The Englishman, whom we will call the historian in swearing, will depose to the truth of this or that fact, but there the line is drawn; he swears his oath so far as he knows, and stands still.  “I’m sure, for my part, I don’t know; I’ve said all I knows about it,” and beyond this his besotted intellect goeth not.

The Scotchman, on the other hand, who is the metaphysician in swearing, sometimes borders on equivocation.  He decidedly goes farther than the Englisman, not because he has less honesty, but more prudence.  He will assent to, or deny a proposition; for the Englishman’s “I don’t know,” and the Scotchman’s “I dinna ken,” are two very distinct assertions when properly understood.  The former stands out a monument of dulness, an insuperable barrier against inquiry, ingenuity, and fancy; but the latter frequently stretches itself so as to embrace hypothetically a particular opinion.

But Paddy!  Put him forward to prove an alibi for his fourteenth or fifteenth cousin, and you will be gratified by the pomp, pride, and circumstance of true swearing.  Every oath with him is an epic—­pure poetry, abounding with humor, pathos, and the highest order of invention and talent.  He is not at ease, it is true, under facts; there is something too commonplace in dealing with them, which his genius scorns.  But his flights—­his flights are beautiful; and his episodes admirable and happy.  In fact, he is an improvisatore at oath-taking; with this difference, that his extempore oaths possess all the ease and correctness of labor and design.

He is not, however, altogether averse to facts:  but, like your true poet, he veils, changes, and modifies them with such skill, that they possess all the merit and graces of fiction.  If he happen to make an assertion incompatible with the plan of the piece, his genius acquires fresh energy, enables him to widen the design, and to create new machinery, with such happiness of adaptation, that what appeared out of proportion of character is made, in his hands, to contribute to the general strength and beauty of the oath.

’Tis true, there is nothing perfect under the sun; but if there were, it would certainly be Paddy at an alibi.  Some flaws, no doubt, occur; some slight inaccuracies may be noticed by a critical eye; an occasional anachronism stands out, and a mistake or so in geography; but let it be recollected that Paddy’s alibi is but a human production; let us not judge him by harsher rules than those which we apply to Homer, Virgil, or Shakspeare.

“Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus,” is allowed on all hands.  Virgil made Dido and AEneas contemporary, though they were not so; and Shakspeare, by the creative power of his genius, changed an inland town into a seaport.  Come, come, have bowels.  Let epic swearing be treated with the same courtesy shown to epic poetry, that is, if both are the production of a rare genius.  I maintain, that when Paddy commits a blemish he is too harshly admonished for it.  When he soars out of sight here, as occasionally happens, does he not frequently alight somewhere about Sydney Bay, much against his own inclination?  And if he puts forth a hasty production, is he not compelled, for the space of seven or fourteen years, to revise his oath?  But, indeed, few words of fiction are properly encouraged in Ireland.