reserved for the politer Goths, Visgoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, &c. to introduce, cultivate, and establish. I must confess that they have generally been considered as barbarous nations; and, to be sure, there are some circumstances which seem to favour that opinion. They made open war upon learning, and gave no quarter even to the monuments of arts and sciences. But then it must be owned, on the other hand, that upon these ruins, they established the honourable and noble science of homicide; dignified, exalted, and ascertained true honour-worshipped it as their deity-and sacrificed to it hecatombs of human victims.* In those happy days, honour, that is, single combat, was the great and unerring test of civil rights, moral actions, and sound doctrines. It was sanctified by the church, and the churchmen were occasionally allowed the honour and pleasure of it; for we read of many instances of duels between men and priests. Nay, it was without appeal, the infallible test of female chastity. If a princess, or any lady of distinction, was suspected of a little incontinency, some brave champion, who was commonly privy to, or perhaps the author of it, stood forth in her defence, and asserted her innocence with the point of his sword or lance. If by his activity, skill, strength, and courage, he murdered the accuser, the lady was spotless; but if her champion fell, her guilt was manifest. This heroic gallantry in defence of the fair, I presume, occasioned that association of ideas (otherwise seemingly unrelative to each other) of the brave and the fair : for indeed in those days it behoved a lady, who had the least regard for her reputation, to choose a lover of uncommon activity, strength, and courage. This notion, as I am well assured, still prevails in many reputable families about Covent-garden," where the brave in the kitchen, are always within call of the fair in the first or second floor. By this summary method of proceeding, the quibbles, the delays, and the expence of the law, were avoided, and the troublesome shackles of the gospel knocked off-honour ruling in their stead. To prove the utility and justice of this method, I cannot help mentioning a very extraordinary duel between a man of distinction and a dog, in 1371, in presence of king Charles V. of France. Both the relation and the print of this duel are to be found in father Montfaucon. A gentleman of the court was supposed to have murdered another, who had been missing for some days. This suspicion arose from the mute testimony of the absent person's dog, a large Irish greyhound, who with uncommon rage attacked this supposed murderer wherever he met him. As he was a gentleman, and a man of very nice honour (though by the way, he really had murdered the man), he could not bear * Addison tells us of a club composed of duellists: "but," says he, "it was of short continuance; most of its members being in a little time shot, transported, or banged." lying under so dishonourable a suspicion, and, therefore, applied to the king for leave to justify his innocence by single combat with the said dog. The king, being a great lover of justice, granted his suite, ordered lists to be made ready, appointed the time, and named the weapons. The gentleman was to have an offensive club in his hand, the dog a defensive tub to resort to occasionally. The Irish greyhound willingly met this fair inviter at the time and place appointed; for it has always been observable of that particular breed, that they have an uncommon alacrity at single combat. They fought; the dog prevailed, and almost killed the honourable gentleman, who had then the honour to confess his guilt, and of being hanged for it in a few days.* When letters, arts, and sciences revived in Europe, the science of homicide was further cultivated and improved. Almost all possible cases of honour were considered and stated; thirty-two different sorts of lies were distinguished, and the adequate satisfaction necessary for each, was with great solidity and precision ascertained. A kick with a thin shoe was declared more injurious to honour (though not so painful to the part kicked), than a kick with a thick shoe; and, in short, a thousand other discoveries of the like nature, equally beneficial to society. There is one reason, indeed, which makes me suspect that a duel may not always be the infallible criterion of veracity, and that is, that the combatants very rarely meet upon equal terms. I beg leave to state a case, which may, very probably, and not unfrequently happen, and which yet is not provided for, nor even mentioned in the institutes of honour. A very lean, slender young fellow, of great honour, weighing, perhaps, not quite twelve stone, who has, from his youth, taken lessons of homicide, has a point of honour to discuss with an unwieldy, fat, middle-aged gentleman, of nice honour, likewise, weighing four and twenty stone; and who, in his youth, may not possibly have had the same commendable application to the noble science of homicide. The lean gentleman sends a very civil letter to the fat one, inviting him to come and be killed *The assassin was the Chevalier Macaire; the assassinated was a gentleman, named Aubri de Montdidier. The latter, accompanied by his dog, was walking in the forest of Bondi, where Macaire attacked and murdered him, and buried his body under the foot of a tree. The dog remained weeping over his master several days, till, pressed with hunger, he returned to Paris, and went to the house of an intimate friend of his master. The singularity of his coming alone, his starved appearance, and extraordinary actions, excited the curiosity of the gentleman. The dog was no sooner fed, than he began to use every means of persuasion in his power for the gentleman to follow him. He pulled the skirt of his garment with his mouth, cried, gazed at him, and ran backward and forward to and from the door. The gentleman, at length, accompanied by some servants, followed him. He ran before them till he came to a certain tree in the forest, where he began scratching up the earth, and howling most pitieously; they immediately dug up the ground, and found the body of the murdered Aubri. by him the next morning, in Hyde park. Should the fat gentleman accept this invitation, and waddle to the place appointed, he goes to inevitable slaughter. Now, upon this state of the case, might not the fat gentleman, consistent with the rules of honour, return the following answer to the invitation of the lean one? "Sir, "I find by your letter that you do me the justice to believe that I have the true notions of honour that become a gentleman; and I hope I shall never give you reason to change your opinion. As I entertain the same opinion of you, I must suppose, that you will not desire that we should meet upon very unequal terms, which may be the case where we to meet to-morrow. At present, I unfortunately weigh twentyfour stone, and I guess that you do