ashamed to be overcome as you are overcome. You really appear to me a greater, and not a less, man, than you did before, by your compromising with such a noble adversary.

Sir Har. That's some comfort, Jordan. But, d-n me, Sir Charles, I will see the lady; and you shall introduce me to her too.

Sir Ch. That cannot be-What! Shall I introduce a man to a woman, whom I think he ought no more to see, than she should see him? If I thought you would go, I might, if she requested it, be there, lest, from what she has suffered already, she should be too much terrified.

Sir Har. What, sir! You would not turn Quixote again?

Sir Ch. No need, Sir Hargrave. You would not again be the giant who should run away with the lady.

The gentlemen laughed.

Sir Har. By G—, sir, you have carried your matters very triumphantly.

Sir Ch. I mean not triumph, Sir Hargrave. But where either truth or justice is concerned, I hope I shall never palliate.

Mr Bag. Curse me, if I believe there is such another man in the world!

Sir Ch. I am sorry to hear you say that, Mr Bagenhall. Occasion calls not out every man equally.

Sir Har. Why did I not strike him? D—n me, that must have provoked you to fight.

Sir Ch. Provoked, in that case, I should have been, Sir Hargrave. I told you, that I would not bear to be insulted. But, so warranted to take other methods, I should not have used my sword: the case has happened to me before now but I would be upon friendly terms with you, Sir Hargrave.

Sir Har. Curse me, if I can bear my own littleness!

Sir Ch. When you give this matter your cool attention, you will find reason to rejoice, that an enterprize, begun in violence, and carried on so far as you carried it, concluded not worse. Every opportunity you will have for exerting your good qualities, or for repenting of your bad, will contribute to your satisfaction to the end of your life. You could not have been happy, had you prevailed over me.

Think you,

that a murderer ever was a happy man? I am the more serious, because I would have you think of this affair. It might have been a very serious one.

Sir Har. You know, Sir Charles, that I would have compromised with you below. But not one point

Sir Ch. Compromise, Sir Hargrave!-As I told you, I had no quarrel with you; you proposed conditions, which I thought should not be complied with. I aimed not to carry any point. Self-defence, I told you, was the whole of my system.

Mr Bag. You have given some hints, Sir Charles, that you have not been unused to affairs of this kind.

Sir Ch. I have before now met a challenger; but it was when I could not avoid it; and with the resolution of standing only on my own defence, and in the hope of making an enemy a friend. Had I

Mr Bag. What poor toads, Merceda, are we! Mr Mer. Be silent, Bagenhall; Sir Charles had not done speaking. Pray, Sir Charles

Sir Ch. I was going to say, that had I ever premeditatedly given way to a challenge, that I could have declined, I should have considered the acceptance of it as the greatest blot of my life: I am naturally choleric; yet, in this article, I hope I have pretty much subdued myself. In the affair between Sir Hargrave and me, I have the pleasure to reflect, that passion, which I hold to be my most dangerous enemy, has not had, in any one moment, an ascendency over

me.

Sir Har. No, by my soul! And how should it? You came off too triumphantly. You were not hurt. You have no marks to shew. May I be cursed, if, in forgiving you, which yet I know not how to do, I do not think myself the greater hero!

Sir Ch. I will not contest that point with you, Sir Hargrave. There is no doubt but the man, who can subdue his passion and forgive a real injury, is a hero. Only remember, sir, that it was not owing to your virtue that I was not hurt; and that it was not my intention to hurt

you.

Mr Jor. I am charmed with your sentiments, Sir Charles. You must allow me the honour of your acquaintance. We all acknowledge duelling to be criminal; but no one has the courage to break through a bad custom.

Sir Ch. The empty, the false glory, that men have to be thought brave, and the apprehension of being deemed cowards among men, and among women too, very few men aim to get above.

Mr Jor. But you, Sir Charles, have shewn that reputation and conscience are entirely reconcileable.

Mr Bag. You have, by Heaven! And I beg of you, sir, to allow me to claim your farther acquaintance. You may save a soul by it.— Merceda, what say you?

Mr Mer. Say! What a devil can I say? But the doctrine would have been nothing without the example.

Sir Har. And all this at my expense !-But, Sir Charles, I must, I will have Miss Byron.

