"_Truth_ is the third person singular of the indicative _trow_. It was formerly written _troweth_, _trowth_, _trouth_, and _troth_. And it means (_aliquid_, anything, something) that which one _troweth_, i.e. thinketh, or firmly believeth."
Dugald Stewart, in his _Philosophical Essays_, justly observes regarding the principle involved in such speculations, that "if it were admitted as sound, it would completely undermine the foundations both of logic and of ethics."
"_Worse than a Crime_" (Vol. iv., p. 274.).--In reply to a question you attribute the famous saying concerning the murder of the Duc D'Enghien to Talleyrand.
If you will refer to p. 266. vol. i. of Fouché's _Memoirs_, 2nd edition, 1825, C. Knight, you will find that he claims the saying to himself:
"I was not the person who hesitated to express himself with the least restraint respecting the violence against the rights of nations and of humanity. 'It is more than a crime, it is a political fault.' I said words which I record, because they have been repeated and attributed to others."
In matters of rumour different people hear different things. I never heard the words "c'estoit pire qu'un crime, c'estoit une faute," ascribed to any one but Fouché of Nantes. I have understood that the late Prince of Condé would not hold any intercourse with the Prince de Talleyrand, or with the Court when he was present officiating as Grand Chamberlain of France, owing to his full conviction of that minister's privity to the murder of his son. But how is that consistent with Talleyrand's more than condemning, and even ridiculing the action?
_Verses in Classical Prose_ (Vol. iv., p. 382.).--Merely as matter of information, permit me to refer your correspondent A. A. D. to the notes of Glareanus and Drakenborch on the first lines of Livy's preface, and to the "variorum" commentators on the first line of Tacitus' _Annals_ ("Urbem Romanam a principio reges habuere"), for a collection of examples of the occurrence of verse in prose compositions.
_Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru_ (Vol. iv., p. 257.).--Probably the melodramatic spectacle mentioned by MR. HASKINS was derived from a Spanish book, of which I possess an English translation, bearing the following title:--