscated that of the loser. The note in the Delphin Edition (the authority for which I am not acquainted with), says plainly, that such as were guilty of perjury, if they had

seems to have prevailed throughout. Calvin (of Heidelberg), after examining the various opinions on this point, comes to the conclusion that perjury was always punished in Rome, but not always in the same manner. A false witness, in a civil action, was liable both to an indictment for perjury, and also to an action for damages, at the suit of the party aggrieved*. And the degree of punishment was left very much to the discretion of the judge. Generally speaking, perjury was punished at Rome either by exile, or transportation to an island, or disfranchisement as a citizen†.

But, however the temporal punishment of perjury varied at Rome, it is melancholy to reflect on the rapid degeneracy of the Roman people from the pre-eminent station they once maintained among the nations of the world for their honour and good faith, and the religious reverence in which the obligation of an oath was once held among them, to the lowest grade of corrupt principles, and flagitious practice, in those same points of duty. To the distinguished place which they once held

sworn by the Gods and the altars of the Gods, were punished by the Pontifex; if they had sworn by the prince, were punished by the prince; if by any other oath, they were punished by the censors. Selden thinks that perjury was seldom punished as such in early ages. B. ii, 11, *C. lib. iv., XX., 13.

De curia submoventur. Pauli Sententiarum, lib. v.,

tit. 15.

among the nations of the world in this respect, Polybius bears most striking and ample testimony, as we have already seen; whilst their miserably degraded and fallen character is painfully forced upon our notice by their historians as well as their poets. Livy, when recording the attempt of the tribunes to insnare the people into such an interpretation of the oath which they had sworn to Cincinnatus, as would involve the guilt of equivocation and subterfuge, accounts for the failure of the attempt, by observing, "that the neglect of the gods which prevailed in his age had not, in those earlier days, reached Rome; nor did every one then, by their subtle interpretation of an oath, make it and the laws bend to their purpose; but, on the contrary, all shaped their own moral conduct by their oath and the laws*;" whilst Juvenal, (every fair deduction being made from his representation, as an overcharged, highly-coloured statement of the vices and crimes which he had undertaken to lash with the utmost severity of his severe pen,) still places the moral and religious condition of his contemporaries in so revolting a light, that we would gladly turn our eyes from them. But perhaps our duty requires us to look steadfastly at the object, and trace the evil to its origin; and then inquire, whether similar causes have not been in operation among us; whether they are not still working the

* Liv. iii., 20.

same melancholy results; and whether we have any control over them, to arrest their progress, and diminish the mischief they may be causing.

Before leaving this brief review of the subject of perjury, as far as relates to the parts of the ancient world with which we are best enabled to become acquainted, I cannot help referring to the testimony borne by Xenophon to a similar progress of degeneracy in Persia. After painting in bright colours the high sense of honour, and the most religious observance of an oath which characterized that nation in the time of Cyrus, and which induced all people, without any suspicion or fear, to trust their property and their persons to them, upon the mere pledge of their oath, that writer laments that in his day no one could place any confidence at all in them. The rulers set the example of injustice and perjury, and the people were not long in following it; for, as Xenophon justly observes, such as the rulers of a country are, such, in general, will also be the people.

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CHAPTER XIV.

PERJURY (CONTINUED).

GERMANY.

THE laws of ancient Germany, must ever supply an interesting subject of inquiry to us Englishmen, inasmuch as many of our institutions may easily be traced to them as their origin. It is, I believe, often difficult to ascertain precisely, what was the ancient law, and what was introduced by Charlemagne, or other monarchs, by positive enactment. In many cases, the old law was incorporated in the new enactment, with more or less of modification and change. Still there is much recorded of the ancient unwritten law of various states. On the subject of perjury, the following particulars are, as I believe, gleaned from the best authorities.

In the earliest times, a witness who injured a party by false-swearing, was punished by such damages as were an equivalent to the injury sustained. If the offender was not able to pay, he became the slave of the party whom he had wronged*. In either case, he was never afterwards

* Heineccius, Elementa Juris Germanici, lib: ii., tit. 27.