Mr Jor. I think everything impertinent, that hinders me from asking questions for my information and instruction, of a man so capable of giving both, on a subject of this importance. Allow me, Sir Charles, to ask a few questions, in order to confirm me quite your proselyte. Sir Ch. Taking out his watch, as I saw.]

Time wears. Let my servant be called in. The weather is cold. I directed him to attend before the door.

It was immediately ordered, with apologies. Sir Ch. Ask me, Mr Jordan, what questions you please.

Mr Jor. You have been challenged more than once, I presume.

Sir Ch. I am not a quarrelsome man ; but as it was early known that I made it a principle not to engage in a duel, I was the more subjected, I have reason to think, for that, to inconveniencies of this nature.

Mr Jor. Had you always, Sir Charles, that magnanimity, that intrepidity, and steadiness, I know not what to call it, which we have seen and admire in you?

Sir Ch. I have always considered spirit as the distinction of a man. My father was a man of spirit. I never feared man, since I could write man. As I never sought danger, or went out of the way to meet it, I looked upon it, when it came, as an unavoidable evil, and as a call upon me for fortitude. And hence I hardly ever wanted that presence of mind in it, which a man ought to shew; and which sometimes, indeed, was the means of extricating me from it.

Sir Har. An instance of which, this morning, I suppose you think, has produced?

Sir Ch. I had not that in my head. In Italy, indeed, I should hardly have acted as in the instance you hint at. But in England, and, Sir Hargrave, I was willing to think, in Cavendish Square, I could not but conclude myself safe. I know my own heart. I wished you no evil, sir. I was calm. I expected to meet you full of fire, full of resentment: but it is hard, thought I, (as some extraordinary step seems necessary to be taken,) if I cannot content myself with that superiority, (excuse me, Sir Hargrave,) which my calmness, and Sir Hargrave's passion, must give me over him, or any man. My sword was in my power. Had I even apprehended assassination, the house of an English gentleman could not have been the place for it; and where a confidence was reposed. But one particular instance, I own, I had in my mind, when I said what I did.

All the gentlemen besought him to give it.

Sir Ch. In the raging of the war, now, so seasonably for all the powers at variance, concluded, I was passing through a wood in Germany, in my way to Manheim. My servant, at some distance before me, was endeavouring to find out the right road, there being more than one. He rode back affrighted, and told me he had heard a loud cry of murder, succeeded by groans, which grew fainter and fainter, as those of a dying person; and besought me to make the best of my way back. As I was thinking to do so, (though my way lay through the wood, and I had got more than half way in it,) I beheld six pandours issue from that inner part of the wood, into which, in all probability, they

had dragged some unhappy passenger; for I saw a horse bridled and saddled, without a rider, grazing by the road side. They were well armed. I saw no way to escape. They probably knew every avenue in and out of the wood: I did not. They stopped when they came within two musket shots of me, as if they had waited to see which way I took. Two of them had dead poultry slung across their shoulders, which shewed them to be common plunderers. I took a resolution to ride up to them. I bid my servant, if he saw me attacked, make the best of his way for his own security, while they were employed either in rifling or murdering me; but if they suffered me to pass, to follow me. He had no portmanteau to tempt them. That, and my other baggage, I had caused to be sent by water to Manheim.-I am an Englishman, gentlemen, said I, (judging, if Austrians, as Í supposed they were, that plea would not disavail me:) I am doubtful of my way. Here is a purse; holding it out. As soldiers, you must be gentlemen: it is at your service, if one or two of you will be so kind as to escort and guide me through this wood. They looked upon one another: I was loath they should have time to deliberate-I am upon business of great consequence. Pray direct me the nearest way to Manheim. Take these florins.

At last, one that seemed of authority among them, held out his hand: and, taking the purse, said something in Sclavonian; and two of them, with their pieces slung on their shoulders, and their sabres drawn, led me out of the wood in safety; but hoped, at parting, my farther generosity. I found a few more florins for them; and they rode back into the wood; I suppose to their fellows; and glad I was to come off so well. Had I either seemed afraid of them,or endeavoured to escape, probably I had been lost. Two persons were afterwards found murdered in the wood; one of them, perhaps, the unhappy man whom my servant had heard cry out, and groan.

Mr Jor. I feel now very sensibly, Sir Charles, your danger and escape. Your fortitude indeed was then of service to you.

