inviting the sovereigns of Europe to settle their quarrels by duel at St. Petersburg, with their ministers, Pitt, Bernstoff, and Talleyrand, as seconds, which, though conceived by a madman, deserves serious thought; for there is something grand, ́ even just, in the idea of demanding kings and cabinets to meet in person, and in the field, the questions which can be, and ought to be, adjusted in council and by diplomacy.

KNIGHTS: THEIR FEATS AND ENCOUNTERS.

Knighthood is to be traced to Greece, and to the period when men of rank and wealth served in war, on horseback, at their private expense.

In Europe generally, under the feudal system, the era of chivalry was one of giants and enchanters, of dragons and spells, of forlorn damsels and wonderful rescues, and of a thousand other marvels. Knighthood was designed to "direct and control the torrent of unprincipled courage and military violence"; but whatever it may have accomplished in this respect, it certainly increased the practice of duelling, and "sowed the first seeds of that fantastic honor, the bitterness of whose fruits is still manifest in the modern duel." The young knight went forth without a quarrel, but with the determined purpose of provoking one, and seldom failed; while such was the refinement of the code established for knightly bearing and demeanor, that visits of courtesy at the different courts often terminated in affairs of honor, of which sovereigns and courtiers were spectators. At times, not content with single combats, as many as ten, twenty, and even thirty knights would enter the lists on a side, and fight to the maiming or death of several of their number, upon a challenge or boast that the reigning beauty of a certain neighborhood was the beauty of a kingdom or province. In a word, every young man of rank was trained to consider military fame and personal valor as paramount to religion, justice, and humanity, and to be the great prizes of human life.

DUELLING IN THE CHURCH.

Among the Germans, the Danes, and the Franks, the clergy were compelled to maintain their controversies by the judicial duel, though the liberty of appearing in the lists by champion was allowed them. In the eleventh century, we are informed

DUELS OF WRITERS AND ARTISTS.

27

that, in a dispute relative to two Liturgies, two knights, clad in complete armor, were selected as critics to determine, in single combat, the true from the false form of public prayer. By a statute of William the Conqueror, the inferior orders of ecclesiastics in England were forbidden an appeal to the duel, without the consent of their bishop; but questions concerning the property of churches and monasteries were decided, and the priests accompanied their champions to bless their weapons, on the field, there, as elsewhere in Europe, for a long period. In the fourteenth century, we hear of one poem in which Pilate is represented as challenging our Saviour to a duel, and of another in which the person who pierced the side of Christ on the cross is described as a knight with whom he had jousted. Still later, we hear of challenges given and accepted by officiating priests at the altar; of archbishops clattering in armor; of gauntlets of defiance hung up in churches; and of men in holy orders who fought in quarrels which others refused to espouse. Such, in general terms, was the condition of the Church for hundreds of years; and as far down as Shakespeare's time the duel arranged by the bard, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, between a Welsh parson and a French physician, serves to remind us that men in gown and surplice continued to use the sword until the accession of Queen Elizabeth. Indeed, Walpole, in 1758, speaks of a reverend doctor of divinity who indulged in profane swearing, and who endeavored to intimidate a person whom he feared would give publicity to the fact, by the threat that he had a kinsman in the army who would call him to an account; which incident, as well as the notices of the duels actually fought by Murat, Allen, Bate, and others, who were either students of theology or ordained clergymen, affords us evidence that duelling in the Church did not disappear on the Continent or in England until near the close of the last century.

DUELS OF WRITERS AND ARTISTS.

Two or three centuries ago, quarrels which commenced with pens often ended with poniards. There was a class of writers who enjoyed the reputation of "fighting authors," who drew the sword on the reviewer that condemned a play, who offered to fight any of the audience that hissed, who began a work by challenging the critics, and who were in perpetual difficulty with somebody. The duels between Scott and Christie, Jeffrey and

Moore, Lamartine and Pepe, Blanc and Lacombe, Angier and Moncelet, and between the Baron Gourgaud and the Count Segur, in our own day, show that the custom has not entirely passed away.

Among musicians, we have the affairs of Handel with Matheson, and of Ole Bull with a fellow-artist. Painters seem to have been as prone to quarrels as other men of like nice sensibilities, but have seldom, I conclude, resorted to the field. The inimitable Hogarth had a host of enemies, but he disposed of them all with his brush. Traduced by Wilkes, in the North Briton, he painted the demagogue's portrait, and showed up with terrible effect his personal and moral deformities; embroiled with Pope, he drew a picture of the poet standing on a scaffold, employed as a whitewasher, with Lord Burlington as a fellow-laborer and Lord Chandos besprinkled in passing by; angry with Churchill, he appeared on canvas in the character of a bear; and displeased with the course of the statesmen Pitt and Temple, both were scourged by his unrelenting and awful pencil.

