other advantage, to be without honour, that is without a previous destruction of the rival party: but the true hero thinks that no laurels are so estimable as those which are grafted on the olive.

DUELLING.

SINCE bodily strength is but a servant to the mind, it were very barbarous and preposterous that force should be made judge over reason.

Remark.

Duelling is a custom derived from the ancient trial of combat; which rested on the same superstition that established and upheld the trial by ordeal. As neither of these institutions afforded any certain test of the innocence or guilt of the accused, the first is to be condemned, and the last abhorred by all

good men. But the trial by combat, unjust and absurd as it undoubtedly was, must be confessed to have been the perfection of equity and reason, when compared with the present system of duelling. The former was at least a test of personal valour, and was therefore conclusive in all cases of alleged cowardice.But the latter is no proof even of courage.There is great uncertainty in the pistol: many men, whom the dread of infamy and its inconveniences has enabled to stand the shots of their adversaries, without once attempting to . retreat, would have shrunk from the stroke of a broad-sword, or the thrust of a single rapier. The dunghill-cock fights stoutly till he feels the spur. I maintain that the degree of hardihood displayed in duels of the present day, merits not the name of courage; that it is not the invincible courage of the ancient knight, which no despair of victory could depress, fatigue weaken, nor agony extinguish; that it is not the dauntless courage of the soldier, which animates its owner, fearlessly to rush amidst the bayonets and sabres of the enemy; nor yet the divine courage of the

martyr, which baffled every art of torture that malice could invent, or barbarity inflict, and enabled the heroic sufferer to smile at the terrific apparelling of death:-No, it is none of these! Our duellists have no fatigue to undergo, no pain to triumph over, to ensure general commendation; they have only to evince a total absence of all feeling and reflection. But were I to admit the present unknightly mode of duelling to be conclusive in cases of impeached valour, still should I find it impossible to refrain from ridiculing the principle, by which a proof of courage is improved into a demonstration of honour and honesty. A man is taxed with improbity; and in vindication of his character he appeals to the pistol; he is accused of being a knave, and he repels the charge by shewing that he is not a coward. By this it should seem that courage and want of integrity are incompatible: but does experience warrant such an opinion? Are all highwaymen and housebreakers cowards? Or are the fearless pirates of Barbary honest men? Certainly not! If then, probity be not necessarily connected

with bravery; if observation assures us that nothing is more common than the union of intrepidity with depravity; how comes it that society does not indignantly reject the impostor who, branded with a violation of principle, seeks to colour his reputation, and silence his accuser, by a challenge to arms? Where courage is not in question, these equally impudent and fraudulent appeals should be regarded as signals of guilt, and cried down like bad money. A man should not be suffered to resent an imputation which he has not blushed to deserve.

Interested as society undoubtedly is in putting a period to the pernicious practice of duelling, it seems surprising that no measures should have yet been resorted to for its suppression; nor can this patient toleration of a most alarming evil be attributed to aught, but the prevalency of knavery in those circles, by the example and authority of which, this monstrous imposition can alone receive its death-blow. Knaves are peculiarly concerned in defending the cause of duelling: they find in it a powerful ally, an admirable weapon of

intimidation: it constitutes the shield which guards them from impeachment, protects their contraband commerce, and ensures them from being called, what every one knows them to be. I have known a man boast of the wounds he had received in different duels, who afterwards, in a case of alleged treason, (though his principles remained the same,) betrayed many of his kindred and friends, to obtain his own pardon. When inevitable death did stare him in the face, the duellist and the rebel sacrificed his honour, his cause, and the blood of hundreds, to save his life!

It has been said that the abolition of duelling would multiply affronts, and leave the weak at the mercy of the strong; but is it not on the contrary manifest, that if the danger which attends an insult were removed, a man of spirit would blush to offer one? Were every shadow of peril at an end, all bravery of words, all personal violence, would cease; for courage lodged in a breast, however turbulent and revengeful, would disdain a dangerless assault; and the cunning braggadocio, who affects the reputation of valour, would have wit enough to perceive that big looks