Sir Har. But, Sir Charles, methinks I shall be easier in myself, if you give me one instance of your making, before now, an enemy a friend. Have you one in point?

Sir Ch. Stories of this nature come very ill from a man's own mouth.

Sir Har. I must have it, Sir Charles. A brother-sufferer will better reconcile me to my

self.

Sir Ch. He was the only son of a noble Venetian family, who had great expectations from him. He was a youth of genius. Another noble family at Urbino, to which he was to be allied in marriage, had also an interest in his welfare. We had made a friendship together at Padua. I was at Venice by his invitation, and stood well with all his family. He took offence against me, at the instigation of a designing relation of his; to own the truth, a lady, as you suppose, Mr Bagenhall, his sister. He would not allow me to defend my innocence to the face of the accuser; nor yet to appeal to his father, who was a person of temper as well as sense. On the contrary, he upbraided me in a manner that I could hardly bear. I was resolved to quit Venice; and took leave of his whole family, the lady excepted, who would not be seen by me. The father and mother parted with me with regret. The young gentleman had so managed, that I could not with honour appeal to them; and, at taking leave of him in their presence, under pretence of a recommendatory letter, he gave into my hand a challenge. The answer I returned, after protesting my innocence, was to this effect: "I am setting out for Verona in a few hours. You know my principles; and I hope will better consider of the matter. I never, while I am master of my temper, will give myself so much cause of repentance to the last hour of my life, as I should have, were I to draw my sword, to the irreparable injury of any man's family; or to run the same risk of injuring my own, and of incurring the final perdition of us both!"

Mr Mer. This answer rather provoked than satisfied, I suppose?

Sir Ch. Provocation was not my intention. I designed only to remind him of the obligations we were both under to our respective families, and to throw in a hint of a still superior consideration. It was likely to have more force in that Roman Catholic country than, I am sorry to say it, it would in this Protestant one.

Sir Har. How, how, Sir Charles, did it end? Sir Ch. I went to Verona. He followed me thither; and endeavoured to provoke me to draw. Why should I draw? said I. Will the decision by the sword be certainly that of justice? You are in a passion. You have no reason to doubt either my skill, or my courage: [On such an occasion, gentlemen, and with such a view, a man may perhaps be allowed to give himself a little consequence:] and solemnly once more do I avow my innocence, and desire to be brought face to face with my accusers.

He raved the more for my calmness. I turned from him, with intent to leave him. He thought fit to offer me a personal insult-I now, methinks, blush to tell it-He gave me a box on the ear, to provoke me to draw

Mr Mer. And did you draw, sir?
Mr Bag. To be sure, you then drew?

VOL. VIII.

Sir Ch. I put him into possession of the lodgings I had taken for myself, and into proper and safe hands. He was, indeed, unable, for a day or two, to direct for himself. I sent for his friends. His servant did me justice as to the provocation. Then it was that I was obliged, in a letter, to acquaint the father of a discovery I had made, which the son had refused to hear; which, with the lady's confession, convinced them all of my innocence. His father acknowledged my moderation; as the young gentleman himself did, desiring a renewal of friendship; but as I thought the affair had gone too far for a cordial reconciliation, and knew that he would not want instigators to urge him to resent an indignity, which he had, however, brought upon himself, by a greater offered to me, I took leave of him and his friends, and revisited some of the German courts; that of Vienna in particular; where I resided some time.

In the meanwhile the young gentleman married. His lady, of the Altieri family, is an excellent woman. He had a great fortune with her. Soon after his nuptials, he let me know, that, as he doubted not, if I had drawn my sword, I should, from his violence at the time, have had his life in my power, he could not but acknowledge that he owed all his acquisitions, and the best of wives, as well as the happiness of both families, with that life, to me.

I apply not this instance: but, Sir Hargrave, as I hope to see you married, and happy, though it can never be, I think, to Miss Byron, such generous acknowledgments as misbecome not an Italian, I shall then hope for from an Englishman.

Sir Har. And had your Italian any marks left him, sir?-Depend upon it, I shall never look into a glass, but I shall curse you to the very pit!

Sir Ch. Well, Sir Hargrave: this only I will add; that, be as sensible as you will, and as I am, of the happy issue of this untoward affair, I will never expect a compliment from you, that shall tend to your abasement.

