epilogue written and spoken by Garrick on quitting
the stage, 1776.[2]

A parallel passage appears in _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III. Sc. 3.:

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."

NEWBURIENSIS.

The following lines, and the accompanying paraphrase, probably those
inquired after by X. Y., are in Davison's _Poems, or a Poetical Rhapsody_
(p. 50., 4th impression, 1621), where they form the third "device." I do
not know who the writer was.

"Quid pluma laevius? Pulvis. Quid pulvere? Ventus.
Quid vento? Mulier. Quid muliere? Nihil."

"Dust is lighter than a feather,
And the wind more light than either;
But a woman's fickle mind
More than a feather, dust, or wind."

F. E. E.

The lines quoted by L. are the first two (a little altered) in the opening
stanza of a ballad entitled _The Berkshire Lady_. The correct version (I
speak on the authority of a copy which I procured nearly thirty years ago
in the great ballad-mart of those days, the Seven Dials) is,--

"Bachelors of every station,
Mark this strange but true relation,
Which in brief to you I bring;
Never was a stranger thing."

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: [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 {403} as strong an oath as
any other of the witnesses; but he added that, if he himself were to be
sworn, he would lay his