not exceed twelve. From this circumstance, singly, I am doubly the mark that you are; but, besides this, you are active, and I am unwieldy. I, therefore, propose to you, that from this day forwards, we severally endeavour by all possible means, you to fatten, and I to waste, till we can meet at the medium of eighteen stone. * I will lose no time on my part, being impatient to prove to you that I am not quite unworthy of the good opi nion which you are pleased to express of, Sir, Your very humble servant. "P.S. I believe it may not be amiss for us to communicate to each other from time to time, our gradations of increase or decrease, towards the desired medium; in which, I presume, two or three pounds, more or less, on either side, ought not to be considered." This, among many other cases that I could mention, sufficiently proves, not only the expediency, but the necessity of restoring, revising, and, perhaps, adding to the practice, rules, and statutes of single combat, as it flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. I grant that it would probably make the common law useless; but little, trifling, and private interests ought not to stand in the way of great, public, and national advantages. SINGULAR INSTANCE OF THE DURA TION OF EARLY LOVE. At Fahkin, the capital of Delecarlia, the situation of the surprising mines of Sweden, a discovery was made which might furnish food for the leading trait of a modern novel, and yet, still more strange, founded on a matter of fact. *Equally honourable, though more eccentric, was the conduct of a corpulent Irish duellist, who having agreed to meet a very lean antagonist, whom he held in some contempt, asked on the field for a piece of chalk; when, taking the diameter of his opponent's body, and marking the same dimension on his own, by two perpendicular lines, declared, that all the shots he might receive on the outer side of the lines should go for nothing! In working to establish a new communication between two shafts of a mine, the body of a miner was discovered in a state of perfect preservation, and impregnated with vitriolic water. It was quite soft, but hardened on being exposed to the air. No one could identify the body; it was merely remembered, that the accident by which he had been thus buried in the bosom of the earth had taken place fifty years before. All enquiries about the name of the sufferer had already ceased, when a decrepid old woman, leaning on crutches, slowly advanced towards the corps, and knew it to be that of a young man, whom she had been promised in 'marriage, half a century ago. She threw herself on the corpse, which had all the appearance of a bronze statue, bathed it with tears, and fainted with joy, at having once more beheld the object of her affections. to It happened (it is no great matter in what year) that eight tailors, having finished considerable pieces of work, at a certain person of quality's house (whose name authors have thought fit to conceal), and received all the money due for the same. A Virago servant, maid of the house, observing them to be but slender-built animals, and in their mathematical postures on their shop-board, appearing but so many pieces of men, resolved to encounter and pillage them on the road; the better to compass her design, she procured a terrible great black-pudding, which (having way-laid them) she presented at the breast of the foremost; they mistaking this prop of life for an instrument of death, at least, for a blunderbuss, readily yielded up their money; but she, not contented with that, severely disciplined them with a cudgel she carried in the other hand, all which they bore with a philosophical resignation. Thus, eight not being able to deal with one woman, by consequence, could not make a man; on which account a ninth is added. It is the opinion of our curious virtuosos, that this want of courage ariseth from their immoderate eating of cucumbers, which too much refrigerates their blood. However, to their eternal honour be it spoken, they have been often known to encounter a sort of canables, to whose assaults they are often subjected, not fictitious, but real man-eaters, and that with a lance, but two inches long; nay, and although they go armed no further than their middle finger. ANECDOTES, &c. "There was living in the West of England a widow lady, who was left with a family of seven daughters and one son. The daughters paid that respect to her which was due to the parent that gave them birth; but the son proved disobedient and refractory. After using every means that duty and affection could devise, and all in vain, the thoughtless youth left the house of a fond parent, in hopes of finding pleasure on board a vessel. The poor widow's mind was perpetually agitated by the thoughts of her lost boy: every breeze that blew increased the anxiety, and seemed to bear on its bosom the sad tidings that her boy was no more! Being often called to the metropolis, she would inquire of every master or mate she met with, whether they could give her any intelligence of her son. On one occasion she met with a captain, and inquiring as usual of him if he knew such a person, describing her son, he very imprudently said, "He knew a person of that description, but that he was at the bottom of the sea; and if all like him were there it would be a good thing." The poor mother's heart was ready to break with grief from the violence of such a shock, and it was some time before she could recover. Agony preyed on her mind, and drank up her spirits: at length she resolved to return to the country, and spend her days in a sea-port town, where she could feed her melancholy by looking on that ocean which had devoured her child. Some time after she took up her residence in this place, there came to her door a poor sailor, who asked relief, and urged his plea by telling her he belonged to a vessel that was wrecked, and only himself and one more escaped on some broken fragments of the ship to a desolate island. His tale interested her mind, and induced her to make further inquiry, when he told her he should never forget the time he spent on that island, nor the words of his companion. She then asked the name of his fellow-sufferer, when a name like that of her son was mentioned. Begging of him to describe his person, it appeared the very same. But do you not mistake?" said the mother. "No," replied the man ; " and, to convince you, I have his book in my bosom, and will show it you." Judge of her surprise, when, on opening the cover of a Bible, she discovered her son's name, written by herself! "Will you part with that book?" said she. "Not for the world!" answered the sailor; "as I closed his dying eyes he gave it me, requesting me to read its contents, telling me that he had found it his support in death, and enjoined me with his last breath never to part with it. I was then a stranger to its worth; but, by reading its solemn truths, 1 have learned to know the Lord, and |