Mr Jor. Your hand, Sir Hargrave, to Sir Charles

Sir Har. What! without terms?-Curse me, if I do!-But let him bring Miss Byron in his hand to me, (that is the least he can do:) then may I thank him for my wife.

I

Sir Charles would then have taken leave; but all the gentlemen, Sir Hargrave among the rest, were earnest with him to stay a little longer.

Mr Jor. My conversion must be perfected, Sir Charles. This is a subject that concerns us all. We shall remember every tittle of the conversation; and think of it when we do not see you. Let me beg of you to acquaint me, how you came to differ from all other men of honour in your practice, as well as in your notions, upon this subject?

Sir Ch. I will answer your question, Mr Jordan, as briefly as I can.

My father was a man of spirit. He had high notions of honour, and he inspired me early with the same. I had not passed my twelfth year, when he gave me a master to teach me, what is called, the science of defence. I was fond of the practice, and soon obtained such a skill in the weapons, as pleased both my father and master. I had strength of body beyond my years; the exercise added to it. I had agility; it added to my agility; and the praises given me by my father and master, so heightened my courage, that I was almost inclined to wish for a subject to exercise it upon. My mother was an excellent woman; she had instilled into my earliest youth, almost from infancy, notions of moral rectitude, and the first principles of Christianity; now rather ridiculed than inculcated in our youth of condition. She was ready sometimes to tremble at the consequences, which she thought might follow from the attention which I paid (thus encouraged and applauded) to this practice; and was continually reading lectures to me upon true magnanimity, and upon the law of kindness, benevolence, and forgiveness of injuries. Had I not lost her so soon as I did, I should have been a more perfect scholar than I am in these noble doctrines. As she knew me to be naturally hasty, and very sensible of affronts; and as she had observed, as she told me, that, even in the delight she had brought me to take in doing good, I shewed an over readiness, even to rashness, which she thought might lead me into errors, that would more than over-balance the good I aimed to do; she redoubled her efforts to keep me right; and on this particular acquirement of a skill in the management of the weapons, she frequently enforced upon me an observation of Mr Locke; "That young men, in their warm blood, are often forward to think they have in vain learned to fence, if they never shew their skill in a duel."

This observation, insisted upon, and inculcated, as she knew how, was very seasonable at that time of danger. And she never forgot to

From her instructions, I had an early notion, that it was much more noble to forgive an injury than to resent it; and to give a life, than to take it. My father (I honour his memory!) was a man of gaiety, of munificence. He had great qualities. But my mother was my oracle. And he was always so just to her merit, as to command me to consider her as such; and the rather, he used to say, as she distinguished well between the false glory and the true; and would not have her boy a coward.

Mr Mer. A good beginning, by my life! Mr Jor. Pray, proceed, Sir Charles. I am all attention.

Sir Har. Ay, ay, we all listen.

Mr Bag. Curse him that speaks next, to in-terrupt you.

Sir Ch. But what indelibly impressed upon my heart my mother's lessons, was an occurrence, which, and the consequences of it, I shall ever deplore. My father having taken leave of my mother, on a proposed absence of a few days, was, in an hour after, brought home, as it was thought, mortally wounded in a duel. My mother's surprise on this occasion threw her into fits, from which she never after was wholly free. And these, and the dangerous way he continued in for some time, brought her into an ill state of health; broke, in short, her constitution; so that, in less than a twelvemonth, my father, to his inexpressible anguish of mind, (continually reproaching himself on the occasion,) lost the best of wives, and my sisters and I the best of mothers and instructors.

My concern for my father, on whom I was an hourly attendant throughout the whole time of his confinement; and my being by that means a witness of what both he and my mother suffered; completed my abhorrence of the vile practice of duelling. I went on, however, in endeavouring to make myself a master of the science, as it is called; and, among the other weapons, of the staff; the better to enable me to avoid drawing my sword, and to empower me, if called to the occasion, to give, and not take, a life; and the rather, as the custom was so general, that a young man of spirit and fortune, at one time or other, could hardly expect to escape a provocation of this sort.