DUELLING AMONG FEMALES.

As the Helen of Homer was the chief cause of the Trojan war, and of consequence responsible for the duels between its heroes, as the Roman maids and matrons went in throngs to witness the fights of the gladiators, as the women of Greece were competitors for the prize in the Olympic games, as the Turkish ladies crowded upon the ramparts of Regal to witness the combats between Smith and their own champions, as the wives and daughters of Denmark were once compelled by custom personally to avenge their wrongs, and fight, according to prescribed rules, those of the other sex who attempted to assail their honor, as the high-born dames and maidens of all Europe, in the ages of chivalry, instigated and honored the tournament and the joust, so have the women of France, and England, and America, given countenance to the modern duel.

In the time of Henry the Fourth of France, relates Lord Herbert, the English ambassador, the ladies of the French court, at a mask under the auspices of the queen, invited the attentions of a duellist who had slain eight or nine adversaries, and each one of them, anxious to enjoy his society, would not allow any particular lady to engross more than a certain share of his time. And in the reign of another Bourbon, we are told

of countesses contending with pistols for the possession of a courtier whose amours and affairs of honor were so numerous as to excite our astonishment.

In England, Elizabeth created Mary, the high-toned wife of Sir Hugh Cholmondely, a knight; and she was known throughout the realm as "The Bold Lady of Cheshire." The queen herself possessed a most chivalrous spirit. When the negotiations for a matrimonial alliance between her and the Archduke Charles were finally broken off, by his marriage to a princess of Austria, the imperial daughter of Henry is said to have exclaimed, that, "So great an insult had been offered to her, that, if she were a man instead of a woman, she would have defied him to single combat! These illustrations will suffice, since others will be found under the heads of Polignaç, of Moussin, of Shrewsbury, and of Hall; and the boast of Lola Montes, in 1846, that she was a "better shot than her lover, and would have fought his antagonist, appears in the notice of the affair between Dujarier and Bouvallen.

CHAPTER V.

WEAPONS And Rules.

THE challenged party, it may be assumed, has always selected the place, distance, time, and weapons, and has thus, by a choice designed to be least dangerous to himself, and most hazardous to his opponent, possessed an advantage. The assistance of seconds, both in the preliminary arrangements and on the ground, was probably unknown, or at least uncommon, under the Judicial Duel or Wager of Battle. The practice of seconds fighting one another in behalf of their principals, once frequent in some countries, has now nearly disappeared. Duels on horseback, which a century ago were not unusual, are rare at the present time. The challenging by glove was formerly universal, and in the history of that article of dress, its use, to throw at the feet of an offender as a defiance, is stated with some minuteness. Heavy swords, axes, and spears or lances, with bucklers, were used by the ancient duellists, whether mounted or on foot. The rapier

succeeded; and, having been approved in Continental Europe, was introduced into England in the year 1588, and, as it would seem, by a personage of the name of Rowland Yorke, who is called a 66 desperate traitor" for the innovation. Sir Walter Scott cites from the "Two Angry Women of Abington," a comedy printed in 1599, a pathetic complaint upon the subject:

"Sword and buckler fight begins to grow out of use. I am sorry for it. I shall never see good manhood again. If it be once gone, this poking fight of rapier and dagger will come up, then a tall man, and a good sword and buckler man, will be spitted like a cat or rabbit.”

The pistol followed the rapier, and has become the favorite weapon; though the sword is still in fashion in France, and the gun and rifle are occasionally selected in the United States.

I am not aware that American duellists have ever adopted a written code, or that the rules among them are entirely uniform. Certain points, however, are well established. I suppose, for example, that, in a duel upon a mere question of honor, an exchange of shots, whether with or without effect, is sufficient; while a combat for positive wrong or deep injury may be, and ordinarily should be, continued until the aggressor offers satisfactory explanation or apology, or until the fall or disability of one of the parties.

Again, it seems to be well settled that the challenged, in the matters of weapon, time, and distance, shall be governed by usage between gentlemen; and that propositions to sit across a cask of powder, to jump from a precipice or a building, to meet at midnight, at a lone or distant spot, without friends or surgeons, may be rejected by the challenger.

Sir Jonah Barrington, in the "Personal Sketches of his Own Times," gives part of a code of laws for the government of duellists, as ordained at Clonmel Summer Assizes, 1777, by the gentlemen delegates of Tipperary, Galway, Mayo, Sligo, and Roscommon, and prescribed for general adoption throughout Ireland. And he observes, that "these Rules brought the whole business of duelling to a focus, and have been much acted upon down to the present day." They were called in Galway "the thirty-six commandments."

I insert twenty-five of these curious "commandments," with two "Additional Galway Articles," for the eye of those who cannot consult his work. It will be seen that some are still