My father once had a view, at the persuasion of my mother's brother, who was a general of

note and interest in the imperial service, and who was very fond of a military life, and of me, to make a soldier of me, though an only son; and I wanted not, when a boy, a turn that way but the disgust I had conceived, on the above occasion, against duelling, and the consideration of the absurd alternative which the gentlemen of our army are under, either to accept a challenge, contrary to laws divine and human, or to be broke, if they do not, (though a soldier is the least master of himself, or of his own life, of any man in the community,) made me think the English service, though that of my country, the least eligible of all services. And for a man, who was born to so considerable a stake in it, to devote himself to another, as my uncle had done, from principles which I approved not, I could not but hesitate on the proposal, young as I was. As it soon became a maxim with me, not to engage, even in a national cause, without examining the justice of it, it will be the less wondered at, that I could not think of any foreign service.

Mr Bag. Then you have never seen service, Sir Charles?

Sir Ch. Yes, I made one campaign as a volunteer, notwithstanding what I have said. I was then in the midst of marching armies, and could not tell how to abate the ardour those martial movements had raised in my breast. But, unless my country were to be unjustly invaded by a foreign enemy, I think I would not, on any consideration, be drawn into the field again.

Mr Jor. But you lead from the point, Mr Bagenhall: Sir Charles was going to say somewhat more on the subject of duelling.

Sir Ch. When I was thus unhappily deprived of my mother, my father, in order to abate my grief, I was very much grieved,] was pleased to consent to my going abroad, in order to make the grand tour, as it is called; having first visited all the British dominions in Europe, Gibraltar and Minorca excepted. I then supposing I might fall into circumstances that might affect the principles my mother had been so careful to instil into me, and to which my father's danger, and her death, had added force, it was natural for me to look into history, for the rise and progress of a custom so much and so justly my aversion; and which was so contrary to all laws divine and human; and particularly to that true heroism which Christianity enjoins, when it recommends meekness, moderation, and humility, as the glory of the human nature. But I am running into length. Again Sir Charles took out his watch. They were clamorous for him to proceed.

When I found, continued he, that this unchristian custom owed its rise to the barbarous northern nations, who had, however, some plea to make in excuse, which we have not, as they were governed by particular lords, and were

not united under one head or government, to which, as to a last resort, persons supposing themselves aggrieved, might appeal for legal redress; and that these barbarous nations were truly barbarous, and enemies to all politeness; my reasoning on this occasion added new force to prejudices so well founded.

The gentlemen seemed afraid, that Sir Charles had done speaking. They begged he would go on.

I then had recourse, proceeded he, to the histories of nations famous for their courage. That of the Romans, who, by that quality, obtained the empire of the world, was my first subject. I found not any traces in their history, which could countenance the savage custom. When a dispute happened, the challenge from both parties generally was, "That each should appear at the head of the army the next engagement, and give proofs of his intrepidity against the common foe." The instance of the Horatii and Curiatii, which was a public, a national combat, as I may call it, affords not an exception to my observation. And yet even that, in the early ages of Rome, stands condemned by a better example. For we read, that Tullus challenged Albanus, general of the Albans, to put the cause of the two nations upon the valour of each captain's arm, for the sake of sparing a greater effusion of blood. But what was the answer of Albanus, though the inducement to the challenge was so plausible? "That the cause was a public, not a private one; and the decision lay upon the two cities of Alba and Rome."

Many ages afterwards, Augustus received a challenge from Mark Antony. Who, gentlemen, thought of branding as a coward that prince, on his answering, "That if Antony were weary of his life, he might find many other ways to end it than by his sword?"

Metellus, before that, challenged by Sertorius, answered with his pen, not his sword, "That it was not for a captain to die the death of a common soldier."

The very Turks know nothing of this savage custom and they are a nation that raised themselves, by their bravery, from the most obscure beginnings, into one of the greatest empires on the globe, as at this day. They take occasion to exalt themselves above Christians, in this very instance; and think it a scandal upon Mussulmans to quarrel, and endeavour to wreak their private vengeance on one another.

All the Christian doctrines, as I have hinted, are point against it. But it is dreadful to reflect, that the man who would endeavour to support his arguments against this infamous practice of duelling, by the laws of Christianity, though the most excellent of all laws, [excuse me, Mr Merceda, your own are included in them, would subject himself to the ridicule of persons who call themselves Christians. I have mentioned therefore Heathens and Maho